The Mayans, of the three great pre-Columbian civilizations (before Columbus), are the most mysterious and probably the oldest. The Mayan culture was in decline when Europeans arrived in the Americas, due to causes not yet entirely certain, perhaps due to successive wars or agriculture based on fires that would have impoverished the soil and stagnated the economy.
They developed the best calendar among ancient peoples. In fact, they are several conjugated calendars that recorded the most important events in its history. Engraved inside their temple-pyramids, each noteworthy event received a commemorative star. The pyramid pictured above is a gigantic calendar, with a staircase of 91 steps on each side, adding up to 364, plus the upper level, 365, the days of the solar year, this impressed the Europeans a lot, because even without the knowledge of the telescope had great knowledge of the stars.
If in ancient Egypt their pyramids were intended to serve as a tomb for a sovereign, among the Mayans they were intended to serve as astronomical observatories, only the priests, after a purification ritual, could go up to these observatory temples. However, in 1952 Ruz Lhuillier discovered in the "Pyramid of the Inscriptions", a spiral staircase in the floor that was completely obstructed by earth and stones, after three years of excavations to clear the way, he arrived at a burial chamber with a sarcophagus collective with six bodies with details of rituals very similar to those of Egypt, which leads archaeologists to raise the hypothesis of some Egyptian adventurer who would have arrived and gained the respect of the natives of the place.
Historians often divide Mayan history into two periods:
Old Kingdom:spans from 500 BC. until 600 AD
New Kingdom:spans from 600AD. until the Spanish invasion.
Mayan Civilization
Take the opportunity to check out our video lesson related to the subject: