> The Maya Civilization, from Central America, was one of the most advanced ancient civilizations
The Maya are still around! I spent a few months in the Guatemalan highlands last year and all the kids in the village spoke Kaqchikel, one of the Mayan languages, at home.
(Young people speaking the language is key to language health.)
The Maya are still around, but the Maya civilization's institutions were all destroyed. And the Spanish made a point of seeking out all the Maya books [1] they could find and burning them. So a lot of knowledge was lost.
For this reason, one of the most fascinating historical relics to me are the Incan Quipu [0]. Not only because their logic appears to be 'proto-computational' (at the very least a very complex system of encoding numeric and narrative information through sequences of knots that were also used directly for calculations), but since, neither in the form of a valuable material like gold nor obviously a book to be destroyed, a large enough number survived to this day. There are few traces of the past we know exist that might contain everything from astronomical calculations to old social-institutional histories.
They're comparable in that sense to the Heculaneum manuscripts, which researchers have lately made great progress on with deep learning [1]. I hope an equivalent initiative someday starts on the Quipu.
They hunted down all of the libraries, collected all of the books inside, and burned them in massive bonfires, accidentally saving a total of like 3 books which had already been shipped back to Europe as trophies. I think there are also some remaining fragments of a few others. One Spaniard wrote about it:
> We found a large number of books in these characters and, as they contained nothing in which there were not to be seen superstition and lies of the devil, we burned them all, which they regretted to an amazing degree, and which caused them much affliction.
Because it might not have been the “Spanish”, but certain people who ruined history. So it’s not fair to blame a whole country for the actions of a few.
It's pretty fair to blame the entire social and political system of 16th century Spain, which at that time was centered on religious persecution, mass murder, large-scale theft and exploitation, and quasi-slavery, leading to centuries of profoundly racist tyranny in the Americas. The book-burning cultural genocide was just the cherry on top.
(As is common for feudal occupiers of foreign lands, and by no means unique to Spain) the worst kinds of psychopaths were continually elevated to positions of authority and then granted almost complete impunity to do what they wanted, with an ideology that treated the recipients of their exploitation as sub-human.
You're literally applying birth sin for it to make sense, because none of the Spanish people alive today had anything to do with it
Even worse, what hnidiots3 was trying to convey: 99% of the population that were alive during the time period you'd have described as "Spaniards" were entirely uninvolved in these actions, and wouldn't have supported them either, likely.
While the Mayan culture was literally doing human sacrifices - the average person living in Spain wasn't inherently evil and wanting to cause suffering to other people. Despite their culture being kinda shit.
They just wanted to live their live, which was mostly being a farmer and working.
The Spanish state (crown, army, church) had just gone through several centuries of horrific mass-murder of non-Christians in Spain, where the most brutal and sadistic thugs were politically elevated. The local church was dominated by the notorious Inquisition.
We're not talking here about some random peasants living somewhere in the Iberian peninsula, nor about the Spanish people of 2025, but about the genocidal organization in control in the 16th century.
> While the Mayan culture was literally doing human sacrifices - the average person living in Spain wasn't inherently evil
Can you see how this absurd double standard may come across as racist?
At that time the Spanish crown and church weren't doing "human sacrifice" (as defined by themselves).... they were just torturing people to death and doing ritualistic public executions (e.g. by burning alive) of those considered to be non-believers, heretics, or enemies of the state.
On the other side of the coin, it's not like the "average person living in Maya kingdoms" (i.e. some peasant farmer just trying to make a living in a feudal society) was responsible for their own political elites' ritual execution of captured enemies.
I understand it's a joke and it is partially true but also there are still direct descendants of Central and South America original peoples, and also many Spanish families that exploited the conquered lands came back to the "mother land" and kept their families there.
The Spanish crown also repeatedly sent new waves of political allies to take over political control in the Americas, to counter the consolidation of power of the descendants of previous generations of Spanish rulers. There was a fair amount of conflict and intrigue between the two groups.
I agree. But “birth sin” has been modernized ever since 1945 when the psychological and emotional torment, terror, and abuse of Germans started and has not ended ever since; because the most unhinged and narcissistic people have perpetrated that endless abuse upon the German and European people due to their narcissistic injury.
