The Maya people ( Maya means Maïs, because the Mayas were indicated as “corn men”) is a Peuple native of America (Amerindian) alive in the south of the North America (southern of the Mexico) and the north of the Central America (Guatemala, Belize, with small minorities with the Honduras and the El Salvador). The Mayas speak different Langue S related belonging to the Maya Langues; a part of them adopted the Spanish old colonizing.

During the Mayas formed one of large the Civilization S of Mésoamérique. They were organized in urban centres composed of a site civico- ceremonial, palate of dignitaries, peripheral districts of Artisan S, Trading S and Guerrier S, and Hameau X dispersed of rural population. Their civilization then perduré until the beginning of the 15th century in the north of the Péninsule of Yucatán. The most outstanding achievements of this civilization are: hieroglyphic writing and numeration of position (bases 20 of them with the Zero), Astronomie (calendar and éphémérides), Architecture (construction of Pyramide S and Temple S). One finds many Maya archeological sites today in the south of Mexico (Chichén Itzá, Piedras Negras) and in Guatemala (Tikal, Kaminaljuyú).

Origins

The origins of the Maya people (as those of good number of people méso-American) are disputed. Two principal theories are advanced:

• most current wants that the Mayas are originating in Asia and that they crossed the Bering Strait during the glacial period in the search of animals to be driven out.
• another mobility considers the Mayas originating in islands of the Pacifique

This question is not distinct and if the family ties with the native cultures of North America are not obvious, the vestiges of Maya civilization reveal disconcerting similarities with certain aspects of the old Egypt or the China, but similarity is not causality.

Civilization

See also: Maya Civilization

Characteristics

Maya civilization is characterized by an intense mathematical, astronomical and architectural activity.

• the Mayas independently of the Indiens invented the Zero.

• Of the two calendars which they used, most complex of both - used in astronomy - was more precise than our Gregorian Calendrier, although very complex to use.

• By chance for the archeologists, they dated all their buildings. This characteristic made it possible to advance a serious assumption on their disappearance.

Collapse

The Mayas dated all their buildings. However this characteristic was discovered to them: in an important city, the buildings are dated with regular intervals, then the activities of construction seem to stop completely; it is precisely the moment when they further include in another big city located a few hundred kilometers. The importance and the type of buildings found in these cities resulting in seeing successive capitals there, the archeologists wondered it why of this exodus.

One of the advanced possibilities is that the first capital would have been abandoned following a growing sterilization of the grounds. The Mayas would not have learned the lesson from this catastrophe and would have again exhausted the grounds around their new capital. It is about a speculative assumption, but it seems alone to give an account of this rupture of place on a certain date.

Two million peasants of different ethnos groups lives with the Guatemala, but goes down from the same Maya culture.

More:

• C.W. Ceram: Of the gods, the tombs, the scientists
• Jared Diamond, Collapse. How the companies decide on their disappearance or their survival , Gallimard, 2006

See too

• Maya Civilization
• Maya Calendar (outline)
• Maya Languages
• Maya Numeration
• Archeological sites Maya
• Popol Vuh, delivers crowned of the Mayas Quiché S
• Art Maya

Documentary

• the mystery of the Mayas: Vestiges of all the splendor of Maya civilization , IMAX
• lost Kingdoms of the Mayas , National Geographic (2003)

External bonds

• Guatemala, Cuna of Civilizacion Maya (also in english language version)
• Mundo Maya online (also in english language version)
• Photographs of Mayas of Guatemala

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