Irish Neolithic Tombs

Ireland is littered with ancient stone monuments; from castles dating back a few hundred years to tombs dating back five thousand years. This entry deals with the ancient tombs, of which there are the remains of more than 1,300 throughout the island.

Background

Thousands of years ago, Ireland was sparsely populated by a hunter-gatherer community. In about 4000 BC, the Neolithic Farming Revolution arrived in Ireland, bringing a farming lifestyle to the country. It is not known how much of this was new people arriving and how much was the native people changing their way of life; there's no doubt that the farm animals were brought to Ireland from abroad in boats, so communication and trade with other countries was obviously taking place. However it happened, Ireland developed into a farming country with settled communities. This period was called the Neolithic or New Stone Age. It lasted from about 4000 BC to about 2000 BC. During that period, these farmers set about clearing Ireland's primeval forest and converting it to farming land.

The Stone Age people did not build houses of stone; they lived in wooden huts with thatched rooves. Stone was used for their tools: axes, knives and ploughshares. Initially, flint, which cracks to form a very sharp edge, was used but later a polished black stone called porcellanite was used instead. Though not as sharp, it wore better.

Despite living in wooden huts, these early people buried their dead in elaborate stone tombs. The existence of these tombs tells us a few things:

People lived in communities, rather than in solitary farmsteads. The tombs used very large stones which could not have been shifted by a single person. Gangs of people working together would have been required to build a tomb.

Far more people were needed to build a tomb than could be buried in the tomb, so only some people got buried in tombs. This suggests a stratified society with some sort of a chief or priest receiving special treatment.

These people must have believed in some sort of afterlife. Topographical alignment of the tombs suggest that these people held the sun as very important, perhaps suggesting a heliocentric belief.

Although the stones used to make the tombs were crude and unshaped, their positioning was very precise in relation to the position of the sun. Most are aligned in definite directions to face the rising sun on a particular day. In the most elaborate, sun would shine down passageway on an auspicious day of the year, indicating that ancient people were skilled observers of the skies and capable of keeping records over many years.

Some stones are decorated with abstract spirals, triangles and zigzags and represent early rock art in Ireland.

The Basic Design of a Neolithic Period Tomb

All the tombs and other later constructions such as stone circles in this entry can be described as 'Megalithic' (Greek: 'Mega' - big, 'Lithos' - stone). The basic tomb has three features:

Chamber - this is a stone-lined space in which the corpse would have been laid. The body was sometimes cremated and the ashes placed in a stone basin or in an earthenware pot. Other times, the body was buried. There seems to be no preference between burial and cremation: often both methods were used in the same tomb. Larger chambers can hold 20 people standing, others are no bigger than a box 1m2.

Doorway - consists of two upright flat stones facing each other and a lintel stone above. These stones seem to have been symbolically important, as they were always present, even though the other parts of the tomb varied considerably over the centuries.

Mound - in most tomb designs, the whole structure was covered in a mound of clay and stones, so that all that was visible from the outside was a mound with a stone doorway.

There were four basic types of tomb that were used at different times in varying parts of Ireland. Some of these are also found in other parts of Europe, such as Great Britain and Brittany.

Court Tombs

The earliest type of stone tomb found in Ireland is the court tomb, built mainly between 4000 and 3500 BC. There are more than 400 found almost entirely in the northern half of the country, being particularly common around Sligo.

The tomb itself consists of a number of square or rectangular chambers in a line, each made from flat stones standing upright (orthostats) and other flat stones across the top. A mound is then constructed over the whole tomb, usually about 25m long and about 15m wide. The line of the tomb is from west to east and the doorway into the tomb faces east. The court tomb has a flat semi-circular area in front of the doorway known as a 'court'. The court is paved with stone and surrounded by standing stones. Presumably the court was used for rituals during the funeral.

Most court tombs in existence have been damaged over the years so that the mound has disappeared and the roof stones removed, leaving only the side stones. A good example of a court tomb, which has been partially reconstructed, can be seen at Creevykeel, County Sligo.