That is an immensely under-appreciated aspect these types of major events; e.g., who did Spain expel and send by force or ultimatum into the “new world”.
In many ways, we are actually going through something very similar right now, Spain then, the UK a bit later, just like The “third world” today all expelled, sent, and removed by ultimatum trouble makers, criminals, problem children, zealots, etc and sent them to “the new world”, Australia/America, and Europe/USA; respectively. Currently we are living through the destruction of the “western” civilization all across the globe; and in my view, it will be the single most consequential event for all of humanity since the beginning of time, including the Bronze Age collapse and the crumbling of the Roman Empire. Yes, the total eradication of the whole civilization on the Americas by the Hispanics was also awful, but due to the relative isolation, it was less consequential. When the European global civilization that has brought humanity basically everything we currently have and take for granted crosses a negative feedback loop threshold, it will be extremely bad for all people of the world.
Humanity, what people consider that as today, is quite literally totally created and totally dependent on European peoples and cultures; the same people and cultures currently being eradicated and destroyed. That does not lead to positive outcomes, no matter if you absolutely hate Europeans or not.
I would say because it highlights that even back then there was the same kind of tension as today between those who believe they are doing right, those who also believe they are doing right, and right never ending up being done in the end. It’s like ideological, metaphysical, and psychological border disputes and skirmishes, i.e., human nature.
Also, failing upwards of those who serve the dominant system is clearly not just a modern phenomenon.
Because a previous commenter wrongly said, "the Spanish made a point of seeking out all the Maya books". It wasn't "The Spanish" it were some individual actors clearly acting against "The Spanish" crown wishes.
I'm guessing that his 1st person description of the human sacrifices carried out by the Mayan and establishing a connection between those and the need to erase the culture that enabled them and that he - wrongly or not, we can't know anymore - saw as enabled by those books had some weight there...
The Spanish crown didn't have in mind to destroy other people books, but then again, they also didn't have in mind that they casually, recurrently and nonchalantly offered human sacrifices to their "gods".
Probably the order of priorities for the Spanish crown was books < human sacrifices.
I guess that is implied since these things always happen this way, its not like book burners are just having a nice campfire and the books they dislike just happen to be close by.
I was surprised to find out that there are still many indigenous groups with populations in the millions. My California public education made it seem like they were all pretty much wiped out save for those who survived to the various reservation systems.
My favorite group is the Mapuche who managed to hold out against the Spaniards until they were conquered by Chile and Argentina in the late 19th century. They managed to thwart the conquistadors for centuries! It wasn’t until the modern era where military logistics got good enough to unseat them and overcome the advantages they had.
Even in the US, the Indian Wars weren't finished until the 1890s. In fact, most of the big wars against the Native Americans took place after the American Civil War. One of the big faults I have with US history in the education system is that it tends to front-load the depiction of Native Americans in the Precolonial portion of history, with an echo in the Trail of Tears and forced migration in the 1830s, and largely edits them out of the history of the settling of the west, despite this process requiring a very violent dispossession of the existing inhabitants.
> most of the big wars against the Native Americans
As I learned it, most of the conflicts were between not against. Native Americans, became a term as a general catch all but those peoples saw themselves as quite diverse, and as such is something of a misnomer.
Look up the american bison. The US government's official policy was to eliminate bison to eliminate Indians/First Peoples. Mountains of skulls. In under a decade, the bison population was pushed down from 30-60M to approximately 500 individuals.
Did tribes fight and war and capture slaves? Yes. They did that for forever. Then colonization and disease and westward expansion. Look up the Trail of Tears, the genocide and/or ethnic cleansing.
Your education may align with propaganda. Even today, first people nations are actively having their history taken. Pete Hegseth, sec of def/war, has pushed to close the door on the massacre of wounded knee, enshrining the medals earned for slaughtering woman and children. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/27/us/hegseth-wounded-knee.h....
Look up how the US government stole native kids and sent them catholic schools to have the Indian taught out of them. A system that was purpose built to stop their way of life. Or forced, non-consented sterilization of native woman that was happening in the 60s and 70s.
