HIST 1215 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Quetzalcoatl, Plant Collecting, Volcanic Glass
Document Summary
Maya heartland is in mexico, honduras, and el salvador. There is no maya empire - all independent city state kingdoms. Maya code - created thousands covered in hieroglyphs. In 1500"s the spanish priest declared the books to be the work of the devil and burned them. Maya culture, writing, and religion survives the abandonment of their cities. Calendar system - helped decipher maya writing and their celestial almanacs. 1960 - women in harvard identified glyphs for birth, death, and inauguration to someone to kingship. Point to this king being in a spaceship. Painting is really being depicted as ascending into heaven through tree. Pyramids like ziggurats - have a temple at the top. Has astrological tool to inspect the sky and stars. Incredibly well preserved pyramid that it"s an astrological observatory. Explain creation because gods wanted to be praised - similar to sumerian belief. Played on two levels - mythological underworld and the ball court.
