Maya civilization, which is widely concerned by the world, can be called a wonderful flower in the history of world civilization. Maya civilization, named after Indian Maya, is a great civilization independently created by American Indian Maya in isolation from ancient civilizations in Asia, Africa and Europe. Its websites are mainly distributed in Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras. Maya civilization was born in 10 century BC, and it can be divided into three periods: pre-classical period, classical period and post-classical period, among which the 3rd to 9th century AD was its heyday. Maya civilization was acquired by human beings before Columbus discovered America. Great contributions have been made in science, agriculture, culture, art and many other aspects. Comparatively speaking, the other two civilizations born in this vast land of the Western Hemisphere-Aztec civilization and Inca civilization-are not the same as Mayan civilization. However, what puzzles people all over the world is that, as the only ancient civilization in the world that was born in a tropical jungle rather than a river basin, Maya civilization, like its miraculous rise and development, is full of mystery. Around the 8th century, the Mayans abandoned the highly developed civilization and migrated on a large scale. Every central city they created also terminated new buildings, the cities were completely abandoned, and the prosperous big cities became barren and swallowed up by tropical jungles. Maya civilization disappeared in the tropical jungle of America overnight. By the end of 1 1 century, Mayan civilization had been partially revived, but compared with its heyday, its glory was not what it used to be. With the arrival of the bloody overseas expansion of capitalism, the Mayan civilization was finally completely destroyed by the Spanish colonists and has been lost in the tropical jungle for a long time. /kloc-in the 1930s, American john stephens first discovered the remains of ancient Mayan civilization in the tropical jungle of Honduras. Since then, archaeologists all over the world have discovered many abandoned Mayan ruins in the jungles and wasteland of Central America. Without metal tools and means of transportation, the Mayans only relied on the primitive production tools of the Neolithic Age to create a splendid civilization. Edit the introduction of this paragraph.
The construction of Mayan civilization reached the highest level in the world, and it can carve solid stones. Through long-term
Mayan civilization (pottery)
[1] Observed the astronomical phenomena, and mastered the solar eclipse cycle and the motion laws of the sun, the moon and Venus. Sculptures, painted pottery and murals all have high artistic value and are called Greece of America. An early slave country was established around 400 BC, which flourished in the 3rd-9th century, declined in the/kloc-0th/5th century, and was finally destroyed by Spanish colonists. And then lost in the tropical jungle for a long time. 1502, Columbus sailed to America for the last time, only 10 years after he first discovered the "New World". The ship landed in the Gulf of Honduras, and Columbus and his crew set foot on the lush land for a long time. In the local market, a beautifully made pottery basin caught his attention. The seller told him that this exquisite pottery basin came from "Maya". This magical name was first introduced to the ears of Europeans. 15 19, Spanish explorer Hernando Cortes led the Spanish army across Mexico and conquered the Aztec empire, which was in the heyday of civilization. "Eradicating a culture is like a passerby breaking a sunflower by the roadside." At this time, the Mayan civilization is coming to an end, but there are still some small Mayan countries on Yucatan Peninsula. 1526, a Spanish expedition went to Yucatan Peninsula, trying to establish a Spanish colony by violence and enforce Christian belief. The Maya, who refused to yield, waged guerrilla warfare for more than a hundred years. It was not until 1697 that the last Mayan city-state was destroyed by Spanish artillery. /kloc-began to attract academic attention at the end of 0/8. At the end of 19, a number of important sites were excavated, and the modern archaeological research of Mayan civilization began. Since the 1950s, research has made rapid progress, forming a special Maya study, which is an important field of world archaeology and historical research. Scholars have different opinions about the development stage of Mayan civilization. According to the division of American archaeologist N Hammond, it can be divided into three stages: pre-classical, classical and post-classical. At present, there are still descendants of the ancient Maya on the eastern islands of the Pacific Ocean.