If you somehow didn't know the US government's history of conflict and abuse of Native Americans, you should question your formal education. And you should do some light research.
you seem used to issuing commands. best of luck with that approach.
your cherry picked data points may be correct, but they are also misleading absent broader historical context. these groups had largely diminished already (as is well documented by historians of the period), so your subsequent points about x/y/z impact although valid don't carry weight. imo data driven arguments trump emotional appeals. Trail of tears and similar are powerful and empathy inducing for sure, but don't change the facts around which my comment was based.
your presentation skews things to a false dichotomy of one group against another which is inaccurate and unproductive.
current politicians (left or right) in the US don't change history (and no I didn't bother reading your nytimes link...).
> Did tribes fight and war and capture slaves? Yes. They did that for forever.
sounds like you're confused what point you are arguing.
They also mainly continued to be loyal to the Spanish crown after Argentina and Chile went through their independence, and carried out the final pacification of the Mapuche territories in the 19th century. By then only a very small part of the population had not mingled with Europeans.
This is also a difference in outcomes between traditional colonialism (where indigenous people were viewed as a source of labor) and settler colonialism (where indigenous people are viewed simply as "in the way"). That's not to say that traditional colonialism is in any way acceptable, however.
Was always weird to me how "the French and Indian War" had Indian involvement almost over emphasized to pretend like it wasn't the extension of a European war...
While all the other American conflicts with tons of Indian involvement (both sides, esp civil war) had it downplayed.
One of my first realizations of slant put on history.
That is not that simple. They never invented the wheel, the Maya calendar cycled over 5128, which is not really convenient, numeric system was also rather uncomfortable, strange numerals working in 19-base system (but they have invented zero). In addition to that they've invented sadistic religion with human sacrifices and their culture was very aggressive, what finally put Maya civilization to an end, as everyone around happily joined European conquerors to get rid of Mayans ASAP.
The origins of the 260 day ritual year are not known for certain, but there are a couple of hypotheses:
1. Pregnancy. 260 days is roughly the gestation period of a baby, so this may have been the inspiration for tracking this duration. (For what it is worth, modern Maya timekeepers cite this as being the reason for the length of the 260 day ritual calendar.)
2. In the tropics there are two days of the year when the Sun passes through the zenith and objects cast no shadows. In the latitude where the earliest Mesoamerican civilizations emerged, the length of time between these two days of the year is about 260 days.
3. Numerology. 260 is the product of 20 and 13. 20 was significant in Mesoamerican culture because it was the base of their numbering system and was associated with the human body (given that we have 20 fingers and toes). And the number 13 was associated with the cosmos. So the number 260 represented a kind of interlocking between the human and the cosmic.
It's also worth noting that the Maya also tracked a 365 solar cycle, so they did have a concept of a more standard kind of "year." The 365 cycle was used for civil purposes. The 260 day ritual cycle was used more for divination.
(Shameless plug, but if you want to learn more about Mesoamerican astronomy I have a podcast about the history of astronomy and I talked about it on the last episode: https://songofurania.com/episode/047)
This reminds me a bit of how the Islamic calendar year is 355 days and doesn't have intercalation for religious reasons (many calendars insert extra months now and then to realign with the year, but the Islamic calendar does not). This is why Ramadan always seems to be at different times of year when you hear about it.
> And the number 13 was associated with the cosmos.
Any reason number 13, of all numbers, has been so significant in different parts of the world, sometimes associated with completely opposite meanings (e.g., between Jews and Persians/Europeans)?
generally, 7 and 13 get a lot of attention because a)they are prime b)1/7 and 1/13 have long period when written as decimal fraction - so you keep stumbling in your calculations every time you encounter them
1/7 in base 20 takes surprisingly short form of 0.(1h) (h is 17), unlike 1/9 or 1/11 - so I wonder if there's Mayan prejudice on those instead
The sad thing is that for all their advanced ways of the time, they succumbed to the same thing we are experiencing now... being too comfortable to fix what's broken.
The Mayans did not want to give up their lifestyles even in the face of crippling population growth and surrounding natural resource depletion... which led to their downfall.
Sounds like the opposite no? Since we are going through population collapse in a time of abundance.
