The Mayan Symbols
SACRED TREE
The three levels of the universe Maya were joined by a central shaft, an axis mundi, with roots in the underworld and branches towered into the sky touching the overworld: This tree was associated with the color green and the four trees that surrounded him at level of the middle world, signifying the cardinal points, were marked in red, white, black and yellow.
The red tree represented the East and the rising sun, the white pointed north, to the point of deceased ancestors, the yellow marked the South and the sun at its zenith, the black to the west, the sunset and the underworld.
Goddess Ixchel
Ixchel: Bride of Itzamna, is the goddess of the moon and devastating floods. And 'universal belief that the moon governs the cyclical rhythm of life, tides and tsunamis, to fertilize the earth. For this reason, in Mayan rituals related to fertility, both male and female, is the moon that are invoked sexual potency and the ability to procreate. The moon goddess combines several meanings: when young people as medicine and childbirth and old, however, the land, vegetation, and weaving.
GOD AH CHICUM EK
AH CHICUM EK: It 'was identified as the "guide star". It 's always portrayed with a snub nose and strange signs blacks on the head. It only has a glyph name day, similar to the head of a monkey. Its glyph is used to indicate the direction north, thus confirming its association with the North Star. It is said that the merchants were to offer incense on altars to this god on the road. Was benign and is associated with the god of rain, it was probably the patron saint of the day Chuen.
GOD AH PUCH
AH-PUCH: God of death represented as a skeleton, often in the company of the god of war. The god of death is associated with the disease and at night, it resides in the deeper layer of the underworld, where he arrived the spirits of most of the dead. However, the earth is the place where life flourishes and this means that death is nothing if not dialectical complement of life, for which the deities connected with it is also depicted with typical features of the living.
GOD BULUC CHABTAN
BULUC CHABTAN: This was the god of war and human sacrifice, whose sign is a hand grasping. At times it appears in the company of the god Yum Cimil in scenes of human sacrifice, it is often portrayed in the act of burning houses with a torch and demolish them with a spear in the other.
GOD CHACC
Chaac: the god Chaac is one of many anthropomorphic deities arising from the dragon. He is mentioned as a manifestation of the water, rain, lakes, rivers and sea. Mayan gods of rain, sometimes associated with death. And 'the dispenser of fruitful rain, the god of lightning protector with the ax, the god of the maize god of death threats from drought. Sometimes in the representations under her eyes you can see traces of tears, interpreted as a symbol of the rain poured from him. For ordinary peasant Mayan Chaac was the most important god, and his friendly intervention was invoked more often than all the other gods put together. This god was related to the number 13.
THE GOD OF CORN
THE GOD OF CORN: The maize god is the lord of the glyph number eight and its glyph is associated with the kan of the day and often is associated with the earth and birds that feed on corn, such as the raven. Corn is the plant par excellence, since it constitutes a basic food for mankind, which justifies the representation of this deity in human form and without attributes zoomorphic.
GOD EK Chuah
EK Chuah: It has a large lower lip sagging usually painted black and its glyph name day is a black-rimmed eye. This god was commonly identified as the black god of merchants. Appears with a bundle of merchandise on his back, like a pedlar, and a place is depicted with the head of Chicum Ek Ah, god of the north star and guide of merchants. It was also the patron of cocoa, one of the main products handled by the Mayan merchants. Who owned cocoa plantations was a ceremony in his honor in the month of Muan.
God Itzamna
Itzamna: The supreme god of the Maya is mainly blue, but the concept is the basis of their religion is the harmony of opposites, for which this entity combines the great cosmic antithesis, represented by animal symbols that embody excellence the opposing forces. The synthesis is then enriched by the attributes of other animals considered sacred, such as the jaguar, the caiman and the deer. The god is usually represented as an old white-haired, wise lord and master of science primeval times.
THE HERO TWINS
A large number of deities and figures appear in pairs (exactly as in the Hindu tradition in the chakras, or civilization and African cultures) or triad in the art and Mayan legends.
Among the most famous were the Hero Twins Hunahpu and Xbalanque, which are narrated in the Popol Vuh firms: experts in the ball game the twins are sent by the Lords of Xibalba, the gods of the underworld, to demonstrate their skills.
After passing a series of ordeals finally succeed in defeating the challengers, the last confrontation perform a series of miracles to give life to the dead, then hell, they should be sacrificed so they could in turn be brought back to life.