Portal Tombs or Dolmens

Portal tombs appear to have developed from court tombs. They are so-called because of the prominence of the doorway. As well as other vertical stones, they have two very large stones forming the doorway and an enormous stone, which not only covers the doorway but also covers the whole tomb. This 'capstone' can be anything from 20 to 90 tonnes in weight and slopes with its highest point at the doorway. Portal tombs are not and were never covered in a mound but stand with the stones exposed.

There are about 180 portal tombs, usually built on low-lying ground, scattered around Ireland, mainly in Ulster but with small concentrations in South Dublin and Waterford.

A very good example of a portal tomb is the Proleek Dolmen. Situated in the Cooley peninsula to the northeast of Dundalk, it is well sign-posted and easily reached through the grounds of Ballymascanlon Hotel. This dolmen has a capstone estimated at 30 tonnes in weight.

Passage Tombs

Passage tombs or passage graves were built in the period from 3500 to 3000 BC. There are about 240. Unlike other tombs which are isolated, passage tombs tend to be built in 'cemeteries', that is, collections of a large number of such tombs. The most significant of these cemeteries are in County Meath at Brъ na Bуinne and Loughcrew, and in Sligo at Carrowkeel and Creevykeel.

Passage tombs are a development of court tombs: the chamber is large and often cross-shaped, with a narrow stone-lined passage leading to it. The mound is circular and can be enormous. The biggest of these is more than 80m in diameter. Newgrange at Brъ na Bуinne in County Meath is the best example of a passage tomb and is open to the public. Excavations around Newgrange show that originally the front of the mound was faced with white stones. All the way around the base of the mound was a ring of large stones covered in engravings. There are also engravings inside the passage and chamber. However, these are the only Neolithic tombs to show any sort of engravings. The patterns are abstract ones - spirals, diamonds and zigzags, although it has been speculated that some of them represent the phases of the moon.

While the court tombs always faced east, the passages of the passage tombs point in many different directions. Many were built to align with the sun so that the sun's rays could shine down the passage on a significant date: for example, passages facing southeast catch the rays at sunrise on the winter solstice, as happens in Newgrange. Passages facing west were aligned with the setting sun at the equinox. Some of the bigger mounds might have had two separate passages, each aligned to a different solar event.

In smaller tombs, the roof of the chamber was made from flat slabs of rock placed directly on the side walls. For larger chambers of the bigger tombs such as Newgrange, this was not possible as the span is too wide. A different technique called 'corbelling' was used. A first layer of slabs rested on the walls and projected a short way, the next layer projected further, and so on until the final slab covered the hole in the centre. This gave the chamber a crude domed shape.

Passage tombs were usually built on the tops of mountains so that they could be seen from a long way off. The 'Fairy Castle' cairn on the top of Two Rock Mountain just south of Dublin, for example, can be seen 40 or 50 miles away (about 60 or 80km).

Wedge Tombs

The Wedge Tomb is the smallest and latest of the tomb types. These were built at the very end of the Neolithic Age from about 2500 to 2000 BC. There are more than 500. About quarter of all wedge tombs are in County Clare, another quarter in Southwest Ireland, and the remaining half are scattered mainly around the west and northwest of the country.

Here the chamber has become just a box. The passage widens to the doorway, in the wedge shape that gives the tomb its name. The whole thing is capped with flat stones and covered in a very small mound, sometimes only one metre high. Nowadays, the mound has been eroded away, leaving only the box-like stones of the tomb. Wedge tombs are usually built about three-quarters the way up a mountain, and the doorway nearly always faces southwest.

A good example of a wedge tomb can be found at Lough Gur, a wonderful site in County Limerick with many ancient remains, including the Great Stone Circle, the biggest in Ireland. Follow the signs from Limerick to Lough Gur, as far as the car park. Turn left out of the car park, bear right, turning right again at the next crossing. The tomb is signposted on your left. If you get as far as the new church, then you've gone too far. The tomb was built in about 2500 BC and is about 8m by 3.5m. The burial 'gallery' is divided into two chambers. Originally, it would have had a mound over it. Archaeological excavation has revealed the remains of at least eight adults and four children buried in it.

The Bronze Age Arrives

Around 2000 BC, bronze goods started arriving into Ireland. This was the beginning of the Bronze Age. There was a gradual shift to a new form of society with different customs. This might or might not have been caused by the arrival of the new technology and the whole culture required to mine the copper and refine it. Burial customs changed with the end of large tomb building and the start of smaller stone-lined graves called 'cists'.

