This iconography is consistent with Chichen Itza at the end of the classic period and into the postclassic period (starting around A.D. Notably, the goggle-like appearance of the eyes is emblematic of Tlaloc, the central Mexican rain god. So the artifact likely came from that area, Paris says: “You don’t have a lot of gold working among the Maya.” The mask style, including embossed gold, is something more characteristic of the Pacific Coast areas of Costa Rica and Panama than the Yucatan Peninsula. The creature is one of the main gods of Chichen Itza. The eyes are adorned with a feathered serpent called Quetzalcoatl in the Nahuatl language, or “Kukulkan” in Yukatek. The freshwater sinkhole - one of the many that appear all around the Yucatan Peninsula - was used by the people at Chichen Itza to sacrifice humans and give offerings to the gods.Īrchaeologists dredging the cenote there in the 1930s discovered gold ornaments that form a three-piece mask - essentially two eyes and a mouth. Read More: Unlocking Ancient Texts with the 2,000-Year-Old Rosetta StoneĬhichen Itza is one of the more famous Maya ruins, due in part to the massive cenote that sits behind it. One part was brought to its namesake city in Spain the other was delivered to the Vatican.Ī French researcher figured out the manuscripts belonged together in the 1880s, and reunited the two parts.
MAYA CIVILIZATION KING FULL
The Madrid Codex, which is full of elaborate artwork as well as Maya hieroglyphs, was actually split into two parts at some point. “It’s a wonderful distillation of ritual thought that moment,” Paris says. The Madrid Codex is a little longer than the Dresden and Paris codices, and was likely written in the Mayapan region in the Yucatan Peninsula just before or around the time the Spanish arrived.
There used to be many more of these manuscripts, but the Spanish priests burned many of them during the Inquisition period, making the few that survived all the more important. They were usually inscribed on a kind of paper made from pounded bark, Paris says. The Maya recorded details about their calendar, rituals like human sacrifice and other celebrations, myths, and everyday activities such as beekeeping in these codices. Most of what we know about pre-Columbian Maya culture comes from a few surviving books: the Madrid, Dresden, Mexico and Paris codices.
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