Stuff we have learnt about the Maya (and laundry)

The Maya Civilisation has been a backdrop to our entire trip.

Omec 1200 to 400 BC. Worlds first writting system 900BC
Maya 1000BC to 1500s AD. Hieroglyph writing system, mathematics with a zero, great art and architecture
Aztecs 1200 to 1521 Great city Tenochtitlan, now the site of Mexico City. Brought to a sudden end by the Spanish invasion

Maya cities stretched from Mexico to Honduras. What we see today is just the religious and administrative centers. The actual cities were vast with typically 40,000 inhabitants

It was once thought that Maya had a unified, peaceful, enlightened civilisation. When their Hieroglypths were deciphered it was realised that the Maya where acutaly a collection of waring city states




Teotihuacan, near Mexico city. 250 to 700 AD. The Sun Pyramid from the Moon Pyramid. This city was abandoned long before the Aztecs arrived, the people had destroyed the local environment and could no longer grow enough food
Tikal, Guatamala and its dramatic jungle setting
The Maya Calender. Every 365 days they would extinquish all fires and break all potery. Every 52 years they build new temples, often over the existing ones so they got bigger and bigger. The Maya Long Count ends with the end of the world on 23 Dec 2012



Chicomoztoc. Masive mountain fortification. No one is sure what it was used for. Legend tells of an evil priest who lived their. The people asked their gods to destroy the priest and they did this 'with great heat'. Even today the Huichol people take a long detour on their annual pilgrimage to avoid the place

Copan, Honduras (420-822 AD)

Names matter. Copan was one of the important cities. It was rulled by Moon Jaquar, Snake Jaquar and Smoke Serpent, then along came Eighteen Rabbit. Guess which ruler was defeated and decapitated

Nearly all the cities collasped due to the strain they put on the environment. The temples and pyramids needed fast amounts of wood and lots of workers. They destroyed the forests and exhausted the farm land. Any additional strain, such as a drought or war with another city caused harvests to fail, social collaspe and the abandonment of the city. A lesson here for us - they must have thought the cities would last for ever

The Maya live on in the indeginous peoples. They have absorbed Christianaity into their believes. In places they have even taken over the Churches.

Part of a Maya ritual on the steps of a Catholic Church. Inside complex rituals are carried out in the aisle. They believe thier ancestors live in the nooks and crannies of the church.

There is a revival in Mexico of interest in their prehispanic culture. Teenagers find it all very cool and all the sites are full of school children who seem fascinated by what they are seeing


Human hearts ripped out of the still living body were placed in the stomach


Palenque. Stunning jungle setting and burial plave of the Jade mask


Chichen Itza 300-925AD. Now a modern wonder of the world




Tulum overlooking the sea. First Spanish to see it thought iot more beautiful than Seville



The Ball Game was central to the culture.I t always ended up human sacrifice. In some areas it was the winning team, in others the losing team. You could be sacrificed for sending the ball in a direction deemed to have annoyed the sun



'Aztecs' outside the remains of their massive temples in the middle of modern Mexico City



The Aztecs had been told to build their city where an eagle, sits on a cactus eating a snake in the middle of a lake - modern day Mexico City



The only bit of canal system left in Mcxico City that gives any idea what the Aztec city was like

When Marilyn says don´t put the blue shirt you bought in the market in the laundry, she means - when you do it will cause ALL of our clothes to turn blue or a dirty grey colour and she will get very pissed off.