Generally speaking, Central American civilization can be divided into three periods, the period from 1500 BC to 300 BC is called pre-classical period or formation period, the period from 300 BC to 900 BC is classical period, and the period from 900 AD to16th century is post-classical period. It is said that the Mayans began to build religious buildings 3000 years ago. The earliest remains were composed of some simple earth graves, and then they further evolved into pyramids (except for their slightly different shapes, the functions of the Mayan pyramids and the Egyptian pyramids are essentially different: the Egyptian pyramids are the tombs of ancient Egyptian rulers, and scientists speculate that an important function of the Mayan pyramids is to hold altars for sacrifices and celebrations. The early Mayan civilization seems to have been influenced by the earlier Olmec civilization (Olmec civilization gradually declined and died after spreading their culture to today's Yucatan Peninsula). The period from 200 BC to 800 AD was the most prosperous period of Mayan culture. The Mayans developed hundreds of cities, among which Tikal (also translated as Tikal) was the largest. Scholars estimate that at the peak, the city has 654.38+10,000 to 200,000 residents. Hundreds of cities have developed into many city-states with intensive agriculture and concentrated cities. Among them, the most striking remains are the pyramids built in the religious center and the palaces accompanying them. Other important relics include carved stone tablets written in hieroglyphics, which mainly describe genealogy, war victories and other achievements. The Mayans also participated in the long-distance trade in ancient Central America. The main commodities are cocoa, salt and obsidian. Since the 9th century, the city-states of classical Mayan civilization suddenly declined at the same time, which is still a mystery. In the 10 century, the once prosperous Mayan cities were abandoned in the jungle. Since then, under the leadership of Chen Chi Itza, some Mayan city-states have sprung up in the northern Yucatan Peninsula, and the post-classical period known as Mayan civilization in history began. In A.D. 1224, the city-state regime in Itza, Chen Chi was overthrown, followed by the city-state alliance headed by Mayapan. 1450 Maya Pan Zhengquan collapsed due to civil strife. When the Spanish landed on the American continent, the Maya region was in a state of disintegration. Contrary to the legend, there are still 3 million Mayans living in the "Maya that never dies" in Yucatan Peninsula, and many people still speak Mayan today. Edit the main features of this paragraph.
Maya civilization is ancient and mysterious, but there are always some well-documented features. The following are some characteristics of Mayan civilization: 1. Mayan civilization belongs to the stone civilization, and the Mayans did not invent bronze ware, let alone iron ware.
Ruins of Mayan civilization
2. Mastered a high degree of architectural technology, the Mayans did not use copper and iron, nor did they use unicycle. Although the concept of wheel appears in artifacts such as pottery and a small toy, it is not practical in real life. But it has created a high degree of urban civilization. Agriculture takes corn as its staple food, so it is also called "corn civilization". There are no cows, horses, pigs or sheep, and there are no traces of animal husbandry. Farmers adopt the very primitive Milpa farming method. 4. Mathematics adopts decimal system, and the concept of "zero" is discovered and used (the other one is taught by Olmec), and he has a high understanding of mathematics and astronomical calendar. 5. Use unique hieroglyphics: Maya characters edit the main culture of this paragraph.
1839, explorer Stephens led a team to discover the remains of the ancient Maya in the tropical rain forest of Central America: magnificent pyramids, magnificent palaces and highly accurate calendars carved on stone tablets with strange hieroglyphs. Archaeologists have put forward many hypotheses about the mystery of the destruction of Mayan civilization, such as foreign invasion, population explosion, diseases, climate change, etc ....., all of which endow Mayan civilization with a strong mystery. In order to solve this eternal mystery, in the late 1980s, a multidisciplinary team of 45 scholars, including archaeologists, zoologists and nutritionists, traveled all over Guatemala's Peten rainforest area, where jaguars and rattlesnakes even frequented grave robbers. The expedition spent six years investigating about 200 Mayan civilization sites and concluded that Mayan civilization was destroyed by a bloody civil war for wealth and power. Maya is not a peace-loving people like the legend. On the contrary, in the heyday of 300-700 A.D., the Maya nobles adjacent to the city-state have been fighting for power and interests. The Mayan war seems to be a terrible sports competition: soldiers attack other cities with spears and sticks as weapons, with the aim of capturing prisoners and giving them to their priests as a gift to worship the gods, which is a symbol of Mayan society's worship of the gods. Maya society was once quite prosperous. Farmers cultivate marginal fields, terraced fields and swamp rice