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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
This 3 page paper examines the ancient Maya civilization, and argues that “popular” scholarship portraying the Maya as sophisticated, peaceful and scientific is wrong; they were warlike and Mayan city-states were at war with each other much of the time. The paper also touches on the way they treated captives. Bibliography lists 4 sources.
Page Count:
3 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_HVremaya.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
of their enemies. Discussion During three periods, the "Formative or Preclassic period (2,000 B.C.-A.D. 250) ... the Classic period (A.D. 250-900), and at the beginning of the Postclassic period (A.D.
900-1519), thousands of stone monuments and buildings were carved with hieroglyphic inscriptions, in addition to countless other texts and images painted or carved on more perishable media (e.g. cloth, wood,
stucco, or bark-paper books)" (Fash, 1994, p. 181). Because of the quality of the ruins, archaeologists and others soon adopted the view that the society of the ancient Maya was
a theocracy, run by "devoted calendar priests" who lived at the temples, supported by the peasants who came to them occasionally for important rituals (Fash, 1994). Scholars believed the Maya
to have been so obsessed with calendars and astronomy that they "never would have stooped so low as to go to war" (Fash, 1994, p. 181). This "myth" of the
organization of Classic Maya civilization "became so pervasive that the civilization came to be thought of as unique in the annals of human history" (Fash, 1994, p. 181). According to
the thinking, this civilization flourished in the jungle, "with intelligentsia devoted to the arts and sciences ... all the while removed from the plights of war ... as the common
people devoted themselves to the cult of their rain gods and peacefully tilled their fields {milpa) with corn, beans, and squash" (Fash, 1994, p. 181). This vision of the Maya,
according to Fash, is misguided and incorrect. The illusion of the Maya as a completely peaceful people who never went to war vanished in 1946, when a photographer by the
name of G. Healey was guided to the ruins of Bonampak, where he saw a vividly illustrated battle scene (Fash, 1994). Further evidence of Mayan warfare was found in "defensive
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