The Mystery of the Lost Ancient Culture of the Maya – Part 2
Was the Practice of Sacrificial Rituals used as a Gateway to the Afterlife?
Many ancient alien theorists suggest that the Maya’s belief in gods was based on the visitation of aliens from a more advanced civilization. They believe knowledge was delivered from the stars and was used to build the temples and pyramids of the many different ancient sites throughout the world. But what if ‘the stars’ was not the realm of aliens, but was believed to be the place of the afterlife, where their ancestors resided? It is possible that the pyramids they performed their ritual sacrifices on were used as a gateway to the afterlife, which they believed was in another star system. It may also account for why the pyramids were built with precise astronomical alignments – pointing the way to the realm of the afterlife. Does this explain why they would sacrifice the winner of the ballgame thinking that in the afterlife they would flourish in a utopian society?
If the alignment of star systems determines the destination of the sacrificial victim’s afterlife, they may have believed that the enemy would be channeled to one with a less advanced society or a world where diseased and impoverished civilizations were taking root. It is believed there was a five day period at the end of the Haab calendar considered to be unlucky days and the Maya would avoid dangerous situations fearing death during this time. Did they believe death on these days would channel their energy to a terrible life in a negative and oppressed world?
The Sudden Decline of an Advanced Civilization
Mayan painting on cylindrical vessels. Photo source.
Many believe the Maya decline was due to drought, political upheaval or even bitter rivalries between warring tribes, but there have always been a few who believe they left the planet for a different world. According to this perspective, the Maya were of a more sophisticated race and were in possession of technologies not understood today. Such technologies would need an energy source and it is possible the energy source became depleted or weakened from over-usage. If this perspective were correct, was their technology related to the Earth’s magnetic field? There are signs the magnetic field has been weakening over time, leading some to suggest that the Mayas left Earth in search of a stronger energy source to meet their requirements.
Carving on sarcophagus lid of Mayan ruler K'inich Janaab' Pakal – ancient technology? Image source.
There are a lot of ideas relating to what really happened to this lost civilization and the true meaning to their rituals. Although scholars claim to have solved the mystery of the Maya, there will never be a perfect explanation based on evidence alone. One would have to enter the minds of the Maya people in order to fully understand their belief system. Until this is achieved we can only go on research and speculation as a possible answer.
Featured image: Scene from the movie ‘Apocalypto’, set during the declining period of the Maya civilization.
References
youtube.com, 2011. Mark Van Stone. [Online]
Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYOJkRWifAo
about.com, N.S. Gill. [Online]
Available at: http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/deathafterlife/f/012801hmnsacrfc.htm
about.com, N.S. Gill. [Online]
Available at: http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/deathafterlife/f/012801hmnsacrfc.htm
nationalgeographic.com, 2008. Taryn Salinas [Online]
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/geopedia/Maya#Rituals%20of%20Sacrifice%20and%20Worship
Comments
Really? How interesting.
This article is talking about the Maya whose civilization flourished around 400-600 AD, and then suddenly collapsed, or disappeared, around 900 AD.
"Disappeared" in this context means they stopped building stuff, stopped carving statues, stopped engraving stele with their hieroglyphs. The most recent inscription found is dated 904 AD(the date is included in the inscription). Nothing later than that has been found so far.
Since 904 AD is about 600 years too soon to be able to lay the blame on the Jesuits and the Spaniards, I figure you must be talking about a different "Maya" than the rest of us.
The civilization of the Maya we are talking about never encountered Spaniards. It was long gone, and its cities long overgrown by jungle, by the time the Spaniards showed up.
As for the people of that civilization, where they went is almost as great a mystery as the mystery of why their civilization collapsed. Such a people would carry with them various bits of the advanced lore of their culture, and we should see the influence of such ideas in other places as the ex-maya dispersed and spread across the land. But we don't.
It is precisely this inexplicable collapse or discontinuation of Maya civilization activities, combined with the total lack of any apparent remnants of their knowledge afterwards, that result in people saying that the Maya "disappeared".
Field investigations are crucial, as you say...but proper field investigations require one obtain at least some familiarity with known facts beforehand, in order to avoid misinterpretation of the data gathered while in the field.
Reading through these two articles made me slightly laugh and evoke the picture of dozens of professors sitting on their desks with fuming heads trying to resolve the question of the disappearance of the Maya People. Why don't these people go and ask the Maya themselves?
1.) the Maya have not disappeared, there are hundreds of clans of them distributed over Central America. They have gone there after having been chased by the Spaniards from their homelands. Only their empire has gone after that. There is a man forming a kind of 'Prime Minister' for all these clans together.
2.) They have taken their wisdom with them, or at least what was left after the Jesuits destroyed their sacred library. Part of the destroyed books were rewritten in secret and kept there until short (end of 2012) and are now released to the public by printing and by voice because the time is ripe for it. See the publications by Humbatz Men.
3.) the Maya have come from Atlantis (which was not in the Mediterranean but in the Atlantic, hence the name). When it was about to disappear they fled to the West and became the Maya, while others fled to the East and became the Egyptians. Both had the knowledge to build pyramids we can not build today (see "The Source Field Investigations" by David Wilcock where he explains also how these enormous block of stone were transported) and a hieroglyphic writing and both knew more about the universal cycles than we do today.
Once again: only field investigations can bring the truth, when the results are well interpreted.
makes sense to me. does anyone have an arguement, cause that would be really fun
Peace and Love,
Ricky.
The Olmec culture would make a great expansion on this topic. The aztecs and mayans never really built much they are said to have stumbled across the temples. The Olmecs were like the Mayans are to us, just a culture that vanished...