Did you know that George Lucas writer and director of the famous and unforgettable movies “Star Wars”, filmed some scenes in Tikal the most important Mayan City.

On July 8^th year 2,000 the archeologist Arthur Demarest, one of the most distinguished in the study of the Mayan culture, graduated from Harvard University, U.S.A. along with some Guatemalan experts, discovered the biggest palace of all the Mayan culture: Cancuén, that is located between Petén and Alta Verapaz in Guatemala. This place contains 180 rooms, and its construction is of the size, just like the acropolis of Tikal, about 30 meters high.

            The music was a vital language for the Mayas.  They used it for haunting, public celebrations, and communicating with their gods and the war.

              Something odd about the Mayas is that the used to get their heads  flat, this was to symbolize beauty.  They did it by using a piece of jade hanging from their heads with a piece of thred, in the middle of the eyes, until he or she will get crossed eye; and they used to sleep with two pieces of wood on the head, one on top and the other one underneath in such way that their head will get flat really flat.

            Everyday the Mayas used to sacrifice 2 people, one for their religious ritual and the other one they choose the most beautiful one, and take out the heart in such way that they bleed and the priests drank the blood.

The mayan ball game

The ball game, that was common in all the mesoamericans towns and that were their origin about three thousand years old B.C., fulfilled between Mayan a ritual function. Two equipment (the number of players varied according to the regions) faced in a field whose measures also were variable (greatest of the Mayan World she is the one of Chichén Itzá, Mexico, with one hundred forty meters in length by thirty and five meters wide). Two parallel and inclined walls ran throughout the field, one as opposed to the other. In each wall there were three discs, positions to equal distances to each other, several meters of the ground and perpendiculars to this one; they were the markers, or stone ring. The game consisted of obtaining that the ball (got to measure fifty centimeters of diameter and to weighing more of a kilo) struck some marker or happened through some ring, for which it only could impel it to it with the elbows, the knees and the hips. Habitually, the game finishes after the first annotation.

The jade

In the old Mayan society jade, divine representation, more were appreciated than gold. The value of jade, before material, era of Hindu to him magician-monk, reason why the stone was used for the processing of sacred and artistic objects. The possession of jade was mark of high hierarchy and the aristocracy was embellished with orejeras, slopes, necklaces, masks, pectoral and muñequeras where show off the stone; the governors even used small pieces to decorate their teeth. To jade was associated it with the fertility, with tender maize grains, the water and the life. Chalchihuites (round accounts done of jade) was placed in mouth of the deceased, along with the maize, so that it did not pass hunger and it did not have spiritual deficiencies during its future life. The governors and noble were buried carrying mortuary masks of jade, so that the Gentlemen of the Infraworld identified giving them them a special treatment, according to their hierarchy. The greater object of jade of the Mayan World was discovered in the archaeological site of Altun Há, Belize. One is the head of Kinich Ahau, God of the sun. It has a height of almost fifteen centimeters and a weight approximated to the four kilos.

The Maya Calendar

The Maya developed a sophisticated calendar. The ritual calendar that developed in Mesoamerica used a count of 260 days. This calendar gave each day a name, much like our days of the week. There were 20 day names, each represented by a unique symbol. The days were numbered from 1 to 13. Since there are 20 day names, after the count of thirteen was reached, the next day was numbered 1 again. The 260-day or sacred count calendar was in use throughout Mesoamerica for centuries, probably before the beginning of writing.

The Maya also tracked a vague solar year in which they counted 365 days per year. Because they could not use fractions, the "quarter" day left over every year caused their calendar to drift with regard to the actual solar year. The 365-day year contained months were also given names. numbers 0-19 before they changed, so that the count goes Zero Pohp to 19 Pohp, then continues with Zero Wo.

In addition, the Maya used special glyphs to indicate time periods, the kin represented one day. Winals are periods of 20-days which we now call a month. The Tun was a year of 360 days and the K'atun was a time period of 20 years of 360 days each. As we will see later, the K'atun ending was a special time period celebrated by the Maya. It has its parallel in the modern world, the period of time which we call a decade. The Maya also counted 400-year periods called Baktuns. The Maya used these time periods in a special day count which is now called the Long count. Today a typical long count date is written thus: 9.14.12.2.17. This represents 9 baktuns, 14 k'atuns, 12 tuns, 2 winals and 17 k'ins.

Maya Mathematics

Instead of ten digits like we have today, the Maya used a base number of 20. (Base 20 is vigesimal.) They also used a system of bar and dot as "shorthand" for counting. A dot stood for one and a bar stood for five.

In the following table, you can see how this works.

Because the base of the number system was 20, larger numbers were written down in powers of 20. We do that in our decimal system too: for example 32 is 3*10+2. In the Maya system, this would be 1*20+12, because they used 20 as base.

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