The Mayans first appeared in Southern Mexico, Central and South America around 7000 BC and by 250 AD they had reached great heights as an intellectual, artistic, and cultural civilization. And during the years between 250 AD and 900 AD they made many advances in math, science, architecture, writing and astronomy that were not to be duplicated in other civilizations for hundreds of years. They formed complex hierarchies and societies and built intricate cities that had paved roads, bustling market places and as many as 75,000 residents.
The Mayans were brilliant mathematicians and were one of only three peoples to discover the significance of “zero.” They created a complex counting system using only three symbols: a shell for zero, a dot for one, and a dash for five, and with it were able to count up into the thousands. The Mayan system of recording time, The Long Count, is considered the most accurate calendar of the ancient world. They were able to calculate the true length of the year as 365.2420 days and after over 1,000 years of study, the figure used today is 365.2422 days.
The Mayans were highly advanced astronomers who were able to plot the movements of the Earth, sun, moon and planet Venus. From the Mayan observatory at Chichén Itzá, they were able to calculate Venus’ rotation around the sun to be 584 days, as seen from the Earth. And after hundreds of years of study, modern science was finally able to concur; it does indeed take 583.92 days.
They developed an intricate pictograph style of writing that took archeologists hundreds of years to decipher, and with it were able to record their own history with precise day, month, and year dates. Of all the societies in the pre-Columbian Americas, only the Maya could write down and communicate anything they wanted in their own language, and therefore are the only pre-Columbian civilization of the western hemisphere with a written history.
The Mayans flourished until around 800 AD when they started to decline and by 900 AD nearly all Mayan cities in the southern lowlands were abandoned. The Maya of Mexico in the Yucatan peninsula continued to thrive, however, until the time of the Spanish conquest. Where from the early 1500s and on into the 1800s, they along with the Aztecs, were conquered and nearly extinguished, thus ending the reign of the most brilliant civilization in pre-Columbian America. The modern Maya still live in the areas of their ancestors, in Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize but this century has proven to be just as harsh as those past, with many of the six million remaining Mayans living in dire political and economic situations. Mayan activist Rigoberta Mench’u Tum won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992 for bringing the world’s attention to the plight of her people, and in many places their struggles continue.
-originally published December 2006.