The Bronze Age people specialised in another type of large stone monument, unconnected with tombs: the stone circle. But that's another story!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A3181673

Determining Geologic Time

If the age of the Earth were represented as the length of one's arm, with the shoulder representing the beginning of geologic time, the dinosaurs would have died out about where the wrist would be and all of human existence could be measured by the tip of a fingernail.

However, geologists typically divide the duration of time since the Earth came into being in different terms. The names of periods and eras they use will be referred to during this entry; please refer to this Geologic Glossary for definitions of unfamiliar terms.

The Law of Superposition

Superposition is a term applied to strata or layers of material deposited in low places on the Earth's surface by natural processes over time. The Principle of Superposition simply states that the lower strata or layers are older than the upper layers because they were deposited first. This means we can date a stratum or layer relative to the strata above and below it.

Strata are almost always deposited in horizontal layers, at least initially. This also means that if, for example, we find an exposure of strata that is tilted, then we can conclude that the event that caused the tilting is younger than the strata that was tilted.

This is how we know that a tilted exposure of the Fountain Formation on the eastside of the Front Range of the Southern Rocky Mountains is not material eroded from that range but from a much older range that preceded it. The Fountain Formation then is one of the few pieces of the evidence that we have that the former Ancestral Rockies ever existed.

Igneous intrusions into strata can also be dated as younger than the strata. Such intrusions are magma or molten rock from deep in the Earth's crust, or mantle. When they extrude on the surface we call them lava flows, or volcanic eruptions.

Radiometric Dating

Such igneous intrusions (or extrusions, for that matter) are important for dating geologic time intervals because they give us the opportunity to assign absolute as well as relative dates. Igneous rock often contains radioactive elements with a known half-life. By measuring the proportion of the element to the products of its radioactive decay, we can determine the number of years since the rock containing the element was molten, and hence intruded into (or extruded onto) the strata.

Paleomagnetism

There is, however, another way to obtain absolute dates.

The Earth has a magnetic field, as anyone who has used a magnetic compass to determine which way is North will know. The direction that the north end of the compass needle points has actually changed 180° periodically during the Earth's history. These magnetic reversals have occurred more or less randomly and persisted for different durations so that any given sequence of reversals will differ from other sequences.

It is possible, therefore, to associate magnetic reversal sequences worldwide with different geologic eras and, in conjunction with radiometric studies1, assign absolute dates to those eras.

Molten rock is continually upwelling on these zones. As the rock solidifies, it preserves a record of the direction of the Earth's magnetic North. That record is then pushed outwards from the spread zone as more molten rock is extruded and the cycle is repeated. The resulting records represent the state of the magnetic field over time. These are the sequences referred to above.

The Principle of Faunal and Floral Succession

Previous to the introduction of paleomagnetic studies, such worldwide dating was accomplished by the use of fossils under the Principle of Faunal and Floral Succession. In the evolution of life on Earth certain assemblages of creatures have followed others. Formations in which dinosaurs predominate are earlier than formations in which mammals predominate, for example. Signature fossils become associated with certain sequences of strata or sedimentary layers. If those same fossils are found in other strata, it is assumed that the sequences are approximately contemporary and can, therefore, be calibrated in time.

Another example relates to well established fossil records, such as that associated with Mesozoic Ammonites, and relatives of the modern nautilus. Because these creatures changed over time, their different forms were represented in different strata or layers. These could be used to resolve the relative dates of horizons or layers in marine deposits all over the world. This in turn could be used to date shoreline deposits that interleaved with the marine deposits.

Other Methods

Dendrochronology, the analysis of tree rings to determine time spans, can be utilised to resolve yearly changes within a specific era. It isn't particularly satisfactory for assigning absolute dates earlier than a few thousand years ago. However, since tree trunks sometimes fossilise, the method is not limited to the Holocene but has been applied as far back as the Mesozoic to resolve shorter time spans. It is sometimes used for calibration of Carbon 14 methods, which are radiometric.

Varves, the seasonal layers of sediment deposited in lakes, are discernable in Precambian formations and, therefore, somewhat more useful than dendrochronology because they can apply to periods before trees existed.

