The Blood Of Kings

Inherited from the gods, it conferred divine power In all of Mesoamerican history, human blood served as a means of channeling and infusing the world with the sacred essence or soul. David Stuart, Archaeologist, epigrapher  Among certain creation myths, there’s the indication that, in the beginning, “First Mother” mixed the blood of the Creator gods with maize dough to create human beings. Without blood, a person dies, so it was understood to carry the life force. Being sacred, blood was the highest kind of sacrifice a ruler could make to nourish the… Read More

Ancient Maya Dance

Reenacting mythic stories Rollout Vase courtesy of Justin Kerr Combined with music and the fragrance of burning offerings, dance was often visualized as the direct manifestation of supernatural forces. Matthew Looper, Archaeologist Elite dances depicted in Maya art were part of rituals and celebrations. On sculptured stelae. the kings are shown dancing as a deity. The monuments mostly depict male dancers, but there are some women shown dancing, for instance, Lady Ok Ayiin dancing as the Moon Goddess on the Yomop stela. More often, women are shown as dancers or dancing assistance… Read More

Ancient Maya Social Evolution

Part III of III: From chiefs to divine kings Rollout vase photograph courtesy of Justin Kerr The previous two posts dealing with this topic imagined how the ancients developed and sustained a political structure and ideology over an enormous territory for a millennia but never developed states or empires. Now, I imagine how the office of village chief evolved to become, in their language, k’uhul ajaw “holy lord.” In *Ancient Maya Politics: A political anthropology of the Classic Period 150-900 CE anthropologist Simon Martin suggests that “Ideological mechanisms instilled a ‘dynamic equilibrium’… Read More

Ancient Maya Solar Observatories

Stages for community-wide ritual and celebration Structure E-VII-sub Uaxactun, Guatemala By 500 B.C., in the Middle Preclassic Period, there were numerous large architectural assemblages throughout the central lowlands of Guatemala and Mexico. At first, they appeared to function solely as line-of-site markers of the sun’s solstice and equinox turning points. Archaeologists named them “E-Group complexes.”  Although there was great diversity in these structures across time and place, what they had in common was a large rectangular, flat, paved plaza with a square four-sided pyramid aligned to the cardinal directions, situated west of a… Read More

Caves: Entrances To The Underworld

Places closer to the gods were portals and places of ritual Rio Frio Cave, Belize   Caves, where one descends toward the k’u’x (heart or center) of a mountain, are especially hot places. This is due to their symbolic proximity to the powers unleashed by cosmic convergence at the axis mundi. Eduard Fisher (Anthropologist)   The Yucatan Peninsula is one of the largest limestone shelves in the world. In the north, the bedrock is porous and the landscape relatively flat, so rainwater runs and collects in underground caves. There are no visible… Read More

Ancient Maya War And Warriors

Ritualized skirmishes evolved into large scale warfare Rollout vase photos courtesy of Justin Kerr   It was the custom among them to pledge what they possessed to each other; upon collection and payment they began to quarrel and attack each other. Frey Diego de Landa   They never had peace, especially when the cultivation (of milpas) was over, and their greatest desire was to seize important men to sacrifice, because the greater the quality of the victim, the more acceptable their service to the gods.  Alfred Tozzer   War was the way… Read More

The Ancient Maya Ball Game

Where the story of creation was repeated and celebrated Ball Court: Copan, Honduras Scholars believe that in earlier Maya times, the contest was a ritual that represented the fight of the opposing and forces of the universe—life-death, Sun-Moon, day-night, light-darkness—in order to insure balance, continuity and fertility. Some say it was a metaphor for the movements of heavenly bodies, the ball representing the journey of the Sun god passing in and out of the underworld. Because some courts have stone rings on the walls for the ball to pass through, other say… Read More

The Sacred Calendar of The Maya

Time was cyclical rather than linear Calendar glyphs. Copan Stela N (Back) Sacred time is that in which the gods manifested themselves and created; so each time man wants to ensure a fortunate outcome for something, he re-actualizes the original sacred event—creation; what is actually sought is the regeneration of the human being. Sacred time is reversible, it’s a primordial mythical time made present. Mircea Eliade Many of the ideas put forth by professor Eliade in his groundbreaking book, The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion applies to the ancient… Read More

Dowsing / Divination

Are there underground forces that can be felt? My guide at Xunantunich, Belize Dowsing is a type of divination, typically used today to locate ground water, buried metals, gemstones, oil and grave sites without the use of scientific instruments. It’s consider a pseudoscience because there’s no scientific evidence that the technique is any more effective than random chance; skeptics say the dowsing rod moves due to accidental or involuntary movements of the person using it. The entry in Wikipedia says it probably originated in Germany in the 16th century. I never thought… Read More

Dugout Canoes And Mythology

Paddler gods escorted the Maize God across the Milky Way                                                                                                                 Lake Peten Itza, Guatemala By 400 B.C., salt was being “shipped” by canoes from northern Yucatan to Tikal in the Guatemalan jungle by way of Cerros, Belize… Read More