Murals of Bonampak

After the extensive study of mayan civilization to the mid-NINETEENTH century created a myth about the maya: it was deduced that were a village of peaceful priests, observers of the sky and the cycles of time. It is said that developed in two main periods, called the old and the new empire, and that after mysteriously disappeared, without leaving any trace of his greatness.

Fortunately, studies have advanced and using new research began to discover that the ancient maya were not really what the legends claimed. To begin with, were not of a purely mystical and neither astronomers, obsessed with time, but these attributes corresponded with the need to establish a certainty cyclic for the crops that depended on and that it should perform certain rites to bring good crops and harvests.

Nor were peaceful, scenes of war, subjugation and slaughter of their fellows they were everywhere. The model of your story, divided into old and new empire is proved false, his story could be divided like other mesoamerican cultures into three great periods, called the preclassic, classic and postclassic, with its well-defined characteristics. There was never an empire, but, on the contrary: a large number of cities in a state of greater or lesser size and importance that fought each other and made alliances between them to combat other.

Fragment of a capsule artistic Julián González Gómez for the University Fransisco Marroquín. Full article can be found at https://educacion.ufm.edu/anonimo-murales-de-bonampak-fresco-sobre-estuco-siglo-viii-d-c/

images correspond to the fantastic murals of Bonampak