fields to produce food that can support the population explosion. Craftsmen use flint, stone, bone horns and shells to make works of art, make cotton cloth, carve words on stone tablets, and draw pottery and murals. Commodity trading is prevalent. But since the middle of the 7th century, Mayan society has declined. With the increase of political marriage, other royal brothers except the eldest son are excluded. Some princes left their homes to look for new cities, while others stayed to fight for inheritance. This kind of "throat" has changed from fighting for sacrifices to fighting for jewels, luxury goods, kingship and beauty ... The war is continuous, the lives are ruined, the trade is interrupted and the city is destroyed. In the end, only 65,438+00% people survived. In 76 1 year, the fall of the palace in Dusit-Pilars City can be regarded as the starting point of the decline of Mayan society. Deuce-Pilars is the central city-state within 0/500 miles of Fiona Fang/Kloc. It was attacked by enemies from the neighboring city of Tomareto. A cave with 13 heads of men aged 8 to 55 proves that the city was extinct when it was captured. Eight days later (these precise details were recorded on the stone tablet), the winner held a "closing ceremony" and smashed the throne, temple and stone tablet. Some nobles fled to the nearby city of Aguadica, a natural fortress surrounded by huge cracks. They lingered there for 40 years and were finally captured by the enemy and fell. In 800 AD, Aguadica was already a ghost town. After 820 AD, the Mayans abandoned the Piteng Rainforest, which had been built in countless cities for thousands of years, and never returned to the birthplace of this civilization. The destruction of Mayan civilization has become history, but the warning it provides is worth remembering forever. Today, more than 2 million Maya descendants still live in the lowlands of Guatemala, Mexico, Belize and Honduras. However, the essence of Mayan culture, such as hieroglyphics, astronomy, calendars and other knowledge, has disappeared and failed to be left to future generations. "The earth does not belong to human beings, and human beings belong to the earth"-Mayan prophecy According to Mayan prophecy, the earth we live in now is in the so-called fifth solar age. So far, the earth has gone through four solar eras, and at the end of each era, a thrilling story of destruction will be staged. The first solar age was the art of Matratiel in Tilly, Matlack, which was finally destroyed by a flood, which is said to be Noah's flood. The second solar year is Ehecatl, which is scattered by wind and snakes. The third solar age is Quiyahuillo. Because of the rain and fire from the sky, it is a road of destruction and an ancient nuclear war. The fourth solar epoch was in Tzontlilic, which lived in Zongdrilik, and was also caused by the raging fire and rainstorm. Mayan prophecy also said that from the end of the first solar age to the fourth solar age, the earth fell into unprecedented chaos, which ended in a series of tragic tragedies, and the earth would definitely give a warning before it died. The last chapter of Mayan prophecy is mostly a record of various eras, and the records of these eras, like conspiracy, all come to an end in the "fifth solar year". Therefore, the Mayans predicted that the earth would be completely extinct in the fifth solar year. At the end of the fifth solar year, the sun will disappear and the earth will start to shake. According to the prediction, the solar year has only five cycles. Once the sun dies five times, the earth will be destroyed. The fifth solar year began in 3 1 13, and will come to an end after the Mayan cycle of 5 125. But now the end date of the Gregorian calendar is 20 12 12 2 1. There is another legend, which has been misunderstood. What Maya means is that after the fifth solar year, Maya will enter a new era, not the end of the world. The main belief of editing this paragraph
Maya believed in religion, and their cultural life was full of religious color. They worship the gods of the sun, rain, grain, death, war, wind and grain. The sun god is above the gods and is regarded as the embodiment of God. In addition, worship ancestors and believe that the soul is immortal. Mayan countries also manage religious affairs. The capital is a religious center. In the early Mayan civilization, settlements were formed around the sacrificial center, and in the classical period, city-states were formed. Each city-state had its own dynasty. society
Restoration map of Maya ancient city
