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Komkom Vase
The Komkom Vase is an ancient painted Maya vase featuring one of the longest hieroglyphic texts found in the Maya Lowlands. It was discovered in 2015 at the Maya archaeological site of Baking Pot in Belize and dates back to the Terminal Classic period in Maya history. It is notable for being written during the last decades of centralized rule in the Lowlands and was most likely used as a drinking vessel by a ruler of Komkom, an ancient Maya kingdom that has not yet been located. Discovery Archaeologists from the Belize Valley Archaeological Reconnaissance project discovered the first sherds of the Komkom Vase at Baking Pot on July 7, 2015. It was pieced together from 82 fragments found at the site, reconstructing roughly 60% of the original vessel. Description The vase is a cylindrical ceramic vessel that was most likely about 21.7 cm (8.5 in) tall in its original form. Although it is fragmented and incomplete, measurements of its interior have been used to estimat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maya Civilization
The Maya civilization () was a Mesoamerican civilization that existed from antiquity to the early modern period. It is known by its ancient temples and glyphs (script). The Maya script is the most sophisticated and highly developed writing system in the pre-Columbian Americas. The civilization is also noted for its art, architecture, mathematics, calendar, and astronomical system. The Maya civilization developed in the Maya Region, an area that today comprises southeastern Mexico, all of Guatemala and Belize, and the western portions of Honduras and El Salvador. It includes the northern lowlands of the Yucatán Peninsula and the Guatemalan Highlands of the Sierra Madre, the Mexican state of Chiapas, southern Guatemala, El Salvador, and the southern lowlands of the Pacific littoral plain. Today, their descendants, known collectively as the Maya, number well over 6 million individuals, speak more than twenty-eight surviving Mayan languages, and reside in nearly the s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lords Of The Night
In Mesoamerican mythology the Lords of the Night () are a set of nine deities who each ruled over every ninth night forming a calendrical cycle. Each lord was associated with a particular fortune, bad or good, that was an omen for the night that they ruled over. The lords of the night are known in both the Aztec and Maya calendar, although the specific names of the Maya Night Lords are unknown. The glyphs corresponding to the night gods are known and Mayanists identify them with labels G1 to G9, the G series. Generally, these glyphs are frequently used with a fixed glyph coined F. The only Mayan light lord that has been identified is the God G9, Pauahtun the Aged Quadripartite God. The existence of a 9 nights cycle in Mesoamerican calendrics was first discovered in 1904 by Eduard Seler. The Aztec names of the Deities are known because their names are glossed in the Codex Telleriano-Remensis and Codex Tudela. Seler argued that the 9 lords each corresponded to one of the nine ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maya Dedication Rituals
The Classic Maya used dedication rituals to sanctify their living spaces and family members by associating their physical world with supernatural concepts through religious practice. The existence of such rituals is inferred from the frequent occurrence of so-called 'dedication' or 'votive' cache deposits in an archaeological context. Caches Caches can be found in the Maya common places and public buildings, which contained objects made or found by commoners.Marcus, Joyce (1978) “Archaeology and Religion: A Comparison of the Zapotec and Maya.” World Archaeology 10(2): 172-191. More specifically, these caches were usually found in fields or family altars, and contained less valuable materials such as ceramic vessels, copal, food, and drink. These dedication cache materials relate more closely to household tasks, such as preparing food or working a field. The content and placement of these caches suggests a request for aid in acquiring daily necessities, such as food, as t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tikal
Tikal (; ''Tik'al'' in modern Mayan orthography) is the ruin of an ancient city, which was likely to have been called Yax Mutal, found in a rainforest in Guatemala. It is one of the largest archaeological sites and urban centers of the Pre-Columbian era, pre-Columbian Maya civilization. It is located in the archaeological region of the Petén Basin in what is now northern Guatemala. Situated in Petén Department, the site is part of Guatemala's Tikal National Park and in 1979 it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Tikal was the capital of a state that became one of the most powerful kingdoms of the ancient Maya. Though monumental architecture at the site dates back as far as the 4th century BC, Tikal reached its apogee during the Mesoamerican chronology, Classic Period, c. 200 to 900. During this time, the Maya city, city dominated much of the Maya region politically, economically, and militarily, while interacting with areas throughout Mesoamerica such as the great metr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Naranjo
Naranjo (Wak Kab'nal in Mayan) is a Pre-Columbian Maya city in the Petén Basin region of Guatemala. It was occupied from about 500 BC to 950 AD, with its height in the Late Classic Period. The site is part of Yaxha-Nakum-Naranjo National Park. The city lies along the Mopan and Holmul rivers, and is about 50 km east of the site of Tikal. Naranjo has been the victim of severe looting. The site is known for its polychrome ceramic style. "Naranjo" in Spanish means "orange tree", which is a Spanish translation of the Mayan name Wak Kab'nal. The emblem glyph of the Naranjo is transliterated as Sa'aal “the place where (maize) gruel abounds.” The Naranjo dynastic rulers are said to be the "Holy Lords of Sa'aal." Layout of site The area of Naranjo covers at least 8 km2 with the urban center covering about 2.25 km2. There are currently 389 recorded buildings in the central area and over 900 around the center. The epicenter consists of six triadic complexes, two b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yaxha
