An ancient Mayan empire city was found in the Mexican jungle
- June 22, 2023
- Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
- Category: DPN Topics
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An ancient Mayan empire city was found in the Mexican jungle
Subject : History
Section: Ancient India
Concept :
- A previously unknown ancient Maya city has been discovered in the jungles of southern Mexico, the country’s anthropology institute INAH, adding it was likely an important center more than a thousand years ago.
Details
- INAH said the city, which it has named Ocomtún — meaning “stone column” in the Yucatec Maya language — would have been an important center for the peninsula’s central lowland region between 250 and 1000 AD.
- It is located in the Balamku ecological reserve on the country’s Yucatán Peninsula and was discovered during a search of a largely unexplored stretch of jungle larger than Luxembourg.
- The search took place between March and June using aerial laser mapping (LiDAR) technology.
About Mayan Civilization
- The Maya are an indigenous people of Mexico and Central America who have continuously inhabited the lands comprising modern-day Yucatan, Quintana Roo, Campeche, Tabasco, and Chiapas in Mexico and southward through Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador and Honduras.
- The Maya civilization originated in the Yucatan Peninsula. Known for its monumental architecture and an advanced understanding of mathematics and astronomy.
- The rise of the Maya began about 250 CE, and what is known to archaeologists as the Classic Period of Mayan culture lasted until about 900 CE. At its height, Mayan civilization consisted of more than 40 cities, each with a population between 5,000 and 50,000.
- But then, suddenly, between 800 and 950 CE, many of the southern cities were abandoned. This period is called the collapse of the Classic Maya civilisations, puzzling modern-day scientists.
Special Features:
- As early as 1500 BCE the Maya had settled in villages and had developed an agriculture based on the cultivation of corn (maize), beans, and squash; by 600 CE cassava (sweet manioc) was also grown.
- They began to build ceremonial centres, and by 200 CE these had developed into cities containing temples, pyramids, palaces, courts for playing ball, and plazas.
- The ancient Maya quarried immense quantities of building stone (usually limestone), which they cut by using harder stones such as chert. They practiced mainly slash-and-burn agriculture, but they used advanced techniques of irrigation and terracing. They also developed a system of hieroglyphic writing and highly sophisticated calendrical and astronomical systems.
- The Maya made paper from the inner bark of wild fig trees and wrote their hieroglyphs on books made from this paper. Those books are called codices.
- The Maya also developed an elaborate and beautiful tradition of sculpture and relief carving.
- Architectural works and stone inscriptions and reliefs are the chief sources of knowledge about the early Maya.