Before the monotheistic religions, it was common practice to worship many gods, each representing various emotions and acts such as love, anger, lust, war and more. The gods that Mayans believed in would act much like humans, they would eat, drink, do their business, fight, debate and more.
One very cool thing about the Mayan gods was that they were completely mutable, meaning that they could change almost anything about themselves including their gender, age, appearance and more. These gods were powerful rulers of every aspect of reality from controlling the weather to human emotions and even future events unfolding. This caused the Mayan scholars to have a tough time trying to name and define all of them.
Human Sacrifice Was Rarely Performed On Their Own People
Religious beliefs in deities and God have been around for hundreds of thousands of years - pretty much since man was created and began searching for a higher being. The Mayans were no different, and it was deeply important to them to keep their gods happy by offering them the blood of the living.
Although human sacrifice was regarded as a virtue, the Mayans had a strong preference towards disposing of those who were not part of their civilization. So, an enemy king was considered their most revered of prizes. Sacrifices were done in various ways, including decapitation, being speared by arrows, and the infamous Mayan heart removal, which was popularized in cinema. Body painting was an important part of the preparation process for the soon to be victims in the human sacrifice ritual. The Mayans believed they were doing others a favor by sacrificing them. Here's why…
You're Welcome!
Stories of the underworld and paradises appear in almost every major civilization that has been known to man, from the Greeks who believed that Hades ruled the Underworld which was guarded by his trusty three-headed dog, Cerberus, up to the modern Christians who literally believe in heaven and hell. The Mayans believed that people who die are transported into the underworld, called Xibalba, which consisted of levels, similar to the nine circles of hell described in Christianity, only much worse.
The Mayans believed that their underworld consisted of thirty-two levels, with the first nine required to get back to earth, and the next twenty-three to reach paradise. In their culture, this journey was a very hostile one with evil forces actively trying to prevent you from getting there in various painful ways. Several groups of people were exempt from this process. These included anyone who was sacrificed, women and children who died during birth, those that committed suicide, and anyone who dies while fighting on the field of battle. Mayans didn't have just one God, instead, they worshipped over 165 different ones. And they were apparently much more like us than you might think. Read on to find out how...
The Mayans Built a Massive Infrastructure
Many people believe that the problems we are facing today in cities such as New York, Tokyo, and London are somehow new. Not only was overpopulation a common historical problem, it actually was successfully dealt with even by the Mayans, who had nothing close to the modern means we have today.
The challenges that they were faced with included the need for proper water supply, which led to the Mayans building a water management system which spanned across hundreds of square miles and had to be built by hand due to a complete lack of machines and vehicles. The main source of water for the Mayans was cenotes, which were surface pools of water, all of which were connected by an underground tunnel system that helped move the water. There have been more than 2,000 of these interconnected Mayan cenotes found by archeologists to date. In the real-estate department, Mayans were very careful planners and often put a lot of thought and strategy behind their buildings and structures.
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...