Presumed varve couplets located in ancient Lake Florissant yield estimates for the life of the lake of 2500 - 5000 years, however, the lake deposits date from the upper or latest Eocene, about 34 million years ago. As we go back further in geologic time, such fine resolution in formations is not easily attained.

Conclusion

Geologic time deals with durations of millions and sometimes billions of years. The average horizon resolution2 in this immense span of time would still be measured in hundreds of thousands of years until we approach relatively recent times.

Radiometric and paleomagnetic studies in conjunction with applications of the faunal and floral succession allow us to devise a pretty precise time scale for what has happened on earth over aeons. Various stratigraphies can be correlated with these dating techniques, as well as dendrochronology and varve analysis, to determine such things as how the Earth's climate has changed, how the continents have drifted around the Earth, how seas have inundated continents, how mountain ranges have risen and been eroded away, and how life has evolved.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A882209

David and Goliath - Archaeological Evidence

Most people will be familiar with the Old Testament story related in 1 Samuel, chapter 17, in which a shepherd boy, David, armed only with a slingshot, slays the giant, Goliath.

The background to this story is that Goliath of Gath, a hero of the Philistine army, standing some six cubits1 and a span in height (299cm; nearly ten feet), challenged the Israelite army to provide a man to fight him. Despite Goliath's vast size and the fact his armour consisted of a bronze helmet, bronze mail armour weighing 5000 shekels (or 80kg - compare this with 14th-Century full-body plate armour which weighed up to 36kg) and a shield, David was able to kill him with single stone directed at his forehead.

The David of this story was a shepherd and skilful minstrel and, indeed, by the time of this event he was a musician at the court of Saul, the first king of Israel. In his book The Bible as History, Hodder and Stoughton (1956), Werner Keller says:
For his poetry alone a modern David would have been a Nobel Prize winner. Yet like the mediaeval troubadours he was poet, composer and musician rolled into one.

Following this triumph, Saul took David on as commander of his troops.

David was the son of Jesse, a farmer of Bethlehem, and eventually became the first king to rule a united Israel in Palestine. According to the genealogies given in Matthew and Luke, David was an ancestor of Christ and so is of vast significance theologically. Christ was the son of Joseph the carpenter and Mary, and Joseph was a descendant of David. But theologically, Christ is considered to be the son of God himself, thus making Joseph Christ's foster father.

The question is, were David and Goliath real people, or is this story merely a myth written centuries after it was supposed to have occurred, as some scholars claim? Is there any evidence that this event could really have occurred?

Recent archaeological discoveries in Israel provide the faintest glimmers that this story could have some basis in fact.

David

Despite the accounts of David's life and exploits as recorded in the Bible, many scholars have doubted that King David actually existed.

However, in 1868 an inscribed basalt stone, dating from the 9th Century BC - known as the Moabite Stone2 or the Mesha Stela - was discovered at Dibon, Jordan; an ancient city east of the Dead Sea, by FA Klein, a German missionary. The stone was 1.1m high and 0.6m in breadth and in thickness, rounded at the top. It consisted of thirty-four lines, written in the ancient Hebrew alphabet, a script closely related to Phoenician; and was set up by Mesha3 at Dan as a record and memorial of his victories.

The stone was, unfortunately, much fragmented but in 1993 a French scholar, Andre Lemaire, who had spent seven years piecing it all together, discovered the words 'House of David'. Line 31 of the Moabite Stone contains the words '...the sheep of the land. And the house (of Da)vid dwelt in Horonen'. This was reported in Biblical Archaeology Review, May-June, 1994. and created such a sensation that it was also reported on the front page of The New York Times. This inscription showed that Israel and Judah were important kingdoms in the 9th Century BC, and refuted the positions of those scholars who claimed that these were never nations of any significance, and even disputed that David had ever been at the head of a united monarchy.

A report in Biblical Archaeology Review, March-April 1994, states:
Avraham Biran and his team of archaeologists found a remarkable inscription from the 9th Century BC that refers to the 'House of David' and to the 'King of Israel'. This is the first time that the name David has been found in any inscription outside the Bible. That the inscription refers not simply to David but to the 'House of David', the dynasty of the great Israelite king, is even more remarkable.

