MAYAN ARCHITECTURE: PRE-CLASSICAL PERIOD TO THE FALL
- Introduction
The Maya people were a people who flourished in Meso-America-- notably the Yucatan peninsula-- prior to the arrival of the conquistadors from Europe. The Mayan people were already in decline when the Europeans arrived, but the European invasion of the Meso-Americas was very devastating for what remained of Mayan culture. As a result of this devastation, the art and architecture of the high classical Maya was lost for a number of years; it was swallowed up by the jungle, only to be later reclaimed and studied extensively.
The Maya are often a source of fascination, as the reasons for the collapse of their highly-evolved civilization remains a mystery. The Maya are known for their ceremonial architectural elements, but are also renowned for their very advanced system of hieroglyphics, which were lost to time when the civilization collapsed. Although ancestors of the Maya live on in the Yucatan peninsula today, the language and customs of the high classical Mayan period have long been lost to history.
- Culture and Background
The Maya were a civilization that flourished in the years prior to the Hispanic discovery of the Americas. Although the Maya would quickly become victims of the conquistadors and their superior technologies, they were a very advanced civilization. These people originated in the Yucatan Peninsula around 2600 B.C.E., making them one of the earliest groups to rise to prominence in this area. The Maya formed an expansive network of city-states over the countries of present-day Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, and Mexico. The Maya were a civilization not unlike the Romans-- great thinkers and innovators who built many of their greatest achievements on inherited inventions from earlier civilizations. The Olmec were one of these civilizations; much of the early Maya writing, architectural, and even societal foundations were built on Olmec examples.
Around 300 B.C.E., the foundational structure of Mayan society changed; the Maya began to develop a much more structured, hierarchical government that ruled the people through an aristocratic class. “Early Mayan Architects,” an article based on the movements and actions of the earliest Mayan builders, writes:
This civilization developed into highly structured kingdoms during the Classic period, A.D. 200-900. Their society consisted of many independent states, each with a rural farming community and large urban sites built around ceremonial centres. It started to decline around A.D. 900 when - for reasons which are still largely a mystery - the southern Maya abandoned their cities. When the northern Maya were integrated into the Toltec society by A.D. 1200, the Maya dynasty finally came to a close, although some peripheral centres continued to thrive until the Spanish Conquest in the early sixteenth century.
Unlike the Aztec and the Inca peoples, the Maya never developed these city-states further into empires. The Maya remained a loose connection of smaller city-states who quarrelled, traded with, and ruled over other city-states given the chance. Some of the wealthiest and most powerful city-states of the day were Chichén Itzá, Tikal, Dos Pilas, Calakmul, Caracol, Copán, Quiriguá, Palenque and Uxmal. Despite the lack of a cohesive central government, these cities shared culture, religion, and very similar architectural patterns.
Sometime between the 8th and 9th centuries B.C.E., the Maya civilization collapsed. Although these varied and massively separate city-states did not share a central government, all Mayan city-states seemed to collapse at around the same time for an unknown reason. Despite many investigations into the mystery, the collapse of High Mayan society remains a mystery. The scope of this discussion will center upon the trends in Mayan architecture through what Mayan scholars call the “Classical” Period, which ended in about 900 B.C.E.
- Ceremonial Architecture
Perhaps the most famous of the Mayan architecture is the ceremonial architecture that still survives today. This ceremonial architecture was often placed in what is termed the “city center” of planned Maya ceremonial sites. The Maya were very concerned with cosmology, and the movement of the celestial bodies; these city centers were chosen and built specifically based off a keen understanding of the astronomical movements of the planets, stars, moon, and sun. These planning choices will be investigated in more depth in Section IV, “Urban Design and Planning;” however, it is worth noting the impact these movements had on the ancient Maya before considering their ceremonial architecture.
Like many ancient societies, the Mayan society was a heavily hierarchical one. At the top of the hierarchy was royalty; right below royalty were members of the Mayan religious order, individuals who made up the clergy. The priests used limestone platforms to perform public ceremonies-- most public ceremonies did not take place in the temples or pyramids. These public platforms were raised off the ground, and were often decorated in the traditional Mayan style with carved figures. These platforms may also have contained altars and stakes that were commonly used to display the heads of human sacrifices or ballgame opponents. These stakes were called zompantli, and it was considered an honor to have one’s head displayed on these ceremonial spikes.
