Maya - notes from the video

National Geographic: The Maya

- actually hundreds of city-states
- heartland in the south
- Tical was really a residential city, but Copan was artistic and beautiful
- gold wasn't very valuable at all
- we can read about half of the existing Maya glyphs, but it takes an expert
- predicted solar eclipses
- tobacco
- the ball game's ball was a metaphor for the movement of the sun, and they had to play the game to keep the sun going
- an origin myth included a ball game between twin heroes and the gods; the twins were forced to play, one's head was cut by bats and he had to use it to play with (the decapitated twin used a substitute head made from a squash while he was playing). When they win they resurrect their father the corn god. the Mayans sort of reenact this by playing, remember 70% of the Mayan diet is corn
- only kings talked to gods
- gods sustained the physical universe and expected humans to nourish them in return (with blood)
- blood meant something sacred... by letting it flow or whatever, they could use their Force (Star Wars)
- anyone could cut themselves
- the most important blood was the king's blood though
- this bloodletting literally allowed the sun to rise - the idea is that the gods spilt their blood to create human beings, so they were repaying it
- obviously, these people are very religious...
- the Christians took the importance of spilled blood and sort of incorporated it - Jesus' blood spilled for humanity
- possibly reduced their pain by drinking a corn beer
- textiles - Maya were weavers, they made a lot of advanced cotton textiles
- pyramids symbolize sacred mountains where the gods live and tunnels are passageways into the underworld
- the underworld was called shi-bo-ba (sounds like that) and was a place that regular people weren't likely to escape
- dead people were put in the family's basement, rich people got tombs
- temples were built right on top of each other - the top of the old one was taken down and another one was added on top
- flint was sacred - it made fire
- special blades were made of flint, possibly used in human sacrifices
- spring of 562, caracol attacked tical and won!
- they burned incense
- very warlike people, often fighting
- initially their warfare was ritualized and mostly for religious purposes
- but sometimes in the 8th century, it changed, starting with Dos Pilas: warfare was for conquest
- an arms race begins and attacking the cities became accepted
- lots of people were taken for sacrifice instead of work, and people were scared
- they decapitated people and put their heads on sticks
- Dos Pilas moved everyone into the center of the city and tried to hold out
- Copan, meanwhile, is losing faith in the divine kings, because their ruler has been captured and killed.
- Their forest and farmland was replaced by houses, and they couldn't farm as much
- the southern cities, the most advanced and with the most writing, are abandoned... but the northern ones last longer
- the city-states don't fall at the same time, they fell separately
- the northern ones aren't ruled by divine kings anymore though, and they begin to recede from the marks of civilization