Goliath

It is thought that the name 'Goliath' was an Israelite phonetic translation of the Philistinian name, Aylattes.

Goliath himself was a member of the Anakim4, a race of giant people who inhabited the Philistine cities in the neighbourhood of Hebron. The Anakim appear to have been an aggressive, war-mongering people who terrified the Israelites.

The Philistines

The Philistines were a people who, from the 12th Century BC, occupied the coastal lowlands of Palestine; and who gave their name to that country. They were organised under five lords who ruled at the five chief Philistinian cities: Gaza, Ashdod, Askalon, Gath and Ekron. Gath, the home of Goliath, was situated on the frontiers of Judah and, nowadays is identified with Tell-es-Safi, where crusaders built the castle of Blanche Garde.

The Philistines are believed to have invaded Israel in the 11th Century BC. They were highly civilised, skilled in agriculture and commerce; and brought in their own culture and language. Apart from this, not much is known about their language and writing.

Furthermore, the Philistines were technologically advanced, and possessed iron weaponry5, this being much harder and more durable than bronze and copper, used by the more primitive Israelites.

Archaeological Findings at Tell-es-Safi

Tell-es-Safi (known as Tel Tsafit in Hebrew) is a mound, some 100 acres in size, which occupies a commanding position on the border between the Judean foothills (known as the Shephelah) and the coastal plain; approximately halfway between Jerusalem and Ashkelon. It was continuously inhabited from the Chalcolithic6 period (4th millennium BC) until 1948 and, nowadays, is one of the largest and most important pre-Classical period archaeological sites in Israel.

In 2005, archaeologists from the Bar-Ilan University in Israel, while digging at Tell-es-Safi, uncovered a shard of pottery bearing the inscription ALWT and WLT, written in the archaic proto-Canaanite language dating back some 3,000 years to 950BC. This uses a different script from the Roman alphabet used in modern Western languages. The shard, measuring 6cm in length, is thought to come from a bowl of 15 to 20cm diameter. The dating puts it within 50 to 100 years of when standard Biblical chronology suggests that David met Goliath and also makes it the oldest Philistine inscription ever discovered. Professor Aren Maeir of the Bar-Ilan University says that the words ALWT and WLT are non-Semitic and are similar to the word 'Goliath'. Certainly, the inscription appears to be written in script which is closely related to Phoenecian. Phoenecian is written from right to left, and the A, W and T in the inscription are Phoenician, whereas the 'L' appears to be a sort of spiral like a G or a 6. (A Phoenician 'L' looks more like our Roman 'L', but with the two lines forming an acute angle. Hence, the entire script is not exactly Phoenician, but is closely related to it).

Although this finding at Tell-es-Safi does indicate that 'Goliath' was a name used in this area at that time; it would be extremely unlikely to have any connection with the person of the David and Goliath legend. It certainly does not prove that a ten-feet-tall giant actually existed. Note that other sources, for example Josephus, (Antiquities 6.171) and a Dead Sea Scroll fragment known as 4QSama both give Goliath's height as 'four cubits and a span', as do certain other editions of the Septuagint, or Greek translation of the Old Testament (285 - 246BC). Therefore, it is possible that Goliath was, in fact, closer to six feet nine inches tall, which might still have been considered to be 'giant' in those days.

Summary

Although the archaeological evidence leaves no doubt that King David of Israel was a real historical figure; and that Goliath was a name extant in the region at the same time, there is as yet no proof that a giant named Goliath fought with the future King David and was slain.

For those interested in 'the Bible as history', it is interesting to note the extent to which modern archaeology is able to uphold even the most ancient of biblical texts.

