#ancient maya

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

The discovery of an ancient Maya statue deep within the jungles of Honduras, 1885.

[nickysfacts]

The Mayans were obsessed with corn!

🌽🌽🌽

[ktempestbradford]

Eclipse October 2023 Through Obsidian

One of the things I learned on my travels is how the ancient Mayans were able to observe the transit of the planet we call Mercury across the sun. Obviously not something easy to see. Mayans used obsidian as a sun viewer, like you see here. (they probably made theirs much bigger 😂 mine is a pendant.)

When I first learned this it blew my mind! I wondered if other ancient cultures also knew this. I asked an Egyptologist friend and he said that the Egyptians worked with obsidian all the time - they used knives made of it as scalpels. He didn't know if it was specifically used for astronomy, but it's highly likely.

I'd love to hear from other folks who've studied ancient civilizations if they it this way.

The one thing a Mexican astronomer warned me about is not to use obsidian to look at the sun extensively because it doesn't block UV, so staring could still damage my eyes. Thus, I also had regular eclipse glasses.

[covenawhite66]

Archaeologists believe that around 417 cities, towns, and villages made up the unified civilization.

Remains of architectural forms and patterns, ceramics, sculptural art, architectural patterns, and unifying causeway constructions.

The magnitude of the labor int he construction of massive platforms, palaces, dams, causeways, and pyramids dating to the Middle and Late Preclassic periods, suggests a power to organize thousands of workers.

[sinuheminem]

hello! it’s been a crazy long time, and there’s been a recent discovery of a

maya city!

so let’s talk about it!

i am not a reliable source of information. sources in the replies

three hours prior to writing this, a new york times journalist posted an article titled “In Mexico, Archaeologists Spot a Maya City Behind a Wall of Trees.” spoiler alert, but i jumped out of my seat when i saw it.

the city is a pretty walkable distance from Dos Lagunas, about 15-20 minutes by foot. it had been covered in forest until an aerial scan revealed maya archetypes in the structure beneath the foliage.

the site is estimated to have been home to about 50,000 people at it’s height, about 750-850 AD. one of the biggest current findings is a sinkhole, which led to an apparently collapsed cave system. because of the way the architecture in the city is arranged, it’s speculated to have been built sometime before 150 AD. the entire site, broken up into “blocks” by the researchers there, contains a political center, a residential block, and a sort of dispersed suburb block.

the scientists looking at the area have named it Valeriana, after a nearby lake. in some local research, a few farmers in Dos Lagunas knew all about the sites prior to scientists’s discovery of it.

as for scientists, the site added to the local database of maya cities. the area was assumed to have been densely populated, and this site helps prove that point.

it hasn’t yet been excavated, and i can’t find any evidence that they plan to in the near future. so far, all knowledge is from aerial and lidar scans.

what do you think? :)

[hilhun]

what if we were incarnations of mayan goddesses and did each other's makeup while planning to take over the throne

or smt idk

anyway. these are my girls: Yol (she/her), the tall one; and Akan (she/they), the one fully painted. They are "incarnations" of Ixchel (Yol), the goddess of fertality, and Ah Puch/Kizin (Akan), the god of death. And they are in a dubious situationship. thats all you need to know

[non-cannon]

For years I have been convinced that there is fic potential in the fact that the ancient Maya built pyramids and that their script is also called hieroglyphics and that their ruins can also be found in a hot location.

The fic idea is something something ambiguous letter/note/communication makes people think Egyptian pyramids/hieroglyphics/climate when it was sender was actually talking about Mexico/Mesoamerica.

Could never quite figure it out

[aboutoriginality]

[ancientstuff]

Rescue archaeology to the rescue. An amazing find, one of only 3 in existence.

[chrysocomae]

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

Zoomorph P at Quirigua, Guatemala, 1883.

[anonymusbosch]

pardon the low-quality phone pics I was just so struck by these little figurines of women holding and kissing a little dog - sometime around 1000 BC, human hands fashioned these from clay. Three thousand years later we have record of the love people had! Not just statues from temples or objects of religious or political importance, but little figures that say "today I loved this little dog."

