10 interesting secrets about Maya civilization

Maya civilization is a unique ancient civilization, reaching a high level in many areas such as architecture, mathematics, and astronomy, especially with a mature system of ancient writing.

Although scientists have been trying to explore the Mayan civilization for decades, there are still many mysteries around one of this humanity's most brilliant civilizations.

Maya civilization and interesting facts

Mayan people today

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There are now about 7 million Mayans living on his father's indigenous area and preserving many of the ancient cultural legacies.

Many people continue to maintain their own cultural identity, as well as use their own language as the main language. But there are also many people who are quite integrated with the modern culture of the countries in which they reside.

The squinting eyes are highly appreciated

It may seem strange, but the truth is that the Maya appreciate people with strabismus. As soon as they were young, the Mayans let the objects sway in front of the newborn's eyes to make the two young pupils converge into a spot (strabismus) permanently.

In addition, Maya children are often named after the day they were born. Each day of the year has a unique name for girls and boys.

Good doctor

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Mayan people have a method of healing that is booming and ahead of time. Mayan mages combine the spiritual and natural worlds to heal. They knew how to use hair as a thread to sew a wound, shape a broken bone, and install false teeth made of jade and weld teeth with iron pirit.

Blood sacrifice ceremony

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Blood sacrifice is an important Mayan ritual and is still maintained today. However, the modern Mayans no longer sacrifice human blood, they use chicken instead.

In addition to blood sacrifices, the Mayans also imparted many other customs such as dancing, partying, praying, burning incense, and drinking alcohol in traditional rituals.

Analgesic

The Maya often extract painkillers from plants such as cacti, entrails, certain fungi, tobacco, and some species to make alcohol . They also use them as a virtual drug sensory in religious ceremonies.

Pitch

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Playing football is a favorite sport of the ancient Maya. The game usually ends with the loss of the losing team. Playground is a public space used in many cultural events of nobility and religious activities.

Sauna

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The ancient Mayans loved to bathe in sweat and considered it an important baptism. The ancient Mayan sauna is almost like today's sauna method, built from many rocks, and the bathroom ceiling has only a small hole. Hot stones in the room are filled with water to create steam, causing the body to sweat to clear the body.

The last Mayan state existed until the 17th century

Still an independent Maya kingdom until 1697, it was the island city of Tayasal. Before this kingdom fell into Spanish rule from 3/1697, some Spanish missionaries still visited this place and preached the king.

The cause of the collapse of Maya civilization remains a mystery

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The collapse of ancient Mayan civilization has always been a big question for headache scientists seeking answers. According to researchers, the overwhelming population, foreign invasion, rebellion farmers, the collapse of key trade routes, great drought . can all be the reasons for civilization. This great recession in the 8th, 9th century and then decline.

Maya calendar - a great civilization achievement

The Maya created four separate calendar systems for different periods. The Maya used the Tzolk'in, Haab calendar system, the round calendar system and the Long Count calendar system. Depending on their needs, they will use several different types of calendars or combine two types of calendars to record an event.

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According to the Mayan calendar, the length of a year is 365 days, which is the time when the Earth rotates around the Sun. This calculation is more accurate than many of the Gregorian calendars used by Europe at the time.

Long Count calendar is based on the solar year with 365 days. One year the Sun is divided into 18 months, each month has 20 days (using the base counting system 20), five extra days are taken at the end of the year and do not belong to any year. The days of the month are recorded in serial numbers from 0 to 19 before the month name (0 to 4 for the missing month, 5 days for the end of the year).

This calendar has no leap years and continuous years of continuous success. As a result, the calendar will be deviated back to one day within 4 years. About 3,257 years have an error of almost 1 day compared to the modern Gregorian calendar.

A Long Count of the Mayan calendar lasts 5,125.36 years and is called a Great Cycle.

When matching the modern Gregorian calendar, the Mayan calendar ends on December 21, 2012. According to the Mayan calendar and writing, December 21, 2012 was written as 13.0.0.0.0, signaling the end of the Great Cycle.

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