Does make me wonder what the political dynamics were at the time, whether some could see problems but weren't in power to change things. Or maybe they couldn't understand or figure out solutions to the problems.
What I'd give to be a multilingual fly on the wall throughout history.
From newish imaging. We can see the impressions of vast jungle swaths cut down and way made for planting food and houses. This looks to have disrupted the water cycle enough to cause cinotes (underground water systems and only source of drinking water) to deplete. We see sacrificial remnants below the modern water line. Their water disappeared and so did their civilization. By the time the Spanish arrived, the local people had no knowledge of how to build nor maintain their now ancient cities, the jungles regrew, water came back, and sacrificial artifacts were covered by replenished water levels.
They are an example of man made effects on local weather leading to the downfall of an advanced civilization.
Didn't the Spanish show up briefly, then come back in force later?
I've heard some speculate that this introduced European diseases, and unlike many Native American tribes, the Mayans lived in dense cities. Such disease would spread like wildfire.
(Certainly, some disease made it the other way too! Tuberculosis and syphilis are examples)
I've heard numbers like 95% died, and it was decades between first contact and serious conquest.
That leaves a lot of time for people to grow up with no one to teach them trades, or even how to read.
If we lost 95% of our population, so many active skills would be lost.
> The Maya Civilization, from Central America, was one of the most advanced ancient civilizations
The Maya are still around! I spent a few months in the Guatemalan highlands last year and all the kids in the village spoke Kaqchikel, one of the Mayan languages, at home.
(Young people speaking the language is key to language health.)
The Maya are still around, but the Maya civilization's institutions were all destroyed. And the Spanish made a point of seeking out all the Maya books [1] they could find and burning them. So a lot of knowledge was lost.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_codices
For this reason, one of the most fascinating historical relics to me are the Incan Quipu [0]. Not only because their logic appears to be 'proto-computational' (at the very least a very complex system of encoding numeric and narrative information through sequences of knots that were also used directly for calculations), but since, neither in the form of a valuable material like gold nor obviously a book to be destroyed, a large enough number survived to this day. There are few traces of the past we know exist that might contain everything from astronomical calculations to old social-institutional histories.
They're comparable in that sense to the Heculaneum manuscripts, which researchers have lately made great progress on with deep learning [1]. I hope an equivalent initiative someday starts on the Quipu.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quipu [1] https://www2.cs.uky.edu/dri/herculaneum-papyrus-scrolls/
The link doesn't mention "seeking out" those books, in fact it mentions catholic priests both burning and lamenting the burn.
They hunted down all of the libraries, collected all of the books inside, and burned them in massive bonfires, accidentally saving a total of like 3 books which had already been shipped back to Europe as trophies. I think there are also some remaining fragments of a few others. One Spaniard wrote about it:
> We found a large number of books in these characters and, as they contained nothing in which there were not to be seen superstition and lies of the devil, we burned them all, which they regretted to an amazing degree, and which caused them much affliction.
It is worth noting that the friar who organized this book burning was recalled to Spain to stand trial on account of his actions.
It is also worth noting that he was absolved of all crimes and eventually consecrated as a bishop.
Why is that worth noting?
Because it might not have been the “Spanish”, but certain people who ruined history. So it’s not fair to blame a whole country for the actions of a few.
Duh. But not all Romans!
It's pretty fair to blame the entire social and political system of 16th century Spain, which at that time was centered on religious persecution, mass murder, large-scale theft and exploitation, and quasi-slavery, leading to centuries of profoundly racist tyranny in the Americas. The book-burning cultural genocide was just the cherry on top.
(As is common for feudal occupiers of foreign lands, and by no means unique to Spain) the worst kinds of psychopaths were continually elevated to positions of authority and then granted almost complete impunity to do what they wanted, with an ideology that treated the recipients of their exploitation as sub-human.
It's really not sane to do so, today.
You're literally applying birth sin for it to make sense, because none of the Spanish people alive today had anything to do with it
Even worse, what hnidiots3 was trying to convey: 99% of the population that were alive during the time period you'd have described as "Spaniards" were entirely uninvolved in these actions, and wouldn't have supported them either, likely.
