The Mayan

৩১ শে অক্টোবর, ২০১৫ বিকাল ৩:৪৬

(copyright reserved , written by Krisno komol Das ,English department , Government Bangla College, Mirpur ,Dhaka)
The Mayan was very much civilized and cultured caste in the world . they lived in Mexico for the thousands of years before the Spanish arrived in the 1500s .The Mayan were an intelligent , culturally rich people whose achievements were many .They had farms ,beautiful palaces, many cities with many building , towering temple pyramids. Mayan were also responsible for a number of remarkable scientific achievements–in astronomy, agriculture, engineering and communications.

The Mayan people knew a lot about nature and the world around them. They were able to control some natural incident with this knowledge . This knowledge helped them to live a better life than most other people of that time . An agricultural society, 90% of the Maya population were involved in farming.
Knowledge about tools and farming for instance , made their work easier and more productive. They also figured out how to grow corn, beans, squash and cassava in sometimes-inhospitable places . In the lowlands of the Paten and Pupuk regions, for example, the soil was relatively fertile but restricted to small patches. A technique to increase soil fertility was the use of raised fields, especially near water courses and flood plains. At these locations stone-wall terraces were sometimes built to collect fertile silt deposits. Forests were cleared to make way for agriculture but such land quickly declined in fertility and necessitated slash-and-burn techniques to rejuvenate the land after two years of crops, which then requires on average a further 5-7 years to be ready for re-planting. A similar necessity to leave fields to rejuvenate was common in the highland sites, where plots had to be left empty for up to 15 years. They plant seeds by digging holes in the ground with pointed sticks . A farmer was able to grow crops that produced food for several people. But not every Maya had to be farmer. Some were cloth makers, builders or priest.
Mayan was also businessmen. Chief staples of Maya economic activities were centered primarily around foods like fish, squash, yams, corn, honey, beans, turkey, vegetables, chocolate drinks; raw materials such as limestone, marble, jade, wood, copper and gold; and manufactured goods such as paper, books, furniture, jewelry, clothing, carvings, toys, weapons, and luxury goods.
Mayan people believed in many gods, including rain gods, sun gods ( Kinih Ahous) and corn gods. The people built large temples to honour the Mayan gods. The Mayan religion was Polytheist, and they worshiped more than 165 Gods. The Gods were human-like. The Gods were born, grew up and died. Gods would do other human like activity that was deemed acceptable behavior. This included: creating, planting and harvesting maize, performing divination, conducting business, fighting wars, forming alliances and intermarrying. This behavior led to the Gods having interrelated jobs within their hierarchy. The Mayans believed that every person had an animal companion who shared their soul. They were called, “Way’ ob”. The Mayan religion told that one could transform into their animal companion. Every King had a jaguar as their animal companion spirit, and were often depicted with jaguar in Mayan art. Most Mayans had one animal companion, but some every powerful Mayan priests could have more than one
During the pre-Columbian era, human sacrifice in Maya culture was the ritual offering of nourishment to the gods. Blood was viewed as a potent source of nourishment for the Maya deities, and the sacrifice of a living creature was a powerful blood offering. By extension, the sacrifice of a human life was the ultimate offering of blood to the gods, and the most important Mayan rituals culminated in human sacrifice. Generally only high status prisoners of war were sacrificed, with lower status captives being used for labour.
The mayan people built many large temples and building .
1.Pyramid:
A unique and intricate style, the tradition of Maya architecture spans several thousands of years. The Maya are perhaps most known for their many majestic pyramids. They built two kinds of pyramids. But their pyramids was not as large as Egyptian pyramids. The first type of pyramid had a temple on the top and was meant to be climbed by the priests to make sacrifices to the gods and the second type of pyramid was a sacred pyramid built to a god. These pyramids were not to be climbed or touched by humans.
2. Kings palaces:
Mayan city-state would have a large palace inside the city for their king and the royal family. These palaces were sometimes large monuments to powerful kings. One of the most famous palaces is the palace at Palenque built by King Pakal. It was a large complex of many buildings and courtyards including a tall tower that looked over the city. It was covered with colorful hieroglyphics and carvings of the king and his family.
3.Common Maya :
The common Maya lived in small houses outside the city center. And their house were much simpler than the elaborate structures in the cities. They lived in small huts with no windows. The walls were made of poles covered with dried mud , are the roof was made of grass or leaves . Most maya lived a simple life close to nature.
4. Ball Courts
The Maya also built giant ball courts where they would play their game with a rubber ball. Some major cities had multiple courts. Sometimes ball courts were attached to temples. The courts had two long stone walls, sometimes built with sloped sides.

Measuring time was important to the maya , so they developed a system for measuring it accurately. Farmers needed to know when to plant and harvest their crops . Mayan priests made a system to keep track of time . They wrote numbers as dots (…) and bars(-). A dot was one and a bar was five.
Mayan priests studied the sun , moon, stars, and planets.
They developed one of the most accurate calendar systems in human history. The Mayan calendar was divided into 18 months of 20 days each with five days left over. One of the longest cycles found in the Maya calendar system. This cycle ends on the winter solstice, December 21, 2012.
Around the year 800, the Maya left their village and beautiful cities , never to return. No one knows why this happened .
The National Academy of Sciences, researchers from Arizona State University analyzed archaeological data from across the Yucatan to reach a better understanding of the environmental conditions when the area was abandoned. Around this time, they found, severe reductions in rainfall were coupled with an rapid rate of deforestation, as the Mayans burned and chopped down more and more forest to clear land for agriculture. Interestingly, they also required massive amounts of wood to fuel the fires that cooked the lime plaster for their elaborate constructions—experts estimate it would have taken 20 trees to produce a single square meter of cityscape.
Archaeologists are still trying to find the lost secrets of the Maya.

০ টি +০/-০