1 A note about measurements used would be appropriate here. The cubit is a unit of linear measurement, from the elbow to the tip of the longest finger of a man. This unit is commonly converted to 0.46 metres or 18 inches, although this varies according to the proportions of the man doing the measurement. A span is the length from the tip of the thumb to the tip of the little finger when the hand is stretched out (about 23 cm), and a shekel is a measure of weight approximately equal to 16 grams.
2 It is interesting to note that the Moabite Stone contains the earliest known extra-Biblical occurrence of the tetragrammaton.
3 Mesha was ruler of the small kingdom of Moab, east of the Dead Sea, in the mid-9th Century BC. Everything known about the Biblical Mesha is recorded in 2 Kings, chapter 3.
4 Mentioned in the Old Testament at Numbers 13:22, 28, 33; Deuteronomy 1:28; 2:21; and Joshua 11:21.
5 The Iron Age commenced in Israel during the days of the Judges. The book of Judges is believed to have been written by the prophet Samuel around 1050 to 1000BC.
6 A prehistoric age spanning approximately the years 4500 - 3500BC, between the Neolithic and Bronze ages. It was characterised by the human use of copper and stone tools. The word is derived from the Greek words for copper (chalcos) and stone (lithos).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A9914268

Ancient Mayan Cultures

 The cultures of Central America1 are recognised as one of the great early centres of human civilisation, on a par with Mesopotamia and the valleys of the Nile, Ganges and Yellow Rivers. Several civilisations arose in the region, sharing some common elements. The Mayans were not the first of these, but, along with the Aztecs, they are among the best known. 

Early Mesoamerican Cultures

The first true civilisation in the Americas was that of the Olmecs, on the Caribbean coast of what is now Mexico. From the Olmecs developed the Toltec civilisation, which in turn influenced the Aztecs in arid central Mexico.

Meanwhile in the south of Mexico and the regions of Central America that are today Guatemala, Honduras and Belize more fertile conditions supported a different culture: that of the Mayans. Although these areas are now largely rainforest, at the time they would have been fertile plains and light woods. The Mayans (or simply the Maya) appear to have developed alongside other Mesoamerican cultures during this Pre-Classic period, sharing religious and architectural developments with them, particularly the Aztecs.

Maya legends place their origin in 3,113 BC at the creation of the world, although modern archaeologists first identify the Maya as a distinct group in around 2,600 BC. They were nomadic hunter-gatherers for a long time, with their first cities being founded around 300 BC. It was not until much later that they reached the heights now known as their Classic period.

One notable difference between the Mayan and Old World classical civilisations is that the former did not arise around a major water-course. Instead, the Maya obtained their water primarily from underground sources, via naturally occurring sinkholes known as cenotes in the limestone rock.

Classic Period, 300 - 900 AD

Rather like the Greeks, but unlike the Inca or Aztecs, the Mayans had a series of city-states that were politically independent, with similar (but not identical) cultures. Cities such as Tikal, Palenque, Yaxchilán, Copán and Quirigua traded and fought with each other, and seem to have been heavily influenced by the culture of Teotihuacan in central Mexico. 

Mayan politics was hugely complex, with trading alliances, royal marriages, wars and feuds taking place between all the cities. The collapse of Teotihuacan in around 650 AD had a knock-on effect on Mayan politics, with dramatic shifts in the power relationships between the various cities. This also seems to have heralded the peak of Mayan culture in terms of arts, science and population; their cities were larger and their astronomy - particularly with regard to the movements of Venus - more accurate than anything in Europe at the time.

The Mayans had a complicated calendar, and a system of writing using distinctive rounded hieroglyphs. They shared with other Mesoamerican cultures a fondness for monumental architecture, and their ziggurat-like temples are particularly well-known. Sites such as Palenque show that some of their palaces were equally imposing, although the majority of people would have lived in wooden suburbs that have left no visible trace 2.

Mayan artworks were among the most beautiful of the Mesoamerican peoples, often using gold and jade. Painted murals, inked codexes and carvings in stone had an elaborate, stylised quality, often so dense with detail that it can be hard to make out the subject matter. There is often little distinction between art and writing, with publicly visible obelisks covered in inscriptions.

A network of raised roads (sacbes) connected the cities to each other and with the cenotes. These allowed easy travel through the forests and farmland that made up the Mayan territories, which was essential to supply food to cities of any great size.

The Mayans were noted traders. Mayan goods are found throughout ancient Mesoamerica; and Columbus encountered a boatload of Mayan traders in the Caribbean in 1502. We know from archaeological finds that Mayan jade and obsidian were widely traded, and it is likely that salt and perishables such as food (primarily maize but also honey and cocoa), wax, furs, cloth and slaves were too. Trade certainly brought Mayan civilisations into contact both with each other and neighbours such as the Teotihuacans. It is very likely that conflicts also ensued, although we have little historical evidence of this.

