The Maya Triadic Architectural Complex
Reminiscent of the Three Hearthstone “Thrones” in the Sky The Maya began erecting enormous pyramid platforms that had three temples on top, two facing each other across a plaza and the third centered behind them. Above, I’m looking down from the central temple atop the platform called “Caana” at Caracol in Belize. In 2000, extensive excavation was underway, and my lens wasn’t wide enough to include the other temples. This is the central pyramid. The previous photo was taken atop these steps, between the coverings protecting large scucco masks from the rain…. Read More
Mangrove Trees
Building material and healing remedy After touring Cerros, a Preclassic Maya site in Belize, my guide took me a few miles down the New River to a lake covered in lily pads. The ancients cultivated them in great quantities to freshen ponds and encourage the growth of fish. The pads and stalks were dried to fertilize fields. Significantly, the lily pads played a key role in referencing the beginning of time and annual time cycles. Kings wore representations of lily pads in their headdresses, to associate themselves with aquatic deities. Coming back… Read More
Ancient Maya Social Evolution (Part II)
Part II of III: Ideological foundation The question I posed last week was how the ancients developed and sustained a common political structure and unified ideology that covered an enormous territory (Guatemala, Belize and southeastern Mexico) for over a millennia. I imagined how their political structure might have gotten started and described how it might have grown from small villages with a “chief” to cities with divine kings, monumental architecture, hieroglyphic writing and a unique art style. Again, my catalyst for imagining these developments is *Ancient Maya Politics: A political anthropology of… 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
Dowsing and 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
Ancient Maya Prophecy And Belief
Reading the future; healing body, mind and spirit A prophecy is a message that comes from a deity, delivered to a person attuned to receive it. Typically, the message expresses the divine will regarding the future. Ancient cultures all had prophets who delivered prophecies. And people believed what they heard, were willing to kill and die to be true to it. Gods, after all, were to be trusted. Anthropologist Mircea Eliade noted that tribal societies believed that their stories, about the gods and sacred ancestors overcoming the forces of chaos, created a… Read More
Sacred Spaces
For the ancients, there was no separation between the secular and the sacred. Everything of the Earth was sacred, ensouled with a vital source that comes from the sun. Outside it was chaotic space, peopled by ghosts, demons, spirits and “foreigners” who were considered demons. Because human beings couldn’t live in chaos, life and living was all about maintaining order. And the model for it was (and remains) nature and the cosmos. In both, they and we observe constancy, beauty, pattern and cyclical motion, apparent features of absolute reality. Modeling these in… Read More
Ancient Maya Cultural Traits 