Fun Facts You Never Knew About the Maya Civilization

The ancient Maya culture was founded on complex beliefs, traditions, and rituals. If you’re wondering why we use the term “Maya” rather than “Mayans,” it’s because this is the correct way of referring to these people. “Mayan” refers to the language only while “Maya” is both the singular and plural term for the people and their culture. To learn more, read on for 30 fascinating facts about the ancient Maya!

Maya royalty drank a blend of chocolate, chili peppers, and water, while the rest of the population ate their chocolate raw. If you want to be like the rich folk in this ancient society, feel free to throw some chili powder in your hot chocolate!

Avocados were a common part of the Maya diet and they were used to create a number of different dishes. Did you know that the first recipe for guacamole was recorded by a Mexican historian in the 1500s, and it included onion, chilies, and lime juice – just like the delicious recipes we use today. Yum!

The Maya used cacao beans as a form of currency because they were so valuable and scarce. They considered the beans to be a gift from the gods. The discovery of chocolate and its medicinal and wellness properties made it even more precious. Indeed, cacao was so revered that it was frequently used in religious rituals.

The ancient Maya have a history of head flattening to show off high status and improve beauty. The baby’s heads were strapped from a young age, causing the skull to compress over time. If it sounds odd, just imagine what future archaeologists will think of all the implants and other modifications they’ll find when they dig up the remains of our civilization!

Some of the practices and ideas in the Maya culture would be considered odd by modern standards, but what we share with them is a desire to modify ourselves to meet the beauty standards of our time. One of their best options included attaching an artificial nose bridge to make their noses look wider.

As shown in the picture, they would attach a trinket to a child’s head, positioned between the eyes. The goal was to make the baby cross its eyes so much in trying to look at the trinket that the expression would become permanent. 

The Maya had a very specific beauty ideal: pointed, sharp teeth. While this sounds pretty horrific, records of the time do prove that the Maya were all about the artificial sharpening of their teeth. They attributed different characteristics to people with different shaped teeth. Pointed teeth were considered to be more beautiful and elegant.

Even those in poverty wanted to look rich. Since they couldn’t afford it, they wore jewelry made from painted clay, bones, and wooden sticks in an attempt to imitate the more expensive metals and gemstones. Upper-class citizens always wore precious metals and jewels.

The Maya used tattoos for religious rituals and rites of passage. The chest, arms, and legs were popular spots for tattoos that were permanent for both men and women. The designs were symbols of their gods and of natural elements such as animals, birds, and water.

Human sacrifice was commonplace among those who believed in the power of the gods. In some sacrifices, the heart would be removed from a living person. In other cases, the victim was thrown into a well. In drought sacrifices, the victim was covered in blue paint to please the rain god!

The ancient Maya recognized several psychiatric conditions, including overthinking and depression. It’s not exactly a secret that mental health is one of the most important issues of our time. The Maya were right all along – we’ve been overlooking and under-appreciating the importance of mental health. Meanwhile, they hit the nail on the head over 2,000 years ago.

Created by mixing fire-heated rocks, herbs, and water, the steam bath, or zumpul-che, was used to improve health, for spiritual cleansing as well as for ritualistic practices. It was seen as a way of purifying the body and benefiting the soul. 

The Maya had a true understanding of the movements and cycles of the planets and other heavenly bodies. The planet Venus played an important role in their calendar. They could calculate the length of a single lunar month and the time it takes for the Earth to make one complete whirl around the sun.

The calendar represented time as it appeared to them  – not one day at a time but how life unfolded over thousands of years. Some people say that it predicted the end of the world in December of 2012, but what the Maya really meant was that it would be the end of an era.

Like basketball, pok-ta-pok has a hoop. However, it is positioned vertically instead of horizontally. Players could not use their hands, head, or feet to kick the ball, so they would have to bounce it from their body at the exact right time in order to get it through the stone ring. Winning the game often meant earning the honor of being a human sacrifice. 

Each year, brave adventurers from all over the world sign up for a journey back in time to experience a lost Maya civilization. They start by hiking through the lush, tropical rainforest to the sacred cenote and then participate in various ceremonies in honor of the goddess.

The Mayan writing system had over 800 characters and combined both phonetic and logographic principles, making it one of the most complex languages ever developed. Tatiana Proskouriakoff was a Siberian-American archaeologist who deciphered the Mayan script. She made many discoveries about this mysterious culture, working tirelessly on uncovering its secrets.

Zero is a concept that is not intuitive to people. It was first seen in Mesopotamia around 3 BCE and was independently developed by the Maya around 4 CE. They used a symbol that looked like a shell to denote zero.

The Spanish conquistadors were purportedly responsible for the destruction of most of the pre-Columbian Mayan codices when they invaded Central America in the 16th century. Only a handful of the many Mayan books have been preserved. The Spanish conquerors burned and destroyed most of the Mayan codices when they invaded their land.

The psychoactive substances in the herbs and mushrooms would make the consumer hallucinate and enter a trance-like state where the spirit could journey out of the body and gain deep insight into our world and how it works. It was believed that this would allow them to connect with the spirit world and gain wisdom from the gods. 

Itzamna was the most important of the gods and he had a powerful influence over them. To the Maya, he was the creator of Heaven and Earth. Without his help, humans could not survive, and in return for Itzamna’s blessings, they lived in fear and servitude to him.

In this detailed carving on the lid of the tomb of Maya King Pakal, we see a human figure rising from a dark and gloomy underworld and ascending through a beam of light. The figure is rising on a celestial serpent and together they represent resurrection and ascension – concepts we are familiar with thanks to stories of near-death experiences.

The kings of the Maya civilization played several important roles in the community. They had to be well educated and familiar with the traditions and laws of their society to take up this lofty position. They also claimed to be demi-gods who lived between the human and spiritual realms. 

The Maya were skilled language experts, leading some to draw conclusions that they were in communication with aliens who gave them advanced architecture and language systems. This theory stems from the fact that the Maya speak an incredibly difficult language that allows them to construct extremely long phrases with just a few words.

As time passed, many tales were forgotten, and the details and origins of others became unknown to most people. Fortunately, some have been recorded in a book called Popol Vuh: The Sacred Book of the Ancient Quiché People. It was written in 1701 and contains some of the stories of the Maya that were passed down for centuries.

These structures became an important part of their culture and were used to house deities and bury kings and royal members. The biggest Maya pyramid, the 78-feet high Kukulkan, can still be seen at Chichen Itza, Mexico.

What would a great civilization be without great art? The Mayans were no different, and this is especially evident in the many beautiful structures. Built in a variety of styles, Maya ruins can be found throughout Mexico but are not to be mistaken for the Inca ruins that lie south in Peru.

Chichen Itza is an important archaeological site in Mexico that is still being excavated today. It holds an abundance of secrets from the past. Two years ago, archaeologists found an untouched cave called Balamku at Chichen Itza. So far, over 150 objects have been found, each one instrumental in Maya religious rituals.

The decline of the Maya is a great mystery in archaeology. No one knows why they abandoned their impressive cities and centers of power. Some theories suggest that the Maya society was weakened by overpopulation, deforestation, drought, disease, or invasion.

Most of their numbers were decimated by war and disease. However, a few remnants of their people still survive today in the remote corners of the rainforest that occupies Latin America. About 6 million Maya people still live in present-day Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, and Honduras.