Lost Civilization Maya 6 of 6

it's losers were sacrificed to the gods

the Maya reveled in this terror even

recording the brutality for posterity

this sacrificial victim still emits an

eternal howl of unimaginable pain he has

been scalped disemboweled his hands and

feet mangled the wood bound to his back

is ready for the torch

today Maya Shaymin still practice blood

sacrifice

but now it is the blood of chickens that

has shed the ancient faith is intact but

only as a pale reflection of the rites

and ceremonies of the classic Meyer

sacramental blood still feeds the Maya

imagination but the context of belief

has changed Christianity may have been

forced upon the Maya but once there it

struck a deep and lasting chord

the Christian concept of a divine king

who shed his blood for the benefit of

mankind made perfect sense to them

for the ancient Maya the blood of kings

was the mortar that bound all life

together the Kings sacrifice ensured the

stability of the Maya world guaranteeing

the sanction of the gods and the belief

of the people

he stood at the center of the Maya

universe remove the king and the whole

system comes crashing down

for Arthur Demarest the crisis for the

Classic Maya began the moment they lost

faith in their Kings the source of power

is is this ritual is display the

ceremony the theater the charisma and

when real problems occur when a military

defeat occurs even between centers it

can be devastating in a way that it

shouldn't have to be but the authority

is based upon belief belief in the king

and failure is unacceptable that this

really is a holy Lord who can manipulate

the forces of the universe then failure

undermines the whole system and it can't

be adjusted for

the problems Maya Kings faced as their

authority eroded were not unique but

their solution was more ritual more

sacrifice more blood but it didn't work

you can gently bloodletting you can

build temples as far as you want it

isn't gonna make a soil thicker it isn't

going to stop the erosion it's not going

to prevent invading enemies from winning

because they have better weapons or

tactics

and eventually there were losses in war

overpopulation in cities failures of

crops and ultimately the king was

responsible if the blood of the king

held the world together when that world

fell apart

it was the King's blood that had failed

them

when you begin to understand from the

inside the way the Maya thought and the

way the civilization was constructed

it's amazing that they maintained it for

as long as they did

the mystery should not be the mystery of

my collapse but the mystery of how the

Maya for 2,000 years maintain this

impressive civilization

the Maya they rose stone by stone out of

the jungle self-made and self-contained

unique and wholly original in all the

world

but ultimately the great dynasties and

the great achievements of the maya kings

and queens all their formidable powers

were built upon the faith of the people

and when crops failed or enemies

prevailed the people no longer believed

and when the people lost faith the

rulers lost power and when that power

vanished the Maya abandoned their great

cities and the jungle reclaimed it

stoned

you