The Mayan civilization that once existed in Central America left behind a significant legacy. Despite the fact that it was crushed by invading conquistadors, conquerors, the descendants of the Maya still live, and many of them are proud of their origin. Anthropologists, on the other hand, are gradually restoring a picture of past times in order to understand what a lost civilization was.
An ancient civilization arose about 4,000 years ago, but by the time the first conquerors from Europe arrived in America, it was already in the sunset. The invasion of the conquistadors only accelerated the fall of the Maya. The Mayan-designed calendar has been used by many other Native American peoples. Nowadays ethnic Maya live mainly in Honduras, Nicaragua and Mexico. In the country of Belize, about 10% are Maya. There are about 6 million Mayans in the world. This is much more than the number of any small peoples of the North, and even more than the population in many European countries. Archaeologists have discovered about 1,000 stone cities built by the Maya, and about 3,000 smaller settlements.
Mayan civilization included not one state, but several. Between themselves, they then traded, then fought – when, how. Squint of this people was once considered a sign of nobility. Mayan surgeons are far ahead of European. When surgery was still in its infancy in Europe, Mayan doctors successfully performed difficult operations with rather primitive instruments. And as a surgical thread, they used human hair. At one time, human sacrifices were widespread in the Mayan civilization. Modern Maya, honoring the old traditions, abandoned the victims-people in favor of domestic chickens. Long before the invention of anesthesia, Maya doctors prepared anesthetics from various plants. They were used in operations and religious rituals. Maya doctors were able to put dentures in place of lost teeth. At the time of this civilization was a very popular ball game, reminiscent of modern football.
Maya had a very developed writing. Many of their records have been preserved on the walls of stone buildings built by them thousands of years ago. The Mayans did not know iron. They made weapons mainly of stone, wood, and obsidian — volcanic glass. Among the noble representatives of this nation, incrustation of teeth with jade was popular. And women also cut their teeth, sharpening them so that they were sharp and triangular, like a shark. Anthropologists and archaeologists still do not know why the Mayan civilization began to decline. Assumptions are very different, from drought and overpopulation to global climate change. Maya sacrifices were usually sacrificed to “their own”, and not to foreigners from other tribes, since it was considered a great honor to be sacrificed to the gods of this people. Despite the high development of civilization, the Maya did not invent the wheel.
Among other achievements of the Maya, we can mention an extensive network of roads with a hard stone surface and even an observatory for observing the night sky. The complex Mayan calendar, composed of three and tied to the movement of stars and celestial bodies in the night sky, has neither a beginning nor an end. Maya had no beginning or end of the year – only planetary cycles. Despite the fact that this civilization existed in a hot climate, it had popular public baths. Of all the peoples of Central America of their time, the Mayans were the only ones who invented their own writing. The last independent Mayan city was captured by the Spaniards only in 1697, several centuries after the invading conquistadors. The name that parents gave to the newborn depended on the day of the week when the child was born.
