( See also origins of agriculture: Early development: The Americas.) They began to build ceremonial centres, and by 200 ce these had developed into cities containing temples, pyramids, palaces, courts for playing ball, and plazas. They practiced agriculture, built great stone buildings and pyramid temples, worked gold and copper, and used a form of hieroglyphic writing that has now largely been deciphered.Īs early as 1500 bce the Maya had settled in villages and had developed an agriculture based on the cultivation of corn (maize), beans, and squash by 600 ce cassava (sweet manioc) was also grown. Before the Spanish conquest of Mexico and Central America, the Maya possessed one of the greatest civilizations of the Western Hemisphere ( see pre-Columbian civilizations: The earliest Maya civilization of the lowlands). In the early 21st century some 30 Mayan languages were spoken by more than five million people, most of whom were bilingual in Spanish. Maya, Mesoamerican Indians occupying a nearly continuous territory in southern Mexico, Guatemala, and northern Belize. Today most Maya are nominal Roman Catholics-though, beginning in the late 20th century, many converted to Evangelical Protestantism. Important gods included Itzamná, the supreme Mayan deity and original creator god who had several forms the Feathered Serpent, known to the Maya as Kukulcán (and to the Toltecs and Aztecs as Quetzalcóatl) and Bolon Tzacab, who is thought to have functioned as a god of royal descent. Pre-Columbian Mayan religion was polytheistic.
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