The Maya, then and now

los mayas

Pyramids above the jungle, a real writing system, the zero and the calendar; and the six million people who speak some thirty Maya languages today, whose ancestors two travellers in 1839 proved had built it all.

In this topic

Guatemala above all, where most Maya languages are spoken, plus Belize, Honduras and southern Mexico. The ancient cities are one thing; the six million people are another, and they are still here.

The ancient cities and the living people

	The cities	The Maya today
Where	Guatemala, Belize, Honduras and southern Mexico; Tikal, in the Guatemalan jungle, had some hundred thousand inhabitants in the year 700	About six million people, in Guatemala above all
Language	Writing of more than eight hundred signs, on stone and in bark-paper books; only four books survive, because the Spaniards burned the rest	About thirty Maya languages; K'iche' is the largest in Guatemala, spoken at home and switched for Spanish with customers
Knowledge	Zero before Europe; a very accurate 365-day calendar and a sacred one of 260 days; the sun, moon and Venus observed from the temples	In Chichicastenango the eighteen church steps are said to be the months of the Maya calendar, and copal is burned on them before mass
What happened	Around the year 900 the great cities of the south were left empty, nobody knows exactly why: droughts, wars or famine. In Yucatán, cities like Chichén Itzá continued for centuries	"Los mayas no desaparecieron": Rigoberta Menchú, Nobel Peace Prize 1992, is a K'iche' Maya

The Maya lived in Guatemala, Belize, Honduras and southern Mexico; Tikal had about a hundred thousand inhabitants around the year 700.
The Maya had a writing system of more than eight hundred signs, used zero before Europe, and kept a 365-day calendar alongside a sacred one of 260 days; only four of their books survive.
Around the year 900 the great southern cities were left empty; the cause is unknown, perhaps droughts, wars or famine. Cities in Yucatán such as Chichén Itzá continued for centuries.
The Maya did not disappear: today they number about six million people and speak about thirty Maya languages, in Guatemala above all.

Los mayas tenían escritura: más de ochocientos signos.

The Maya had writing: more than eight hundred signs.

Los mayas usaban el cero antes que Europa.

The Maya used zero before Europe did.

Los mayas no desaparecieron: hoy son unos seis millones de personas.

The Maya did not disappear: today they number about six million people.

Hablan unas treinta lenguas mayas, en Guatemala sobre todo.

They speak about thirty Mayan languages, in Guatemala above all.

Who built the ruins

In 1839 John Lloyd Stephens, a New York lawyer, and Frederick Catherwood, an English architect who drew, travelled by mule into Central America looking for cities almost nobody in their country had heard of. At Copán, in Honduras, they found pyramids, staircases and stone figures covered by jungle; Stephens bought the whole site for fifty dollars, because nobody knew what to do with it.

In those years many Europeans believed the Americans could not have built such things, and talked of Egyptians, Phoenicians and lost tribes of Israel. Stephens wrote that there was nothing in those ruins that the ancestors of the people living next to them could not have made. He was right, and it took almost a century to be accepted.

In 1839 Stephens and Catherwood travelled from New York to Central America; at Copán Stephens bought the whole site for fifty dollars.
Many Europeans then believed Americans could not have built the ruins; Stephens wrote that the ancestors of the people living beside them could have made everything there, and it took almost a century for this to be accepted.
Stephens's 1841 book sold very well and created the interest in Maya archaeology; Catherwood later lost most of his original drawings in a fire in New York.

Stephens compró el sitio entero por cincuenta dólares, porque nadie sabía qué hacer con él.

Stephens bought the whole site for fifty dollars, because nobody knew what to do with it.

Stephens escribió que no había nada en aquellas ruinas que no pudieran haber hecho los antepasados de la gente que vivía al lado.

Stephens wrote that there was nothing in those ruins that could not have been made by the ancestors of the people living next to them.

Tenía razón, y tardó casi un siglo en aceptarse.

He was right, and it took almost a century to be accepted.

Words for the Maya world

la pirámide: the pyramid
la selva: the rainforest, the jungle
la escritura: writing, a writing system
el signo: the sign, the glyph
el calendario: the calendar
quedar vacío: to be left empty
el antepasado: the ancestor
la cancha: the court, the pitch

En Tikal, en la selva de Guatemala, hay pirámides de setenta metros.

In Tikal, in the jungle of Guatemala, there are pyramids seventy metres high.

Nadie sabe exactamente por qué: quizás sequías, guerras o hambre.

Nobody knows exactly why: perhaps droughts, wars or famine.

Me dijeron que las gradas son dieciocho por los meses del calendario maya.

They told me the steps are eighteen, for the months of the Maya calendar.

Words to know

los mayas: the Maya
el k'iche': K'iche', the largest Maya language of Guatemala
la lengua maya: a Maya language
la pirámide: the pyramid
la selva: the jungle
el calendario: the calendar
el cero: zero
el antepasado: the ancestor

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