While the Mayan culture was literally doing human sacrifices - the average person living in Spain wasn't inherently evil and wanting to cause suffering to other people. Despite their culture being kinda shit.
They just wanted to live their live, which was mostly being a farmer and working.
The Spanish state (crown, army, church) had just gone through several centuries of horrific mass-murder of non-Christians in Spain, where the most brutal and sadistic thugs were politically elevated. The local church was dominated by the notorious Inquisition.
We're not talking here about some random peasants living somewhere in the Iberian peninsula, nor about the Spanish people of 2025, but about the genocidal organization in control in the 16th century.
> While the Mayan culture was literally doing human sacrifices - the average person living in Spain wasn't inherently evil
Can you see how this absurd double standard may come across as racist?
At that time the Spanish crown and church weren't doing "human sacrifice" (as defined by themselves).... they were just torturing people to death and doing ritualistic public executions (e.g. by burning alive) of those considered to be non-believers, heretics, or enemies of the state.
On the other side of the coin, it's not like the "average person living in Maya kingdoms" (i.e. some peasant farmer just trying to make a living in a feudal society) was responsible for their own political elites' ritual execution of captured enemies.
You guys remind me of the old joke:
A Mexican goes to Spain, accosts the first Spaniard he sees, and lays into him: “I demand an apology, sir - your ancestors pillaged my country!”
The Spaniard blinks. “I’m afraid you’re mistaken. Your ancestors did that. Mine stayed home.”
I understand it's a joke and it is partially true but also there are still direct descendants of Central and South America original peoples, and also many Spanish families that exploited the conquered lands came back to the "mother land" and kept their families there.
The Spanish crown also repeatedly sent new waves of political allies to take over political control in the Americas, to counter the consolidation of power of the descendants of previous generations of Spanish rulers. There was a fair amount of conflict and intrigue between the two groups.
I agree. But “birth sin” has been modernized ever since 1945 when the psychological and emotional torment, terror, and abuse of Germans started and has not ended ever since; because the most unhinged and narcissistic people have perpetrated that endless abuse upon the German and European people due to their narcissistic injury.
That is an immensely under-appreciated aspect these types of major events; e.g., who did Spain expel and send by force or ultimatum into the “new world”.
In many ways, we are actually going through something very similar right now, Spain then, the UK a bit later, just like The “third world” today all expelled, sent, and removed by ultimatum trouble makers, criminals, problem children, zealots, etc and sent them to “the new world”, Australia/America, and Europe/USA; respectively. Currently we are living through the destruction of the “western” civilization all across the globe; and in my view, it will be the single most consequential event for all of humanity since the beginning of time, including the Bronze Age collapse and the crumbling of the Roman Empire. Yes, the total eradication of the whole civilization on the Americas by the Hispanics was also awful, but due to the relative isolation, it was less consequential. When the European global civilization that has brought humanity basically everything we currently have and take for granted crosses a negative feedback loop threshold, it will be extremely bad for all people of the world.
Humanity, what people consider that as today, is quite literally totally created and totally dependent on European peoples and cultures; the same people and cultures currently being eradicated and destroyed. That does not lead to positive outcomes, no matter if you absolutely hate Europeans or not.
I would say because it highlights that even back then there was the same kind of tension as today between those who believe they are doing right, those who also believe they are doing right, and right never ending up being done in the end. It’s like ideological, metaphysical, and psychological border disputes and skirmishes, i.e., human nature.
Also, failing upwards of those who serve the dominant system is clearly not just a modern phenomenon.
Because a previous commenter wrongly said, "the Spanish made a point of seeking out all the Maya books". It wasn't "The Spanish" it were some individual actors clearly acting against "The Spanish" crown wishes.
If that is the case, why did the trial absolve him of all crimes and why did get consecrated as a bishop by the king of Spain?
I'm guessing that his 1st person description of the human sacrifices carried out by the Mayan and establishing a connection between those and the need to erase the culture that enabled them and that he - wrongly or not, we can't know anymore - saw as enabled by those books had some weight there...
The Spanish crown didn't have in mind to destroy other people books, but then again, they also didn't have in mind that they casually, recurrently and nonchalantly offered human sacrifices to their "gods".
