WARFARE The city states were often at war with one another.

Some of the officials were soldiers who trained the villagers in the art of warfare. There was also a war, chief or nacom who organised battles and raised armies. At times of war the villagers were expected to join the armies of their lord and defend their lands. The men who went into battle were lightly armed. They protected themselves with feathered shields. Besides their shields, the only body protection they had was a tough padded cotton jacket which covered the chest. Their main weapons were bows and arrows, spears, and clubs edged with sharp obsidian stone. Slings were used with stones the size of eggs and there were special spears, the atlatl. After the maize had been harvested and stored away, there came the time for war. Women prepared food, such as corncakes and maize gruel, and porters followed the armies with food on their backs. Fighting was fierce and noisy. Drums, conch shells and whistles were beaten and blown to excite the soldiers- and terrify the enemy. Houses were burnt, torn down and groups of bowmen shot arrows into the enemy lines. Men who were captured in battle were taken back to the city to be used as slaves and were often sacrificed in the temples. CRAFTS People skilled in many different crafts supplied the Mayan states with clothing, tools and household implements. Many of the farmers were also craftsmen, and in each city marketplace there was a lively trade and exchange in foodstuffs and cloth, bowls, axes, animals and other goods. Cotton Cotton cloth was one of the important items of trade. The cotton was picked from plants sown every year on the farms and from wild cotton trees. Women sat at home weaving and dyeing the slender fibres on handlooms. Minerals and vegetable colours were used to make dyes. Feather work The art of making beautiful feather costumes for the soldiers and nobility was also highly developed by the Mayan women. The feather weavers made patterns with colourful plumes by twisting the feathers into the cotton threads as they worked on their looms. Feathers were brought from birds from all over Yucatan. The most highly prized feathers were from the sacred quetzal had two bright green tail feathers which were of great value and were only worn by the highest nobles in the land. A soldier's headdress was carefully arranged on a helmet of wood or basketwork. Feathers were also attached to weapons and shields. Bright feathered coats and costumes were worn by the priests. Baskets Basketry and rope-making were also great arts. Many different kinds of baskets were needed in farming for storing food and carrying crops. Basketwork was also used to make animal traps and cages. Rope

was also made from bark, vines and fibres. Rope was important in building the palaces, temples and pyramids. Hundreds of men wrapped coils of rope around their shoulders and pulled huge carved stones into position. Pottery By studying the pottery remains found in Mayan lands today, archaeologists can tell a great deal about the people who lived at the time it was made. All the Mayan pottery was made by women. They prepared the clay, shaped it, painted it and fired the ornate bowls and jars. To decorate the pots, potters ground coloured stones and minerals into powder and used them as paint. The main colours were brown, white, yellow, black and red. Pottery was well developed and was made of many styles: There were pots for holding food and water. The shape and decoration of the bowls and jars show how advanced the people were. The pictures painted on the pots also show us many things about Mayan myth and legend. Sometimes the ashes of the dead were buried in jars and sweet-smelling incense was burnt in special clay containers. Potters also made charming model figures depicting people of all walks of life. By looking at this type of pottery, we can see how the Maya dressed and can learn many things about their way of life.

Painting The art of painting on clay also led to painting on the walls of special buildings. The Mayan artists painted large colourful murals on wet plaster. These large wall pictures tell us many things about the Maya. The paintings show the stories of the famous kings and priests of the past, the wars that took place or the disasters that affected the people. The lifelike paintings also show glyphs, the Mayan form of writing, which explains what is going on in the painting. These paintings have helped the archaeologists to piece together the changes that took place among the Maya city states over 1000 years ago. Writing The Mayan high priests, or ahkin, taught the sons of noblemen how to write and reckon the months and the years. The Maya had a method of writing in symbols or glyphs. They recorded important events on big slabs of stone called stela. These writings are still visible 2000 years later and are helping us to discover more about Mayan culture. Besides carving the glyphs they also wrote on paper which was made of tree bark covered in white plaster. When the Europeans came to the Americas, their Christian priests burned all the Mayan books that they could find because they considered them to be pagan texts. Only four books of Mayan writing remain today. One form of Mayan symbol that is easy to understand is Mayan numbers. The bar (-) had a value of five and the dot (.) had a value of one. These symbols were put together until the number twenty was

reached. Twenty was represented by a shell with a dot over it. The shell by itself represented zero. By using these symbols the Maya were able to count everything from the passage of time to pumpkins and cocoa beans and write down the amount to remember it. This may sound simple to us, but as a step in civilisation it is quite an achievement. The Calendar The order of time was a system which regulated the lives of all the Maya. There was a special time of year for everything. Dates had to be recorded so everyone knew when each event would occur. To do this, the Maya developed a calendar made up of three circles that kept track of days, months and years. The haab year was made up of eighteen months or periods. Each month was twenty days long. This added up to 360, so there were five additional days to each year, which were known as vayeb, or the unlucky days. This made up a solar year of 365 years. There was also a sacred religious calendar of 260 years. The third calendar recorded the number of days since the beginning of the Mayan era, which was put at 3111B.C. No one knows why that date was important as a starting point in time for the Mayan people.