There is good evidence that some cities specialised in certain products - for example, agriculture in the lowlands, or various crafts. Other cities such as Tikal appear to have been 'middlemen' where traders could exchange goods from different regions - in the case of Tikal, food from the Petén lowlands for salt from the coast and stones (mostly obsidian and jade) from the highlands.

Remarkably, the Mayans achieved all this without access to metal tools. Although they used metals such as gold for decorative purposes, their tools and weapons were made of obsidian, wood or stone.

Mayan Religion

The Mayans had a complex pantheon, with over 150 named deities known. Some of their gods were more important than others, and the importance of each could vary over time and from place to place. Their gods were related to (but distinct from) the Aztec gods, rather as the Greek gods were to their Roman equivalents, and for similar reasons; although they shared a common origin, they developed independently.

One of the most important gods was Chac, the god of rain. He is represented with distinctive owl-like rings around his eyes. In their earliest form, these were simple loops of clay on the face of a clay model; as the centuries passed, they became incorporated into the face of the god even when carved in stone.

Mayans practised blood sacrifice. For the most part this was non-fatal, although on occasion they did offer human sacrifices like their more bloodthirsty northern neighbours the Aztecs. Usually, men would simply pierce an organ3 to give an offering. It seems likely that people of all social classes made offerings of their blood to the gods in return for divine favour. However, surviving carvings feature only the king and queen being ritually bled on state occasions. Human sacrifice was probably a rare event, restricted to executions of notable figures such as ball players or captured kings.

It has recently been suggested that many temples were erected by individuals or groups, indicating that Mayans had freedom of worship. Although several Mayan religious texts survive in the original Mayan script, the most important source on Mayan myths is the Popol Vuh, written in the 1550s in European characters and based on oral legends. It tells of the Mayan creation myths, the creation of monkeys and men, and the Hero Twins. Other notable texts include the Dresden Codex and the Paris Codex (both named for the European cities whose museums now house them). It is from texts such as these that we know about Mayan ideas of the afterlife: they believed that the dead went to Xibalba, an underground city (complete with ball court), accessed through a cave and ruled over by 12 demons who seem to have delighted in setting vicious traps and tricks for their visitors.

Part of Mayan (and Aztec) worship involved playing a game in which teams competed to pass a rubber ball through stone hoops, using only their hips and elbows. This game - known by many names including pitz and 'the sacred ball game' - resembled a cross between football and basketball. A version known as ulama is still played in parts of Mexico. Carvings from Mayan sites suggest that one team - probably but not necessarily the losers - were ritually decapitated after the game, which must have made league play difficult.

Mayan Glyphs

Most of our knowledge of Mayan society and religion comes from the illustrations and texts they carved onto the sides of buildings or upright stone pillars called stelas. The Mayans had a complex system of writing based around elaborate square bubble-like glyphs. Nearly 800 of these have been identified, both carved in stone and painted on parchment. There is some discussion over whether the Mayans invented this system from scratch or adapted a pre-existing Olmec one. The system is made of a combination of phonetic (letters) and representative glyphs (where a single symbol represents a word). These were read horizontally from the top left, like English, but written in columns only two glyphs wide.

The meaning of a glyph could be modified by adding a smaller glyph above, below, before, after or even within the main symbol. Names, particularly of rulers or lords, were often a single symbol made of a combination of other glyphs. This combined name symbol is known as an 'emblem glyph'. It is possible that the city of origin was indicated in the name, as well as a unique personal identifier and often a number.

The conquistadores4 - and in particular Bishop Diego de Landa - carried out a systematic destruction of Mayan written materials, leading to the death of the written language. Ironically, de Landa would later attempt to preserve the written language he had so effectively destroyed in order to use it as an evangelical tool, although the reduced alphabet he gave his name to bears little resemblance to the complex Mayan writings. It was not until well into the 20th century that linguists (mostly Russians such as Yuri Knorozov) began to piece the system back together enough to roughly translate most texts, starting with astronomical and calendrical writings. We now know enough to understand most of what has been written, but large sections remain unclear.