Probably the order of priorities for the Spanish crown was books < human sacrifices.
Strange times, those, eh?
I guess that is implied since these things always happen this way, its not like book burners are just having a nice campfire and the books they dislike just happen to be close by.
I was surprised to find out that there are still many indigenous groups with populations in the millions. My California public education made it seem like they were all pretty much wiped out save for those who survived to the various reservation systems.
My favorite group is the Mapuche who managed to hold out against the Spaniards until they were conquered by Chile and Argentina in the late 19th century. They managed to thwart the conquistadors for centuries! It wasn’t until the modern era where military logistics got good enough to unseat them and overcome the advantages they had.
Even in the US, the Indian Wars weren't finished until the 1890s. In fact, most of the big wars against the Native Americans took place after the American Civil War. One of the big faults I have with US history in the education system is that it tends to front-load the depiction of Native Americans in the Precolonial portion of history, with an echo in the Trail of Tears and forced migration in the 1830s, and largely edits them out of the history of the settling of the west, despite this process requiring a very violent dispossession of the existing inhabitants.
> most of the big wars against the Native Americans
As I learned it, most of the conflicts were between not against. Native Americans, became a term as a general catch all but those peoples saw themselves as quite diverse, and as such is something of a misnomer.
Look up the american bison. The US government's official policy was to eliminate bison to eliminate Indians/First Peoples. Mountains of skulls. In under a decade, the bison population was pushed down from 30-60M to approximately 500 individuals.
Did tribes fight and war and capture slaves? Yes. They did that for forever. Then colonization and disease and westward expansion. Look up the Trail of Tears, the genocide and/or ethnic cleansing.
Your education may align with propaganda. Even today, first people nations are actively having their history taken. Pete Hegseth, sec of def/war, has pushed to close the door on the massacre of wounded knee, enshrining the medals earned for slaughtering woman and children. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/27/us/hegseth-wounded-knee.h....
Look up how the US government stole native kids and sent them catholic schools to have the Indian taught out of them. A system that was purpose built to stop their way of life. Or forced, non-consented sterilization of native woman that was happening in the 60s and 70s.
If you somehow didn't know the US government's history of conflict and abuse of Native Americans, you should question your formal education. And you should do some light research.
you seem used to issuing commands. best of luck with that approach. your cherry picked data points may be correct, but they are also misleading absent broader historical context. these groups had largely diminished already (as is well documented by historians of the period), so your subsequent points about x/y/z impact although valid don't carry weight. imo data driven arguments trump emotional appeals. Trail of tears and similar are powerful and empathy inducing for sure, but don't change the facts around which my comment was based. your presentation skews things to a false dichotomy of one group against another which is inaccurate and unproductive. current politicians (left or right) in the US don't change history (and no I didn't bother reading your nytimes link...).
> Did tribes fight and war and capture slaves? Yes. They did that for forever.
sounds like you're confused what point you are arguing.
The Mapuche even expanded their territorial control, in large part to their acquisition and mastery of Spanish horses.
They also mainly continued to be loyal to the Spanish crown after Argentina and Chile went through their independence, and carried out the final pacification of the Mapuche territories in the 19th century. By then only a very small part of the population had not mingled with Europeans.
This is also a difference in outcomes between traditional colonialism (where indigenous people were viewed as a source of labor) and settler colonialism (where indigenous people are viewed simply as "in the way"). That's not to say that traditional colonialism is in any way acceptable, however.
The Commanche also held out until after the Civil War.
Was always weird to me how "the French and Indian War" had Indian involvement almost over emphasized to pretend like it wasn't the extension of a European war...
While all the other American conflicts with tons of Indian involvement (both sides, esp civil war) had it downplayed.
One of my first realizations of slant put on history.
It's more properly a campaign of the Seven Years War, which was almost a world war of its time.
That is not that simple. They never invented the wheel, the Maya calendar cycled over 5128, which is not really convenient, numeric system was also rather uncomfortable, strange numerals working in 19-base system (but they have invented zero). In addition to that they've invented sadistic religion with human sacrifices and their culture was very aggressive, what finally put Maya civilization to an end, as everyone around happily joined European conquerors to get rid of Mayans ASAP.
