Speaking of Maya culture is to talk about mysteries, excitement, and wisdom. How can we explain the advancement and precision of the Maya in certain sciences when the necessary technologies were still unknown?

For thousands of years, the Maya civilization has produced intrigue, riddles and mysteries. The legends that originated with the passage of time have increased the number of scientists, archaeologists and visitors who come to discover and learn the true story of one of the most brilliant civilizations in history.

Today, their origin and decline it remains a mystery. It is known that the Maya were in Mesoamerica since 1500 b.c. to 900 a.d., And though there is evidence that there is much influence from the Olmec culture, it is increasingly more accepted the idea that people could have come from American Mongolian tribes who came to America between 30 and 70 thousand years ago going through Liberia and Alaska by an isthmus that does not exist today. Also on the decline of the Maya various possibilities are being considered, but although there is still no official version of why they disappeared, experts archaeologists believe that there were droughts and wars that led the Maya people to mistrust their kings, whom they considered gods, and stopped listening as they were failing to provide rain or the necessary victory.

Already there were social classes at that time?

Hierarchy is not something that has been invented little time ago, even the Mayan culture did not build an egalitarian society, but they were rather ranked and counted with great diversity of characters that included kings and queens, nobles, bureaucrats, warriors, servants and high-status individuals who collaborated with the delicate job of organizing the power and authority.

Also, the construction of huge buildings as the pyramids, served the Maya to strengthen their social bonds between large concentrations of population and the rulers in a period marked by rapid political and economic changes, and the consolidation of large territories. 

Does your calendar was more accurate than our present?

The Mayans amaze us still today, observing the calendar they developed without using any type of technology, or even the telescope, only with patience and observation of the sky, is more accurate than the one we are using today, and they even knew exactly when an eclipse was going to happen. If the sidereal year, which measures the time it takes the earth to complete one orbit of the sun is 365.242198 days, we use the Gregorian calendar which consists of 365.2425 days, so every four years we have to make corrections (leap year). However, the calendar of the Maya, Long Count, consisted of 365.242129 days, so they make corrections every 52 years, when celebrating the Fiesta del Fuego.

Besides the calendar, the Maya knew the concept of "zero" 1.700 years before the Europeans, which implies a great capacity for mathematical abstraction. They also implemented the vigesimal system and built in Uaxactún the first astronomical observatory in the Americas.

For the Maya, time is a nonlinear circular flow, like for many other civilizations, and all the events, whether natural phenomena or the behavior of men, tends to recur.

According to the Mayan worldview, culture is made, created and recreated for the internal thriving of consciousness, to enable us to feel emotions and move us with and before nature.

Why are books burned?

Before the colonial period, the Maya had written several books in which they left evidence of their knowledge, their history and their predictions, but with the arrival of the Spanish, the priests decided to burn them not to harm the Indians who were in the beginning of their conversion to Christianity, so that only four of these books are preserved, called "codices. "

The codices, that precisely are not located in the areas that were inhabited by the Mayas are: in Dresden (in Germany, which explains details of the Mayan calendar and the numerical system), in Madrid (speaking of horoscopes and astrology), in Paris (which deals with various topics such as historical records, divinatory almanacs and movements of the constellations) and in Grolier (in Mexico but not publicly displayed.)

¿Qué importancia tiene la fecha 21 de diciembre de 2012?

Much has been said and speculated about the date of December 21, 2012, a key date for the Maya as their calendar began on August 13, 3113 b.c. and ends on December 21, 2012, which has created several versions such as the end of the world, the change of attitude in people and therefore on Earth, or simply the beginning of another cycle.

As in everything there is much controversy in these statements, but we must wait for December 21, 2012 to prove it!

What dates did they live?

You can place the Maya in three main periods:

• The Pre-Classic Period (2000 B.C. to 250 a.d. There is evidence of the first language and Mayan writing, which is established in turn as one of the most ancient systems in Mesoamerica and during this period it becomes evident that the hierarchy of the family in society was led by the oldest person given the wisdom they had.
• The Classic Period (250-900 a.d.) represents the splendor of their civilization where big advances can be seen in the field of astronomy, mathematics, agriculture, commerce, arts, architecture and writing.
• The Post-classic period (900-1524 a.d.) It is the beginning of the decline of a civilization that had been very flourishing and its end is marked by the arrival of the Spanish, which ended subjecting the Mayan, forcing them to burn and destroy fundamental parts such as Maya writings, leaving forever an irretrievable gap in explaining its enigmatic history.