Yaxha (or Yaxhá in Spanish orthography) is a Mesoamerican archaeological site in the northeast of the Petén Basin in modern-day Guatemala. As a ceremonial centre of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization, Yaxha was the third largest city in the region and experienced its maximum power during the Early Classic period (c. AD 250–600). The city was located on a ridge overlooking Lake Yaxha. The name of the city derives from the Mayan for "blue-green water"; it is a notable survival of a Classic period place-name into the modern day. The Yaxha kingdom is estimated to have covered an area of and to have had a peak population of 42,000 in the Late Classic period of Mesoamerican chronology. Yaxha had a long history of occupation with the first settlement being founded sometime in the Middle Preclassic period (c. 1000–350 BC). It developed into the largest city in the eastern Petén lakes region during the Late Preclassic (c. 350 BC – AD 250) and expanded into an enormous city durin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Haabʼ
The Haabʼ () is part of the Maya calendar, Maya calendric system. It was a 365-day calendar used by many of the pre-Columbian cultures of Mesoamerica. Description The Haabʼ comprises eighteen months of twenty days each, plus an additional period of five days ("nameless days") at the end of the year known as ''Wayeb (or ''Uayeb'' in 16th-century orthography). Bricker (1982) estimates that the Haabʼ was first used around 500 BCE with a starting point of the winter solstice. The Haabʼ month names are most commonly referred to by their names in colonial-era Yucatec Maya language, Yucatec (Yukatek). In sequence, these (in the revised orthography) are as seen on the right: Each day in the Haabʼ calendar was identified by a day number within the month followed by the name of the month. Day numbers began with a glyph translated as the "seating of" a named month, which is usually regarded as day 0 of that month, although a minority treat it as day 20 of the month preceding the name ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tzolkʼin
The tzolkʼin (, formerly and commonly tzolkin) is the 260-day Mesoamerican calendars, Mesoamerican calendar used by the Maya civilization of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. The tzolkʼin, the basic cycle of the Maya calendar, is a preeminent component in the society and rituals of the ancient and the modern Maya. The tzolkʼin is still used by several Maya peoples, Maya communities in the Guatemalan highlands. While its use has been spreading in this region, this practice is opposed by Evangelicalism, Evangelical Christian converts in some Maya communities. The word ''tzolkʼin'', meaning "division of days", is a western neologism, coinage in Yucatec Maya language, Yucatec Maya. Contemporary Maya groups who have maintained an unbroken count for over 500 years in the tzolk'in use other terms in their languages. For instance, the Kʼicheʼ people, Kʼicheʼ use the term ''Aj Ilabal Qʼij'' [aχ ilaɓal qʼiχ] or ''Raj Ilabal Qʼij'' [ɾaχ ilaɓal qʼiχ], 'the sense of the day' or 't ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maya Maize God
Like other Mesoamerican peoples, the traditional Maya civilization, Maya recognize in their staple crop, maize, a vital force with which they strongly identify. This is clearly shown by their mythological traditions. According to the 16th-century Popol Vuh, the Hero Twins have maize plants for alter egos and man himself is created from maize. The discovery and opening of the Maize Mountain – the place where the corn seeds are hidden – is still one of the most popular of Maya tales. In the Classic period (200-900 AD), the maize deity shows aspects of a culture hero. Female and male deities In Maya oral tradition, maize is usually personified as a woman — like rice in Southeast Asia, or wheat in ancient Greece and Rome. The acquisition of this woman through bridal capture constitutes one of the basic Maya myths. In contrast to this, the pre-Spanish Maya aristocracy appears to have primarily conceived of maize as male. The classic period distinguished two male forms: a foliated ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gregorian Calendar
The Gregorian calendar is the calendar used in most parts of the world. It went into effect in October 1582 following the papal bull issued by Pope Gregory XIII, which introduced it as a modification of, and replacement for, the Julian calendar. The principal change was to space leap years slightly differently to make the average calendar year 365.2425 days long rather than the Julian calendar's 365.25 days, thus more closely approximating the 365.2422-day tropical year, "tropical" or "solar" year that is determined by the Earth's revolution around the Sun. The rule for leap years is that every year divisible by four is a leap year, except for years that are divisible by 100, except in turn for years also divisible by 400. For example 1800 and 1900 were not leap years, but 2000 was. There were two reasons to establish the Gregorian calendar. First, the Julian calendar was based on the estimate that the average solar year is exactly 365.25 days long, an overestimate of a li ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maya Script
Maya script, also known as Maya glyphs, is historically the native writing system of the Maya civilization of Mesoamerica and is the only Mesoamerican writing system that has been substantially deciphered. The earliest inscriptions found which are identifiably Maya date to the 3rd century BCE in San Bartolo, Guatemala. Maya writing was in continuous use throughout Mesoamerica until the Spanish conquest of the Maya in the 16th and 17th centuries. Though modern Mayan languages are almost entirely written using the Latin alphabet rather than Maya script, there have been recent developments encouraging a revival of the Maya glyph system. Maya writing used logograms complemented with a set of syllabic glyphs, somewhat similar in function to modern Japanese writing. Maya writing was called "hieroglyphics" or hieroglyphs by early European explorers of the 18th and 19th centuries who found its general appearance reminiscent of Egyptian hieroglyphs, although the two systems are unre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
