Mayan Mexico Yucatan.

Yucatan Peninsula is the land of the Maya. It is another country within a country. It is the home of wondrous cities, now in ruins, which stand as monuments to one of history's greatest civilizations.
Not that the Mayas belong in the dustbin of history. Theirs is a living race. Most Yucatecans still speak the clipped, rhythmic Mayan language, and their facial features silently attest to their ancestral heritage. But most speak Spanish now, too, and many are learning other languages useful in the tourism industry.

A giant land mass dividing the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, the Yucatan Peninsula includes the states of Yucatan, Campeche and Quintana Roo.
Is a large area with vast expanses of green jungle, undisturbed beaches, clear blue skies and hot, dry days.

There are villages peppered with typically Mayan thatched huts, colonial cities such as Merida and Campeche, fishing villages, and modem resorts, such as Cancun and Cozumel. There are magnificently restored archaeological sites and crumbling ruins, many still unexplored, all vestiges of fascinating ancient civilizations.

For centuries this area was isolated from the rest of Mexico by dense jungles, rivers, lagoons and immense swamps. Only in the latter half of the 20th century have some of the area's treasures been brought to the world's attention, including the greatest treasure of all; the friendliness of the Maya people.

History

The Maya chronicle began more than 3,000 years ago along the coast of present day Belize, where nomadic ancestors of the Maya came to settle. By the time of Christ they were building cities and ceremonial centres bigger than any in Europe. By the 10th century A.D. their civilization had largely vanished. No one knows exactly why.
During the Classic period, 600-900 324 , A.D., they built towering monuments to their gods, engaged in far-reaching trade, conducted warfare and studied the stars using astronomy to guide their spiritual lives and establish agricultural cycles. Many scholars have said the Mayas were obsessed with time.
The Maya understood the concept of zero, which eluded the Greeks and Romans. In Maya hieroglyphics a bar represents five units of what is being counted, usually segments of time. A circle, or oval, indicates one unit. A shell shape stands for zero.
Their cities stretched in unimaginable splendour through land that today has been reclaimed by the jungle. Driving across the southern portion of the Yucatan Peninsula, mound after mound of buried cities stand as mute sentinels of time, waiting to reveal their secrets.
For years scholars have puzzled over the strange Maya hieroglyphic writing. In addition to stone and wood carvings, the Maya produced numerous codices and books written on bark paper, recording astrological and other information. The conquering Spaniards, however, were quick to denounce these writings as "works of the devil." Diego de Landa, a zealous Franciscan friar and later Bishop of Yucatan, publicly burned the codices in the town square of Mani, south of Merida, in July of 1562. The Maya were forced to convert to Catholicism and to abandon traditional rituals central to their culture. .

Only three Maya codices are known to have survived, and all of them are in foreign museums. The codices remained largely mute until only very recently, when several Maya scholars succeeded in decoding several portions.
Around 1000 A.D., the Toltec, a warring tribe from Central Mexico,conqueried a stagnating Maya. Their cities warriors and war scenes are superimposed over the original Maya ones,

A hundred years before the Spanish arrived, the Maya- Toltec abandon main religious centres and return to the subsistence living.

The causes of the Maya- Toltec demise are still hotly debated. But by experience it may have been a combination of factors, including a lack of sufficient land and water to support agro population, increasing hostilities from other cities, class conflicts, diseases, outside agitation.

It wasn't until 1528 that the Spanish seriously undertook to conquest of Yucatan. Don Francisco de Montejo sponsored by Spain's King Charles the V, began a campaign that his son ended in 1542 with the defeat of the Mayas.
The Spanish built the cities of Merida and Campeche (on top of existing Mayan cities), began cattle and sheep raisin.

Yucatan's descendants of the Maya and the Spanish are a proud, gentle hard workers and intelligent people who have Strong respect for custom and tradition. the Maya still practice nature worship, although it remains veiled in Catholicism. the Yucatecos prefer their tasty dishes to the foreigner's hamburgers.

Their loose, simple clothing is ideal in this warm, humid climate. Men wear shirts called guayaberas, often embroidered in the colour of the fabric, and women use the traditional white, richly embroidered huipil and underlying slip, Although hand-embroidered huipiles are still seen, the machine-made variety is far more common for daily wear.

The peninsula is actually a limestone shelf, honeycombed with underground wells, caverns and cenotes, or sinkholes, which are like giant wells. The country side is flat, covered with scrub brush and agave cactus plant henequen, the tall, spiky plant used to make the fibbers and products such as hammocks, sandals, purses and baskets. In recentcent years a decline in the market for these products has severely affected the yucatecan economy.
Poor soil and lack of rain make it difficult. Corn is and always has been the main crop.