Plaque text:

El cuidado y cariño que se tenía a los perros se hace evidente en estas figurillas. El canis familiaris o perro doméstico que se conoce en la actualidad, formaba parte importante de la sociedad aldeana.

Approx. translation:

The care and affection that was given to the dogs is evident in these figurines. Canis familiaris, or the domestic dog as it is known today, was an important part of village society.

from the Preclassical Mayan collection at the Museo Nacional de Antropología in Mexico City

[carbombrenee]

greasing up the illustrated leg

[covenawhite66]

Petén, Guatemala

Mayans used mercury was used to decorate ceremonial objects

The mercury was from another region there were no natural cinnabar deposits in those areas. So it was probably acquired by trade

Mercury sulfide, AKA cinnabar was found in three places where the mercury was at toxic threshold concentrations.

[sakuraswordly]

Maya civilization created distinct artworks and fully developed complex writing system before Common Era. Their creativity was more advanced than many contemporary cultures of old world : Archaeologists have uncovered a wealth of information about Maya civilization through discoveries and deciphering of Maya art and writing. Deciphering of knowledge gained from these primary sources often results in scholars having to push back timeline of Maya inventions and achievements. A prime example is discovery of Maya writing from Pre-Classic period on stone near San Bartolo. Humidity in most of Maya areas wreaked havoc with their books, painted buildings, and artworks. So much seemed lost and then archaeologists started discovering beautifully painted murals and other art in deepest levels of Maya structures. Their habit of building new structures over and around older ones, often more than once, had done an excellent job of preservation in many cases. Maya art included stone, wood, clay, and stucco sculptures and decorations. Exquisite carvings and jewelry were made of wood, obsidian, jade, bone, shells, and stone. Action scenes were portrayed on slipped ceramic vessels, murals and reliefs. Artists made moldings, statuettes, portraits of rulers and more. Their tools included stones, obsidian and jade carving instruments, and paintbrushes. Paint for Maya art was made from pigment and water, bound with clay. Color pigment was obtained from berries, plants, fruits, ores and even insects. Special technique of Maya civilization for making “Maya blue”, a rich turquoise blue, was lost in 16th Century, sometime during Spanish conquest. Four cardinal directions were associated with colors by Maya civilization in Maya artworks: red for East; yellow for South; black for West; white for North. Favored colors were blue, representing water, wind and sky-gods and green representing vegetation and life. Only faint traces of magnificently bright colors are left on statues, monuments, temples, pyramids, houses and miscellaneous artifacts that are exposed to elements. Once archaeologists discovered hidden substructures above ground and excavated inside underground structures, they discovered well-preserved art and decorations going back throughout Maya eras. Scholars believe that royals employed full-time artists during some eras of Maya civilization. It is speculated that artists came exclusively from elite classes. Maya civilization decorated architecture with all kinds of art. A typical city center with its plazas and precision placed pyramids, adjacent buildings and monuments, were often plastered with stucco and painted red. Buildings and plazas were decorated with colorfully painted stone or stucco sculptures and sometimes murals. A chance discovery by a scuba diver in 1998 of an underwater Maya religious center led to archaeological investigations in 2007 of a sunken city in Lake Atitlan, Guatemala. It is now named Samabaj, sometimes called Atlantis of Guatemala. It was a large religious center on an island in middle of lake before it was flooded, probably after a volcanic eruption. It is frozen in Maya Pre-classic time – un-looted, and undamaged by the elements, and one can only imagine what beautiful sculptures, pottery, and other wonderful art are yet to be discovered there. Several magnificent murals have been uncovered, excavated, and restored in this century alone. These murals were painted on walls of temples, public buildings, and houses. Bonampak murals depict scenes of daily life, war, ceremonies, mythology, and more in brilliant or muted colors and use excellent techniques that outlasted elements when protected. Calakmul murals include scenes from daily lives of commoners. Oldest San Bartolo murals discovered in 2001 depict scenes from mythology and royal court. They are dated to around 100 CE.

Photographer: Glyphs on red stele from Temple of Inscriptions, early Classic period, Tikal, Guatemala (Penn University Museum)

[nathanland]

Terminal classic Maya collapse