The ruling class is priests and nobles, and the king is hereditary, in charge of religious etiquette and setting the date of farming. The lower members of the commune are ordinary agricultural laborers and craftsmen from all walks of life. At the bottom of society are slaves, generally from prisoners of war, criminals and debtors, who can buy and sell freely. Mayan countries are similar to the primary slave countries in the ancient world in social development, but there is no detailed information on the specific situation. Mayan characters first appeared in BC, but the first dated stone tablet unearthed was the product of 292 BC and was found in Tikal. Since then, Mayan characters have only spread in a small area centered on Beden and Tikal. In the middle of the fifth century, Mayan characters spread to the whole Maya region, and at that time, a commercial transaction route was established, and Mayan characters spread to all parts of the country along this route. About a quarter of the 800 hieroglyphs used by Mayans have been explained by linguists. These characters mainly represent the names, numbers, directions, colors and names of the gods in each day and month of the week. Most of them are recorded on stone tablets, wooden boards, pottery and books. The paper of books is made of plant fiber, which is first soaked in lime water and then dried in the sun, thus leaving a layer of lime on the paper. Although there are still 2 million people who speak Mayan dialects in modern times, some hieroglyphs and homophones in their characters are very similar to those in ancient Egypt and Japan. Perhaps we can compare and discuss their similarities and differences, but we still can't interpret the whole Mayan characters. However, in 1963, Russian linguist Rui Ke Rohloff successfully classified the inscriptions, processed and analyzed them statistically, and summarized the same hieroglyphics from these different categories. Mayan characters are not composed of twenty-six Roman characters like English, but each character has four syllables. G Rohloff finally succeeded in understanding a few words. According to Slobodan and Baki YouSieloff of the Russian Institute of Mathematics, using computers, an article was successfully interpreted with huge data (about100000 words). Delesky's ancient documents include eclipses, the movement of stars, marriage, etc. There are records of farming, hunting and carving in ancient books in Madrid; The ancient documents in Paris recorded the truth of history. In short, the basic contents include religious ceremonies, meteorological phenomena and crops. Edit astronomical figures and calendars in this section.
No one will think it is great from the Arabic numerals in primary school! Just 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0. Maybe you don't know, the concept of 0 was brought to Europe by Arabs from India. In ancient times, Europeans did not have such a simple concept of numbers. Greeks are good at inventing, but they must write numbers in letters; Although the Romans could use numbers, they could only use four numbers to represent them. Maya used a point, a horizontal line and a shell symbol representing zero to represent numbers. When archaeologists study the Maya digital system, they find that their digital expression is similar to an abacus. They use three symbols: a point, a horizontal line and a shell symbol representing zero-it can represent any number. A similar principle applies to the "binary" of today's computers. This counting method can be used for astronomical figures. In the carved stone pillars found in Girigua, Guatemala, figures of 90 million years and 400 million years were recorded. The Mayan calendar is very complicated, including the Jin Zhuo calendar with a period of 260 days, the lunar calendar with a period of 6 months, the lunar calendars with a period of 29 and 30 days, and the solar calendar with a period of 365 days. , and different calendars in different periods. According to modern astronomical observation, we know that a year is 365.2422 days, while the year measured by Maya is 365.2420 days. Maya calculated the famous Venus formula: Moon 20x 13=260 260x2x73=37960 Sun 8x13 =104/04x5x73 = 37960.
Mysterious symbol
Venus 5x 13=65 65x8x73=37960 These formulas mean that each cycle will meet in a straight line after 37960 days, and according to Mayan myths and legends, the "gods" will then go to a quiet resting place. Venus calendar year refers to the time required for Venus to orbit the sun once. The Mayans spent 384 years observing and calculated 584 calendar years of Venus (they found that Venus just walked five times in eight earth years and then repeated the cycle, so they divided the number of days in eight earth years by 5-2920-to get 584 days), but today's calculation is 583.92 days, and the daily error rate is less than 65438+. It is incredible to calculate the history of Venus with such high accuracy. Maya's daily counting unit is surprisingly large. Archaeologists already know the following values: 1 in Venal, 18 in Venal, 1 in Tun, 360 1 in Caton, 7200 1 in Baktun and 1 in Pickton. Labutun is equal to 57.6 million days, 20 Labutun is equal to 1 golden flag two villages are equal to 1 520,000 days, and 20 golden flag two villages are equal to1Alatun is equal to 23.040 billion days. Why do you want to develop such a large quantity? This number unit is so large that even modern people don't need it. From today's scientific point of view, such a large number may only be used in one discipline, that is astronomy. Astronomers often use a large number unit to represent the distance between galaxies, and only astronomical numbers can be so large. The Mayans in the calendar predicted that in the Mayan calendar, there was a calendar called "Golden Zhuo Calendar", which was calculated by 260 days a year, but strangely, there were no planets suitable for this calendar in the solar system. According to this calendar, the approximate position of this planet should be between