All about the ancient tribes
Yucatec is a Mayan language , related to other languages like Quiche and Itza Maya . Maya Word Set.
English (Français) | Yucatec Maya words |
---|---|
Moon (Lune) | Uh |
Water (Eau) | Ha’ |
White (Blanc) | Sak |
Yellow (Jaune) | K’an |
The Mayan numeral system was the system to represent numbers and calendar dates in the Maya civilization. It was a vigesimal (base-20) positional numeral system. The numerals are made up of three symbols ; zero (shell shape, with the plastron uppermost), one (a dot) and five (a bar).
The Maya believed that the gods guided the Sun and Moon across the sky. Even in the darkness of night, the Maya believed that the Sun and Moon continued to journey through the Underworld, threatened all the way by evil gods who wanted to stop their progress.
Maya mathematics constituted the most sophisticated mathematical system ever developed in the Americas. The Maya counting system required only three symbols : a dot representing a value of one, a bar representing five, and a shell representing zero.
Selene
Allen Christenson, professor of comparative arts and letters and an expert on Mayan society, explained that although the Maya couldn’t predict the exact day of an eclipse , they could predict eclipse seasons by noting when Venus rose above the horizon just before sunrise.
Haabʼ
Seq. Num. | Yucatec name | Meaning of glyph |
---|---|---|
1 | Pop | green |
2 | Woʼ | white |
3 | Sip | red |
4 | Sotzʼ |
There is no Maya alphabet . Maya writing is difficult to interpret for a number of reasons. First, glyphs do not represent just sounds or ideas, they can represent both, making it difficult to know how each glyph or cartouche should be read.
As we said, Maya writing is a combination of glyphs that stand for syllables, or “syllable glyphs,” and glyphs that stand for whole words, or “logos.” There are 200 to 250 syllable glyphs that were used in Classical Maya writing, and about 500 logos.
The sun god occupied a central position in both Sumerian and Akkadian religion, but neither the Sumerian Utu nor the Semitic Shamash was included among the three highest gods of the pantheon. The sun was one of the most popular deities, however, among the Indo-European peoples and was a symbol of divine power to them.
Yucatec Maya
The Maya believed that when people died, they entered the Underworld through a cave or a cenote. When kings died, they followed the path linked to the cosmic movement of the sun and fell into the Underworld; but, because they possessed supernatural powers, they were reborn into the Sky World and became gods.
The first recorded zero appeared in Mesopotamia around 3 B.C. The Mayans invented it independently circa 4 A.D. It was later devised in India in the mid-fifth century, spread to Cambodia near the end of the seventh century, and into China and the Islamic countries at the end of the eighth.
Pyramids were used not only as temples and focal points for Maya religious practices where offerings were made to the gods but also as gigantic tombs for deceased rulers, their partners, sacrificial victims, and precious goods.
Of all the ancient calendar systems, the Maya and other Mesoamerican systems are the most complex and intricate. They used 20-day months, and had two calendar years: the 260-day Sacred Round, or tzolkin , and the 365-day Vague Year, or haab . These two calendars coincided every 52 years.