23.8 America: a.d. 801 to 900  (Page 3/3)

It must be admitted, however, that most modern writers tend to attach a political and sociological significance to the Maya decline. The theory is that an aristocracy controlled the great temples and religious centers and taxed the surrounding peasants up to a point where the latter rebelled and destroyed not only the aristocracy but their material effects - the temples and pyramids, etc., as well.

The Yucatec Society, which seems to have sprung from the original, lowland, parent Mayan Society, was generally inferior to the latter but did have considerable metallurgic advancements and extensive geographical locations on the peninsula. As early as 1840 Stephens had uncovered 44 ancient cities, including such as Merido, Mayapan, Uxmal, Tankuche, Xcoch, Kabah, Chack, Skabachtshe, Labna, Kewick, Xampon, Chunhuhu, Hiokowitz, Kuepak, Zekilna, Labphak, Iturbide, Macoba, Bolonchen and Chichen Itza. A few further details about some of these ruins, as Stephens found them, may be of interest.

Mayapan was situated on a great plain, thickly overgrown with vegetation. The circumference of the area of the remnants was about 3 miles. Included was a pyramid 60 feet high, 100 feet square at the base, with 4 grand staircases. This was the original capital of the Maya when the entire peninsula was united under one king. Supposedly Mayapan was destroyed by warring chiefs in 1420, only 270 years after the founding of the city

The National Geographic (Ref. 155 ) calls A.D. 900 the end of the Classic Period of Mesoamerican society. The people of this society shared a common heritage of shared customs, beliefs and artifacts, such as hieroglyphic writing, a ritual ball game played in an I-shaped court, blood offerings in the forms of both self-mutilation and human sacrifices, temples on pyramid platforms, arithmetical systems using a base of 20, use of a calendar of 365 days, with a 200 day ritual calendar besides, and some common gods. About the only point of differentiation between the Yucatan and the Mexican peoples was language. Absent were the keystone arch, plow, alphabetic writing, glass, explosives, the wheel for transport and iron. Copper and gold had appeared only about A.D. 700. (Ref. 88 , 205 ) Additional Notes

South america

We mentioned in the last chapter that both the Huari and Tiahuacaco had developed great empires. The extent of the latter one is indicated by Engle's 1974 excavation of a 23 foot raft in the far south of Peru containing typical Tiahuanaco decorations. It was composed of several cylindrical reed rollers, held together by small ropes. The appearance of Tiahuanacoid motifs in the coastal valleys corresponded with the disappearance of the Mochica themes farther north and the Maranga and Nazca ones farther south. Neither of the great empires had very long lasting effects, however, and by the end of this 9th century decadence had already reappeared in some areas as the old coastal traditions again began to dominate. (Ref. 62 )

Forward to America: A.D. 901 to 1000

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