Don't Know Much About Mythology - Kenneth C. Davis [217]
Who were the Mayas who produced the Popol Vuh?
Peeking inside the Popol Vuh raises the question—how did the civilization that produced this extraordinary book evolve?
The simple answer is “farming.” Civilization in Mesoamerica—the area now known as southern Mexico and much of Central America—began when people shifted from hunting-gathering to farming. Creating small villages in clearings in the rain forest, the first farmers of Mesoamerica raised tomatoes, peanuts, avocados, tobacco, beans, squashes—many plants and foods unknown in Europe until Columbus carried them back. But these farmers’ most important crop was maize, which evolved from a tamed wild grass. Commonly known as corn, maize would become the staple of the Mesoamerican diet, feed its herds and support large populations.* By about 1700 BCE, improved farming techniques were producing maize in surplus quantities—an economic necessity for developing a more advanced civilization.
The first major Mesoamerican civilization, the Olmecs, had settled along the Gulf Coast of Mexico, in what is now Veracruz and Tabasco, around 1500 BCE. Clearly poised to achieve great things, the Olmecs created, within a few hundred years, a fairly sophisticated society with temples, pyramids, a single ruler, and a powerful religion-based culture that spread throughout Mesoamerica. One of their distinguishing accomplishments were the great carved heads of supernatural beings and animal deities produced out of large basalt stones that weighed up to 36,000 pounds (16,300 kilograms). These massive stone blocks had to be transported more than 50 miles (80 kilometers) through difficult terrain, without benefit of the wheel or large draft animals, and were most likely rafted on rivers. Discovered at Olmec sites at La Venta in Tabasco and San Juan Lorenzo in Veracruz, five of these colossal heads can now be seen at an outdoor park in La Venta, and others are displayed in museums, including the National Museum of Anthropology and History in Mexico City and the Veracruz Museum of Anthropology in Xalapa.
The Olmec religion, sculpture, and other arts would significantly influence all the later Mesoamerican groups, including the next great Mesoamerican civilization, the Mayas. Eventually producing cities with towering pyramids and broad plazas centered mostly in Guatemala and southern Mexico, Mayan civilization, new research shows, began to reach a level of complexity as early as 150 BCE—much earlier than previously thought—and reached the peak of its development about 200 CE, then continued to flourish in a “classic period” for hundreds of years, declining around 900 CE.
Although not an empire in the usual sense, the Mayas formed a loose collection of about ninety city-states, with several different languages. But theirs was one of the first cultures in the Americas to develop an advanced form of writing, a hieroglyphic picture-language that was used to record the sacred texts. The Mayas also made great strides in astronomy and mathematics, developed an accurate yearly calendar, and produced remarkable architecture, painting, pottery, and sculpture. By about 900 CE, for reasons unclear, most of the Mayas abandoned the cities of the Guatemalan lowlands. Invasion and changing climates may have been the cause, but some of the Mayas moved south and others north, to the Yucatán Peninsula. There, between 900 and 1200 CE, the city of Chichén Itzá grew into the largest and most powerful Mayan city.
Like all Mayan cities, Chich