The palaces of the Maya were often situated very close to the center of the city. These palaces housed the elite and the royalty of the city. Of these acropoli, “Early Mayan Architects” writes”these were one-story and consisted of small chambers and typically at least one interior courtyard; these structures appear to take into account the needed functionality required of a residence, as well as the decoration required for their inhabitants stature. Archaeologists seem to agree that many palaces are home to various tombs” In short, unlike many forms of European architecture, early Mayans kept the tombs of their departed relatives close under their acropoli.
Groups
There are two types of “groups” that are often referred to by individuals who study Mayan architecture-- these groups are geographic in region, and split the Mayan culture in two based on architectural elements. The first type of group is the E-group; they are located in the “southern Maya lowlands”. These sites are sites that commonly host the quintessential stepped pyramid, like the one at Chichén Itzá.
The structure of these sites-- termed the E-group-- is distinct. The pyramid appears on the western edge of the plaza; running north to south along side of the plaza is a platform-like structure, like the structure previously discussed in this section. Finally, on the eastern side of the plaza is a “raised but rather elongated structure”. Architects have theorized that the E-group is distinctly important in terms of city planning because the architects took into account the precise position of the sun during important festivals. Perhaps the most impressive and famous example of this is the existence of the shadowy body of a snake that runs down the side of the stairs at the temple at Chichén Itzá during certain solstices and equinoxes.
There is another type of grouping that is commonly referred to by archeologists when discussing Mayan architecture, and this is the “Triadic” group. These groups were often found earlier in Mayan architecture, and are more simplistic than the E-group. They consist of a raised platform near an acropolis or pyramid (not a stepped pyramid, however). The structure of the triadic group is symmetrical, coming to a point at the center of the plaza. Solari writes, “This formal complex has been attributed varthe earthly re-creation of the Celestial Hearth (modern-day constellation of Orion), or a stage for enthronement rituals. Most recently Triadic Groups have been interpreted as sanctuaries commemorating Maize God's resurrection upon the Flowery Mountain”. Although there is no way to know conclusively what the purpose of the Mayan ceremonial structure, what has been determined from a close reading of the hieroglyphics at these sites has given archeologists direct insight into a culture that has been gone for thousands of years.
- Urban Design and Planning
Because the Maya lacked a distinct central government, they also did not have a distinct city plan. Mayan cities were built around the ceremonial complexes that they held in such high esteem and around the existing topography of the area; for this reason, two cities close to each other could even have different structures and planning systems. However, all Mayan cities did share some characteristics. The city was always built with a central plaza that served as a ceremonial center for the city. Most Mayan cities were planned with the central axes of the city as the four cardinal directions-- something distinctly different from other early societies, in which city planning was given less to sentimentality and more to functionality. Overall, Mayan cities were sprawling, chaotic entities, centralized around a ceremonial plaza, with the houses for the average citizens radiating outwards. These cities lacked the same structure as Aztec or early Roman cities, but were still given to some semblance of city planning.
- Discussion and Conclusions
The Maya continue to fascinate the world today because of their intensely advanced architecture and their knowledge of the cosmos. The Mayan calendar continues to be something that fascinates scholars and laypeople alike, and the Mayan cities draw hundreds of thousands of tourists each year. There is much to learn from these ruins, and they have much to tell scholars about the people who lived there-- how they lived, what they believed, and perhaps eventually how they died.
References
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'Mayan Astronomy'. 2012. Science 336 (6082): 643-643. doi:10.1126/science.336.6082.643-e.
O'Neil, M. E. 2010. 'The Material Evidence Of Ancient Maya Sculpture'. Journal Of Visual Culture 9 (3): 316-328. doi:10.1177/1470412910380357.
Solari, A. 2010. 'Reinterpreting Sacrality Among The Ancient Maya: Recent Works On The Deified Nature Of Death, Dance, And Geography'. Ethnohistory 57 (3): 467-470. doi:10.1215/00141801-2010-006.
