Back in the ancient days, there were some really insane religious beliefs and ceremonies, at least by today’s standards. One such example was a cave discovered just this year in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, where Mayans would worship their rain God, Chaac, in the hopes of having a fruitful and productive winter. It’s been claimed that the cave had over 150 ancient Mayan relics perfectly intact inside the cave, as it had not been touched by humans for more than one thousand years.
These caves aren’t just regular places for the Mayans. Holley Moyes, a Maya historian from the University of California, explains that In Mayan mythology, caves represented the entrances to the underworld and were considered as some of the most sacred spaces on earth. Researchers found various items in these caves, including incense, food offerings in bowls, and what appears to be clay art representing the rain God, Chaac. It seems their attempts were successful, as the Mayans thrived for many more years to come. This abundance of resources is speculated as one of the chief reasons why the Mayans eventually disappeared. Here’s how their quick growth ended up negatively affecting them…
Mayan Pyramids
Yup, contrary to popular opinion, not only the ancient Egyptians built pyramids! The Mayans did it way before it was cool. According to historians and archeologists, these triangular structures were mostly built for religious purposes, and there were two types of pyramids. The first was meant to be climbed by the citizens, with the goal of performing human sacrifices at the top. These were built as a long array of stairs that were challenging but possible to climb up.
The second type of pyramid was a sacred one. These were not built for climbing and mainly existed as temples to honor and respect the various gods. Just like in a good Indiana Jones film, these temples were built with various traps such as fake doors and steep stairs in order to dissuade any potential visitors who were not priests from entering these sacred quarters. These pyramids were also built with weather and astrology in mind and were often placed and constructed to create magnificent spectacles of light and shadow. For example, the El Castillo pyramid was built for the deity named Kukulcan and was purposefully constructed to create a shadow in the form of a snake, this is because Kukulcan, the aforementioned semi-god, is shaped like a snake himself in Mayan mythology. One of the most favorable construction ideas that were done in the Mayan culture, was to build new buildings on top of old ones, similarly to modern times. Here's how they pulled it off...
Their Newer Structures Were Built On Top of Old Structures
One way that real estate developers and governments deal with a rise of the human population in fixed-sized cities is by continually building higher and higher buildings. New York City is a fantastic example of a city with seemingly more skyscrapers than regular buildings and it works wonderfully to take care of population density issues, except for parking and traffic congestion issues, of course. The Mayans used to deal with some very similar issues, and they solved them using the exact same methods of continually building higher on top of existing structures, but they did it in a very different way than what you may have imagined.
One of the more interesting things about many structures built by the Mayans is that they were built in a way where the roof was often ready to get more structures on top of it if needed. This allowed the building to resume when necessary. It's important to remember that back then, building things took a LOT more time, sometimes decades, not mere years. As an example, an air photographer recently spotted a long building that was originally built about 2,500 years ago. The building had another structure on top of it, which was actually built 1,000 years later - as shown by archeological testing. We've stated before that the Mayans were quite a religious culture. Did you know they actually worshipped in caves? More about that now…
Depleted Natural Resources Due to Unexpected Overpopulation
The more prosperous a society later becomes, the faster its population grows. Our population on planet earth was five billion people merely a few decades ago and is quickly approaching ten billion in the next few years. The same thing happened with the Mayans, where it's highly speculated that the population experienced an unprecedented growth spurt due to an overabundance of resources. Their infrastructures were allegedly not built to handle such a large population at the time, causing forest destruction and depletion of natural resources.
This is in spite of the Mayans having some brilliant strategies for clever saving, such as rotating crops to preserve the soil. These millions of people could have also been wiped out due to a severe drought that lasted for more than a few years, because unlike our society — Mayans did not have access to canned goods that can keep feeding the population for many years regardless of harvesting and farming shortages. Then there was also the problem of water, as it would be nearly impossible to give water to millions of Mayans in the case of a severe drought, despite their intricate irrigation systems. Luckily for us, the Mayans invented one of the earliest written languages in human history and liked to write, a lot. However, these documents did not all last due to the Spanish forces. More on that next…
They Invented One of the First Written Languages
One of the most tragic things that happen during wartime is the systematic destruction of various documents, journals, and art pieces, either by the winner of the war as an official declaration of supremacy or in many cases, by the loser, in an attempt to hide sensitive information. It's quite self-evident why history and society take great interest in the knowledge and discoveries of the Mayan people, as there were many great benefits to be gained there. Luckily, they employed one of the earliest written languages in mankind's history. The Mayans were heavy writers and tended to write often on everything including stone, stucco, wood, pottery, and even clothes.
Although their complicated language took many decades to figure out, it was no match for the combined intellect of many of the world's finest historians and language experts, who managed to decipher it in the early 20th century. Unfortunately, the Spanish destroyed the majority of that writing when they conquered the Mayan territory, leaving only a small minority of the original writings left in the form of stone monuments from the priest's altars. It's been noted that they wrote about almost every subject, and had a very philosophical point of view about the nature of personal property, culture, and religion. Although the Mayans were deeply religious, they were also very adept at the time in health practices which have been improved but not stopped, even in modern times. Here's what they knew about it…