Dawn of the Maya

Saw a really cool National Geographic program tonight about the ancient Maya culture. The height of the Maya culture was previously believed to have occurred between 250 and 900 A.D. However, archeologists have recently discovered a much older Mayan civilization in the central Yucatan which dates back a thousand years earlier than any previously known record of Mayan culture.

This earlier Mayan civilization was in a period called the pre-classic, which most scientists regard as a primitive time. But this new discovery has shed light on a thriving metropolitan society with a network of large cities and advanced developments in industry, commerce, the arts, science, language, and architecture. This was a vast and complex society that was already flourishing before the time of Christ, then suffered a collapse and went through a great resurgence, all before the Europeans arrived.

The pre-classic Mayan culture had a well-established cosmology and an early form of hieroglyphic writing style which researchers are still trying to decipher. Archaeologists are also digging in hopes of finding the tombs of an early dynasty of Mayan kings. These kings established significant empires and infrastructure. They built grand cities and temples, with pyramids large enough to rival the great pyramids of Egypt.

Yet somehow this society collapsed and their cities were reclaimed by the jungle. The current theory is that the increasing demand for construction materials led to deforestation of the surrounding jungles. The resulting loss of natural resources led to famine and the empire was lost.

A thousand years later, the Maya society had resurged into a great modern civilization until the Spanish conquest in the early 1500s. To compel the conversion of the "natives" to Christianity, the Spanish colonial friars ordered the destruction of all idols and rituals related to Mayan spirituality. The great Mayan culture was lost again.