Venus and the Earth. This symbol in Zhuojinli expresses the galactic core described by Maya, which is very similar to the well-known Tai Chi Yin-Yang diagram. Some Mayan scholars believe that this calendar named Zhuo Jinli records the operation law of the "four seasons of the Milky Way", and according to Zhuo Jinli, our earth is now in the so-called "fifth solar age", that is, the last solar age. During this period of the galactic season, our solar system is experiencing a "great cycle" that lasted for more than 5 100 years. The time was from 3 1 13 BC to 20 12 AD. In this "great cycle", the moving earth and solar system are passing a galactic ray from the core of the Milky Way. The cross-sectional diameter of this ray is 5 125 earth year. In other words, it takes 5 125 years for the earth to pass through this ray. The Mayans divided this "great cycle" into 13 stages, and the evolution of each stage was recorded in great detail. In the 13 stage, each stage is divided into 20 evolutionary stages. Each period lasts about 20 years. This calendar cycle is very similar to China's "heavenly stems" and "earthly branches", and the calendar is endless, not as endless as a straight line in the year of AD. They believe that since the creation of the world, the earth has passed four solar periods. When the stars in the solar system go through a "big cycle" under the action of this galactic ray, fundamental changes will take place, which the Mayans call "galactic assimilation". Judging from the time of the "great cycle" predicted by Maya, today is drawing to a close. During the 20 years from 1992 to 20 12, our earth entered the last stage of the "Great Cycle". The Mayans believed that this was a very important period before "assimilating the Milky Way". They call it the "earth renewal period". During this period, the earth should be completely purified. After the "earth renewal period", the earth will step out of the galactic ray and enter a new stage of "assimilating the Milky Way". Since the Mayan calendar is so accurate, their predictions should also have some basis. Today, with serious environmental pollution and continuous natural and man-made disasters, we can think about the enlightenment of Mayan prophecy.
Some scholars put forward a bold view: they think that in the distant ancient times, a group of intelligent aliens with high civilization may have appeared in the tropical jungle of America. They walked out of the spaceship, taught all kinds of advanced knowledge to the Maya in primitive times, and then drifted away. They were regarded as gods by the Mayans. The profound knowledge that is difficult to understand in Mayan culture was taught by aliens. The carving on the slate in palenque is also a copy of the alien astronauts by the Mayans. When the aliens left, they promised the Mayans to return to the earth, but they didn't come back in the days when the Mayans chased them and the priests predicted the return of the gods. Therefore, this led to the loss of the Maya's confidence in their religion and priestly rule, which led to the collapse of the entire national psychology, and finally made people leave their hometowns one after another and separate. Maya culture just disappeared. Perhaps people will accuse this view of being too hypothetical. But even if we deny this statement, we still can't fully explain the mysterious connotation of Mayan culture, many incredible miracles and the reasons for its sudden disappearance.
Archaeologists have put forward many hypotheses about the mystery of the destruction of Mayan civilization, such as foreign invasion, population explosion, diseases, climate change, etc ....., all of which endow Mayan civilization with a strong mystery. In order to solve this eternal mystery, in the late 1980s, a multidisciplinary team of 45 scholars, including archaeologists, zoologists and nutritionists, traveled all over Guatemala's Peten rainforest area, where jaguars and rattlesnakes even frequented grave robbers. The expedition spent six years investigating about 200 Mayan civilization sites and concluded that Mayan civilization was destroyed by a bloody civil war for wealth and power.
Possible causes of disappearance
1 political marriage, the royal brothers were excluded, and other members competed for inheritance and property, leading to upper-level chaos. 2 the rise of secular culture, the impact on traditional civilization. The plunder and oppression of the Spanish invaders and the coercion of religion brought disaster to people. 4 population expansion, infectious diseases, 5 space migration, giving up the city and returning to the original, is it necessary to transform the new original ecological planet, or is it difficult to travel long distances; Distance requires the quantity and quality of people, and the chaos left behind leads to disaster. The tool is to use the gravity of Halley's comet. The reasons for the disappearance of Mayan civilization are controversial. Most people believe that the earthquake and hurricane at that time, together with population explosion, food shortage, peasant riots and alien invasion, caused the decline and decline of Mayan civilization. However, the exact answer has not yet appeared. The solution of this secret is like a jigsaw puzzle, but it has just begun.