Ancient Mayan

Europeans first discovered chocolate in 1519 when the explorer Cortes and his men drank “chocolatl” with the Aztec emperor, Moctezuma. The ancient Mayan and Aztec cultures, however, cultivated and traded cacao for many centuries before the Europeans even considered sailing away from their coastline…

During the zenith of its power in the sixth century A.D., the Mayan civilization was one of the most important and strongest civilizations in pre-Spanish Mexico and Central America. They built great stone cities that included iconic pyramid-shaped temples for the performance of their religious rituals…

Are there any Aztec inventions that are still in use in the world today? It s actually a tricky question, and it depends on what you mean by invention . The truth is that the empire of the Aztecs introduced many things to the world. But they weren t so much unique innovations as they were things they…

Queen of Uxmal limestone sculpture, AD 600-900 (Image: Consejo Nacional) The archaeologist J Eric Thompson followed in their wake, spreading his belief that the Maya had been a peaceful, rural people, whose grand urban plazas were visited only for the performance of priest-led rites on special dates…

Background Watching the sunrise from the top of Temple IV, one of the 3, documented structures in the ancient Mayan city of Tikal, is an unforgettable experience. Toucans and green parrots dart amidst a massive canopy of trees, including tropical cedar, mahogany, and kapok. The roars of howler monkeys…

That’s the translation of Och Chan Yopaat, the name of an ancient Maya ruler whose likeness dominates a remarkable carving discovered last month in a Guatemala pyramid. The carving, which depicts the ruler atop a mountain spirit, provides important clues about changes in power as Maya groups warred against…

For more than 120 years the Venus Table of the Dresden Codex - an ancient Mayan book containing astronomical data - has been of great interest to scholars around the world. The accuracy of its observations, especially the calculation of a kind of leap year in the Mayan Calendar, was deemed an impressive…

Ancient Maya subsistence or How they got their groceries Part two: Animals The Ancient Maya, like all of the pre-Columbian people of the New World, relied on wild animals as a source of protein since domesticated animals were more the exception than the rule. When the first inhabitants came to the Western…

One of the most prominent features of Hacienda Chichen Resort is that its guests have immediate intimate contact with the Maya culture, its heritage and culinary and healing holistic traditions. In fact, traditions passed from mother to daughter and father to son, through generations in utmost reverence…

The ancient Maya civilization existed for over two thousand years before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadores in the 16th century. The ancient Maya settled in Central America, southern Mexico, and the Yucatan peninsula, and are believed to have been connected to the northern areas of Mesoamerica…

For us to appreciate the extent and the significance of the Maya and Spanish contact period (i.e. when the Spaniards came into contact with the indigenous people in the early 16th century) and for a century and a half later, we must first liberate our minds from the artificial frontiers that were later…

The lower-classed members of Mayan society are still an enigma so animal bones from the civilisation were examined for cluesNASA Television/YouTube To continue providing news and award winning journalism, we rely on advertising revenue. To continue reading, please turn off your ad blocker or whitelist…

You may have come across some spectacular buildings, but have you ever stopped to wonder why they’re built that way? Math and architecture are more closely linked that you might think, so read on to discover what’s behind it all… The superlatives that describe the Great Pyramid of Giza speaks for itself:…