I've been in towns in Mexico where the kids ONLY speak a Mayan language. No Spanish or English.
I asked for directions and just got blank stares until someone who spoke Spanish in the village explained, lol.
How does one even come up with 260 day year?
Is the weather in the tropics so similar that year-on-year mismatch stops mattering?
The origins of the 260 day ritual year are not known for certain, but there are a couple of hypotheses:
1. Pregnancy. 260 days is roughly the gestation period of a baby, so this may have been the inspiration for tracking this duration. (For what it is worth, modern Maya timekeepers cite this as being the reason for the length of the 260 day ritual calendar.)
2. In the tropics there are two days of the year when the Sun passes through the zenith and objects cast no shadows. In the latitude where the earliest Mesoamerican civilizations emerged, the length of time between these two days of the year is about 260 days.
3. Numerology. 260 is the product of 20 and 13. 20 was significant in Mesoamerican culture because it was the base of their numbering system and was associated with the human body (given that we have 20 fingers and toes). And the number 13 was associated with the cosmos. So the number 260 represented a kind of interlocking between the human and the cosmic.
It's also worth noting that the Maya also tracked a 365 solar cycle, so they did have a concept of a more standard kind of "year." The 365 cycle was used for civil purposes. The 260 day ritual cycle was used more for divination.
(Shameless plug, but if you want to learn more about Mesoamerican astronomy I have a podcast about the history of astronomy and I talked about it on the last episode: https://songofurania.com/episode/047)
This reminds me a bit of how the Islamic calendar year is 355 days and doesn't have intercalation for religious reasons (many calendars insert extra months now and then to realign with the year, but the Islamic calendar does not). This is why Ramadan always seems to be at different times of year when you hear about it.
> And the number 13 was associated with the cosmos.
Any reason number 13, of all numbers, has been so significant in different parts of the world, sometimes associated with completely opposite meanings (e.g., between Jews and Persians/Europeans)?
generally, 7 and 13 get a lot of attention because a)they are prime b)1/7 and 1/13 have long period when written as decimal fraction - so you keep stumbling in your calculations every time you encounter them
1/7 in base 20 takes surprisingly short form of 0.(1h) (h is 17), unlike 1/9 or 1/11 - so I wonder if there's Mayan prejudice on those instead
The sad thing is that for all their advanced ways of the time, they succumbed to the same thing we are experiencing now... being too comfortable to fix what's broken.
The Mayans did not want to give up their lifestyles even in the face of crippling population growth and surrounding natural resource depletion... which led to their downfall.
Sounds like the opposite no? Since we are going through population collapse in a time of abundance. Does make me wonder what the political dynamics were at the time, whether some could see problems but weren't in power to change things. Or maybe they couldn't understand or figure out solutions to the problems. What I'd give to be a multilingual fly on the wall throughout history.
This should be upvoted. A lot. The downvotes are ill-informed.
https://www.earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/77060/mayan-def...
From newish imaging. We can see the impressions of vast jungle swaths cut down and way made for planting food and houses. This looks to have disrupted the water cycle enough to cause cinotes (underground water systems and only source of drinking water) to deplete. We see sacrificial remnants below the modern water line. Their water disappeared and so did their civilization. By the time the Spanish arrived, the local people had no knowledge of how to build nor maintain their now ancient cities, the jungles regrew, water came back, and sacrificial artifacts were covered by replenished water levels.
They are an example of man made effects on local weather leading to the downfall of an advanced civilization.
Didn't the Spanish show up briefly, then come back in force later?
I've heard some speculate that this introduced European diseases, and unlike many Native American tribes, the Mayans lived in dense cities. Such disease would spread like wildfire.
(Certainly, some disease made it the other way too! Tuberculosis and syphilis are examples)
I've heard numbers like 95% died, and it was decades between first contact and serious conquest.
That leaves a lot of time for people to grow up with no one to teach them trades, or even how to read.
If we lost 95% of our population, so many active skills would be lost.
*cenotes
The original RDB!
Whenever I see these backwards-applied math models I think of the “wet streets cause rain” expression.