1. Agenda ► Reminder: Tonight on PBS, Cracking the Mayan Code. 8:00 pm ► Mayan early classic ► Slides of Tikal, Palenque, Copan, Teotihuacan ► Assignment: Mayan glyphs

2. The Mayan Civilization Conquest of the Jungle Late formative and Early Classic period

4. El Mirador

7. Early pre-Maya and Maya sites ► El Mirador. From 300 BC to AD 300. Unique architecture. ► Contemporaries elsewhere: ► Monte Alban in Oaxaca. 500 BC to about AD 700with decline to 1500 AD ► Teotihuacán in Valley of Mexico 100 BC to AD 500 and slow decline to 1000 AD.

8. Forms of Influence ► Direct through conquest ► Shared ideas and ideology ► Trade in ideas as well as commodities ► Artistic motifs ► Language ► [Think Canada, United States, Mexico of today. Different nations and cultures but much in common—each largely derived from European sources].

9. Survey of cities/urban centers ► Peten region ► Tikal ► Palenque ► Copan (pre Mayan component) ► Quirigua (pre Mayan component) ► Basin of Mexico ► Teotihucan (“city of the gods” or “place where time began”) ► Yucatan ► Chichen itza

10. ► We can not speak of Early classic Maya without also considering Teotihuacan ► Evidence of influences in shared cultural traits and architectural / artistic styles, cosmology, myths. ► We also have evidence from inscriptions at Tikal of Teotihuacan “strangers from the west”

11. Teotihuacan ► Early construction perhaps 100 BC ► Astronomical and ritual numerology integrated with architecture ► Basic unit 32 inches. Divinition calendar number 260 incorporated into structural proportions. ► The number 584 critical to layout and alignments of streets.

12. ► Pyramid of the Sun built over a cave (perhaps the origin cave of humanity) Several construction phases ► Completion AD 100 at 246 feet height. ► City layout incorporates 365, 29, 260, 32, 584 at basic levels. Other numbers also evident. ► Several separate pyramid complexes ► In AD 100 population of at least 100,000.

13. Temple complex at Tikal

14. Tikal. Guatemala.

17. Kulkalcan

18. How do modern cities exhibit/advertise prestige? ► Professional sports arenas, cultural centers (museums, art, theater), architectural singularity… ► We see theses same concerns with prestige at key Mayan centers.

19. Palenque “Palace”

20. Palenque This city also house the rich tomb of Lord Pacal. His sarcophagus was found within several layers of rebuilt temples. The lid (10,000 pound limestone slab) portrays in low relief a mythological journey to the underworld. Death mask of jade.

21. “El Castillo” at Chichen itza

22. Chichen itza. Yucatan. The “jaguar” temple. Near entry to ball court.

23. Ball court rings. Chichen itza.

24. El Caracol. The “observatory.”

25. Mosaic style architectural façade. Chichen itza. Yucatan.

26. Sacred cenote at Chichen itza.

27. Choc mool

28. Image from a tzompantli carving. (skull rack)

29. Coba Yucatan

30. Artifacts from Copan

31. Artist reconstruction of Copan. Honduras.

32. Temple complex at Copan. Yucatan.

33. Polychrome drinking vessel. Ceremonial hunting scene with heralds blowing conch shell horns.

36. ► Slides

37. Written History ► Reading Mayan glyphs Pattern recognition not enough to translate. ► Sir Eric Thompson the leading Mayan epigrapher until his death in 1974.* ► Insights made by Yuri Valentinovitch Knorosov in 1960’s of syllabic fusion of separate elements into one glyph.

38. The struggle ► Several theories about Mayan glyphs in competition: pictographic; phonetic; syllabic; symbolic--non spoken; esoteric magic… ► Bitter rivalries and harsh words into the 1980’s. ► Sir Thompson shown to be almost fully incorrect in his analysis. ► Current approach has almost unanimous support

39. Your struggle ► Reading a page from one of the only surviving Mayan books. ► Page from the Dresden Codex  Pattern recognition ► Clues ► spaces

40. ► Proceed the way an epigrapher would…seek patterns.

42. Patterns ► Look for groupings ► Note: the Maya counted in base 20 ► Read the numbers ► Place value system as in our familiar base 10, but … ► Instead of 1’s, 10’s, 100’s (10x10) the Maya counted in the 20’s, 400’s (20x20) and so on. ► They get some really big numbers.

43. Maya people today

46. ► Throughout Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras ► Discriminated minority. ► Mostly poor and rural. ► Maintain some language and a few cultural arts and traditions. ► Mostly Catholic, but practice blended faith.

48. What does it mean? ► We need to calculate the values shown. ► Which way do the numbers go and how do they group? ► Experimentation is the only way to solve this.

49. Mayan Accomplishments ► Mathematics ► Astronomy ► Engineering ► Irrigation agriculture ► Trade ► Architecture ► Writing and sacred libraries