rulers and ranked nobility. How and why this happened are still
unknown.
Stupendous building projects signaled the change. Vast com-
plexes of terraced temple-pyramids, palaces, plazas, ball courts (see
“The Mesoamerican Ball Game,” page 372), and residences of the
governing elite dotted the Maya area. Unlike at Teotihuacan, no
single Maya site ever achieved complete dominance as the center of
power. The new architecture, and the art embellishing it, advertised
the power of the rulers, who appropriated cosmic symbolism and
stressed their descent from gods to reinforce their claims to legiti-
mate rulership. The unified institutions of religion and kingship
were established so firmly, their hold on life and custom was so tena-
cious, and their meaning was so fixed in the symbolism and imagery
of art that the rigidly conservative system of the Classic Maya lasted
600 years. Maya civilization began to decline in the eighth century.
By 900, it had vanished.
Although the causes of the beginning and end of Classic Maya
civilization are obscure, researchers are gradually revealing its history,
beliefs, ceremonies, conventions, and patterns of daily life through sci-
entific excavation and progress made in decoding Mayan script. Two
important breakthroughs have radically altered the understanding of
both Mayan writing and the Maya worldview. The first was the real-
ization that the Maya depicted their rulers (rather than gods or anony-
mous priests) in their art and noted their rulers’ achievements in their
texts. The second was that Mayan writing is largely phonetic—that is,
the hieroglyphs are composed of signs representing sounds in the
Mayan language. Fortunately, the Spaniards recorded the various
Mayan languages in colonial texts and dictionaries, and most are still
spoken today. Although perhaps only half of the ancient Mayan script
can be translated accurately into spoken Mayan, today experts can at
least grasp the general meaning of many more hieroglyphs.
The Maya possessed a highly developed knowledge of mathe-
matical calculation and the ability to observe and record the move-
ments of the sun, the moon, and numerous planets. They contrived
an intricate but astonishingly accurate calendar with a fixed-zero
date, and although this structuring of time was radically different in
form from the Western calendar used today, it was just as precise and
efficient. With their calendar, the Maya established the all-important
genealogical lines of their rulers, which certified their claim to rule,
and created the only true written history in ancient America. Al-
though other ancient Mesoamerican societies, even in the Preclassic
period, also possessed calendars, only the Maya calendar can be
translated directly into today’s calendrical system.ARCHITECTURE AND RITUALThe Maya erected their
most sacred and majestic buildings in enclosed, centrally located
precincts within their cities. The religious-civic transactions that
guaranteed the order of the state and the cosmos occurred in these
settings. The Maya held dramatic rituals within a sculptured and
painted environment, where huge symbols and images proclaimed
the nature and necessity of that order. Maya builders designed spa-
cious plazas for vast audiences who were exposed to overwhelming
propaganda. The programmers of that propaganda, the ruling
families and troops of priests, nobles, and retainers, incorporated
its symbolism in their costumes. In Maya paintings and sculptures,
the Maya elite wear extravagant costumery of vividly colorful cot-
ton textiles, feathers, jaguar skins, and jade, all emblematic of their
rank and wealth. On the different levels of the painted and polished
temple platforms, the ruling classes performed the offices of their
rites in clouds of incense to the music of maracas, flutes, and
drums. The Maya transformed the architectural complex at each
city’s center into a theater of religion and statecraft. In the stagelike
layout of a characteristic Maya city center, its principal group, or
“site core,” was the religious and administrative nucleus for a popu-
lation of dispersed farmers settled throughout a suburban area of
many square miles.Mesoamerica 37114-7Goddess, mural painting
from the Tetitla apartment complex
at Teotihuacan, Mexico, 650–750 CE.
Pigments over clay and plaster.
Elaborate mural paintings adorned
Teotihuacan’s elite residential com-
pound. This example may depict the
city’s principal deity, a goddess
wearing a jade mask and a large
feathered headdress.