It is as if you divide our own calendar year into two and have one side for the religious feasts such as Christmas, Easter, Whitsun or Pentecost, and saints days, as well as Hindu feasts such as Divali and Muslim feasts such as Id. Then you make another calendar year for your non-religious days, such as Independence Day, school holidays, the hurricane season, August bank holiday, CARICOM Day and the rest. As for having a year to start the Mayan calendar, it is like the way we use the year of the birth of Jesus as the beginning date of our own type of calendar. With their calendar, the Mayan priests could record the eclipses of the moon and work out when it would happen again. They could note anniversaries and remember the dates of hurricanes, floods and other disasters. They believed that when certain dates came round again, the disasters would be repeated. The priest-kings were among the few people who could explain the times of the calendar to the farmers, fishermen, hunters and builders. This gave them additional power and control over the people. TRADE AND THE CITIES Writing and the development of the calendar made it possible to keep records. It helped to keep accounts of what was going on and what was being produced and traded by the Mayan people. With all the goods being made and crops being grown, there was a brisk trade between the Mayan city states and even further afield into lands which were not part of the Mayan empire. People came together to trade in large marketplaces in the cities. The Maya built fine, straight roads to link the city states together. There were many Mayan cities. The largest and most famous were Uxmai, Chichn Itz, Tikal, Copn, Mayapn and Palenque. Among the communities that became powerful civic centres at this time in

Belize were Altun Ha, Lubaantun, El Pilar, Xunantunich and Caracol. Even today, the buildings in these and other ruined cities amaze the thousands of visitors who come to see them every year. In Tikal, for instance, pyramids soar to 70 metres, towering above the jungle. These cities were also the main religious centres of the area, where the lords and priest-kings lived. People came from all the surrounding farmlands to take part in religious festivals and official ceremonies, and to trade. PYRAMIDS AND OTHER BUILDINGS The massive pyramids were made of stone, cemented together with powdered limestone. Many trees had to be cut to provide fuel for the fires which were lit to heat the limestone and turn it into the powder that was used as cement. Each city had a pyramid at its centre. They were built to be high and impressive as possible- high to be closer to the gods, and impressive to fill the farmers from the district with awe and respect for the power of the rulers. Thousands of people laboured to produce such high buildings. They carried rubble and piled it high. Then stones were cut and dragged to the site. The blocks were hauled into place by simple musclepower and then cemented together over the rubble. Such work took many years to complete. The pyramid of Kukulcn at Chichn Itz, for instance, was built over a period of 300 years. The pyramids were really temples where the king-priests worshipped and offered sacrifices to the sun god and other gods of the Mayan people. After they died, the bodies of kings were placed inside the pyramids. Other fine buildings were constructed as well: Huge places were built for the nobility of the cities Observatories were erected from which the priests and astrologers could study the stars. Everywhere stones were carved in the form of gods, noblemen and symbols which told the history of the buildings and the city. Huge ball courts were built where pok-a-tok was played, often as a part of religious ceremonies. This popular sport was rather like basketball. The players had to aim the ball straight at a stone ring set high in the wall, although in some courts there was no ring. The players had to strike the ball with their hips, elbows or knees to send it around the court. As in football, the players were forbidden to use their hands.

Try to imagine one of these Mayan cities: there are lofty pyramids with shrines and temples at the top. Hundreds of steps lead upward to these sacred places where only priests can go. Then there are the great palaces of the nobility with patios and terraces. In the ball courts, priests are blessing players as they take part in the sacred game. The market place is filled with people and goods from every part of the state. Farmers and soldiers walk across the wide plazas and noblemen are carried by their servants in curtained litters through the streets. Nearby, people are drawing water from the large cenote and at the city gates, officials are collecting taxes from each farmer as he enters with his goods. RELIGION AND FESTIVALS

Religion was an extremely important part of Mayan life, and festivals, games, music and dance were all part of religious ceremonies. As we have seen, in the Mayan calendar the year was divided into eighteen months. Each month had special festivals. The Maya worshipped many gods. They believed that some lived in the underworld, some walked the earth and others ruled the sky and the heavens. Th ebeekeeper, the corn-grower, the fisherman, the warrior, the traveller, the merchant, even the comedian and the dancer had their own gods. All gods had to be treated with respect, for they ruled the forces and gifts of nature. They had to be nourished so that they could fight off evils of drought, disease or pests. This was done by making sacrifices of crops, animals and humans, which were carefully regulated by the priests. The priests determined the best time to observe special rituals and how these should be carried out. SACRIFICE Blood was the most valuable sacrifice of all, and particularly an offering of a throbbing human heart. There were many forms of human sacrifice, but tearing out the heart was the most important. The victim was spread on his back across a sacred stone in the temple at the top of a pyramid. The nacom priest splashed open the victim's chest, pulled out the heart and placed it in a special stone container in front of the image of the god they wished to satisfy. Blood was also drawn from various parts of the body and smeared over the idols. Often, worshippers would cut themselves and use their own blood. Another form of human sacrifice was carried out at water wells, during times of crisis such as drought, epidemic or invasion. The chosen victim was brought with great ceremony to the edge of the cenote, weighted down with ornaments and stones and then thrown over the edge to drown in the deep water. MUSIC Ceremonies were accompanied by music, played in large groups. The instruments were all percussion. There were no stringed instruments in any of the early civilisations of America. The main rhythm came from a wooden drum or tunkul. There were also tortoise shells and gourd rattles, conch shells, horns, wood and clay trumpets and pottery drums. Some dances included up to 800 performers who danced in formation with streamers and decorations. Besides religious ceremonies and festivals, these performances were put on to entertain the nobility, as well as to accompany fighting during the battles between city states. THE COLLAPSE OF THE MAYA