Architecture

Temples were step pyramids constructed of limestone blocks, whereas most other buildings were made of wood. Rather than being a single structure, many surviving pyramids have been repeatedly rebuilt, each time the new construction being built over the older one, with the smaller temple preserved inside the newer.

Each city was effectively a separate nation, and consequently would have a slightly different architectural style to the others. Tikal, for instance, had unusually steep pyramids, whereas Uxmal had an obsession with Chac faces. Some cities used exclusively limestone and plaster, whereas others also used brickwork. The Mayans never developed true arches. However, they made extensive use of 'corbeled (or false) arches' - overlapping layers of bricks that form a gently curving roof without giving the structural benefits of an arch.

Ball courts also appear at a number of Mayan cities, varying in size and exact shape, but all roughly H-shaped with sloping sides. Large stone buildings - probably palaces - are also known, and called acropolises. In addition, there are several unique buildings such as the 'observatory' at Palenque and the round temple at Chichén Itzá.

Collapse

The Classic era of Mayan civilisation came to an end around 900 AD. Why this happened is unclear; the cities were probably over-farming the land, so that a period of drought led to famine. Recent geological research supports this, as there appears to have been a 200-year drought around this time.

The cities seem to have disappeared slowly, rather than all at once. There is no sign of conquest from outside, although there was a period of increased warfare among the city-states - possibly over farming land or prisoners to sacrifice to the gods. It is likely that this had a cumulative effect; warfare over resources was itself a further drain on resources, encouraging further warfare.

Post-Classic Period

Around the 10th century, Mayan civilisation recovered with a shift of power northwards to the Yucatan peninsula. Chichén Itzá, Uxmal and Mayapán rose to prominence, although they would never quite reach the heights of their illustrious predecessors. Mayapán in particular ruled the entire Yucatán from around 1221 - 1441.

The revived culture had some differences, notably the apparent Toltec influence at Chichén Itzá. One obvious sign of this was in statuary such as the Chac-Mool (a reclining figure which may have been a sacrificial altar) and colossi resembling those at the Tolec site of Tula. The Toltecs were in the ascendance in central Mexico at this time; however, it is surprising that their influence should be so strongly concentrated in just one Mayan city.

The Spanish Conquest of the Mayans

The Spanish conquest of the Aztecs (1519 - 1521) and Inca (largely 1532 - 1536, with the hidden city of Vilcabamba holding out until 1572) are remembered for their speed and the great wealth they gave to the Spanish empire. The Maya were the third great civilisation that the Spanish conquered in the Americas. Their arrival spelled the end of Mayan civilisation, as well as the undermining of indigenous cultures. However, the Maya held out for much longer than their northern cousins or the more remote Inca.

First contact came in 1511 when a shipwrecked group of Spaniards were washed into what is now Belize. The most significant impact this event had was not realised until much later, however; smallpox, introduced by these mariners, decimated the Mayans.

The right to conquer Yucatan was granted by the Spanish crown to Francisco de Montejo, who launched two expeditions during the 1520s and 1530s. Despite military success and the huge propaganda boost of the destruction of the Aztecs (of which the Mayans were well aware), the Spaniards were hampered by Mayan guerilla tactics. Montejo later passed his rights onto his son, who launched a third (and more successful) expedition in 1540.

In practical terms, the Mayans were subdued by the end of the 1540s. However, due to their decentralised power structure, the inaccessible terrain and lack of precious metals as a motive for conquest, the Mayans held out against the Spanish for far longer than their Aztec and Inca cousins, with the last independent city-state not falling until 1697.

The Mayan peoples survive to this day, but as primarily rural farmers in Yucatán, Guatemala and Belize. Their languages are still spoken, but their unique system of writing has been lost, and archaeologists are only slowly piecing it back together.

1 Specifically the area known as Mesoamerica, consisting of the southern half of modern Mexico and most of Honduras, Guatemala and Belize.
2 The extent of these can be seen from satellite photography, and estimates of total populations thus made.
3 Yes, that organ. Women would pierce their tongue, and in both cases thorns were dragged through the wound to increase the bleeding.
4 Spanish imperialists who conquered the Americas during the 16th and 17th centuries.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A44196843

Early Biblical History

Top 10 Archeological Discoveries

New Discoveries in Chinese Archaeology