ANTH 1100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 30: Chichen Itza, Tropical Year, Maya Calendar
Document Summary
Similarities in culture throughout mesoamerica: same subsistence base, shared beliefs and cultural traits, religion, writing, social organization. Spanish chroniclers maya text- codices: wrote on. Site of san lorenzo founded 1000 bc. Problems: out of context, unique, horizontal rows unlike maya glyphs. Ceremonial center with palace, temples distributed surplus food and goods. Palace: had latrines, writing, murals, sculpture. Discover enabled: decipherment of lineage connects texts and monuments to real people. Maya texts: largely political or astronomical. Dates count from specific day 3000 bc. Interlocked systems of 13 numbers, 20 named days. Cycle continues for 260 days- the sacred year. Glyphs on major monuments, emblem glyphs for cities. Symbols stand for: cities, words, syllables, logograms stand for words. Observed and recorded mars, venus, and jupiter. Ruler chose particular days for war or taking throne based on position of venus. Environment much different- limestone with holes and sinkholes. Sinkholes used for ritual offerings esp. to rain god.