The twins, but condescend to revive them forget!
GOD THE FOOL
Divinity from the intriguing name, the god buffoon has little to do with the pleasures of the court: the designation derives from the resemblance between the shape of his brow and cocked hat of the medieval minstrels.
A similar profile was almost certainly a sign of royalty was then transferred to the three-pointed crown that adorned the head of the rulers in the pre classic later the god took the shape of a shark and began to appear as ornaments of jade heads gifts .
This stone was the most valuable mineral of the Maya, who identified with the water, sky and trees.
THE JAGUAR
Central figure of zoomorphic symbolism of the Maya, the jaguar - king of the tropical forest - was among the animals most revered ancient in America, associated with various deities, and the jaguar god of the underworld, was often depicted as riding a big cayman, from the West in the East
Also among the favorite subjects appeared on the shields of Mayan warriors, probably because it was considered a god of war, the symbolic associations connected with her puppy, the jaguar infant, were equally ominous, since most of the time he was seen accompanied by Chank the god of rain and lightning at the scene of sacrificial dance, sometimes taking part in this macabre ritual in the form of water-lily jaguar, so called because of the buds or lotus leaves that sprout from his head.
THE SACRED COSMOS
For the Maya, the universe was a complex living being, with powers of spiritual and symbolic power: all natural phenomena, supernatural beings and human beings had their own part to play in the grand cosmic ritual.
This interdependence was done according to a tripartite structure, formed by the overwork, the underworld and the world median (exactly like Celta).
The first most likely corresponded to the daytime sky, illuminated by the Sun while the night sky is identified with the underworld, which was obviously went daily to the above men.
The Mayans were reading in the motion of celestial bodies the actions of the gods, in the middle world of men each of the four cardinal points of a plant was designated a bird and a specific color.
THE SNAKE
Various monsters and beasts of the forest came to populate the local Mayan cosmology: the central figure of the snake was rampant in ritual ceremonies particularly in mutilation of the penis and tongue.
In some figures the snake that rises in a spiral from the jaws of spitting and rar, often appearing two-headed snake with a head at each end of the body smooth or feathered, could also exhibit a long beak or a long beard.
THE SUN
The Mayans paid tribute a special devotion to the Sun, associating it with the most powerful of their gods, and worshiped figures in some animals, such as the Jaguar and Eagle.
The symbol of the Sun was a flower with four petals, said Kin, whose precise meaning sun; why imprinted on the front of the main solar deity, Kinich Ahau, is the actual charge, combining in itself the sovereignty and radiance.
ITZAMNAAJ
At the end of the nineteenth century, the scholar Paul Schellas identified a number of gods who populated the imaginary horizon of the Maya, and appointed them each with a Latin letter.
Of particular importance toothless deities reigned over the underworld Xibalba: Member of D, L and N: D as the god of glifico Itzamnaaj (house lizard) had the face of an old man with square eyes, the pupils in spiral and a disc in front.
God of great prestige, was often depicted claimed his authority over minor deities, also associated with the celestial bird.
The god sometimes depicted with square eyes is recognized by a headdress in the shape of a bird Muan.
THE CREATION
Obsessed by the notion of time and calendars the Maya were very accurate in indicating the date of the Creation of the World, whose latest version dates back, according to them, to August 13, 3114 BC
They believed in fact that the world had been created and destroyed at least three times, the most important sacred text of this civilization that has been left, the Popol Vuh, tells us that creation took place through a dialogue between the gods and Tepeu Gukumatz, during the which the Earth was accentuated by the waters of the primeval sea.
Failed attempts to shape the human figures from wood or clay, the gods created humans with the corn, which became sacred to the Mayans a cereal.
THE MOON
In the cosmology of the Maya, the sun was associated with the male principle, the Moon-to-female, in the classical period, the Moon, was represented by a beautiful goddess sitting AStrO growing with a rabbit in her lap.
This animal had a deep connection with the moon, especially with that full, since its craters seemed to appear from its shape: a legend still alive says that the Moon would see decreased its brightness after a quarrel with her husband the Sun during who lost an eye.
THE EARTH
Common metaphor for the Earth in the bestiary maya was the caiman, which evokes the image of a mountainous region emerging from the primordial waters: the various components of terrestrial and Earth itself possessed an intense spiritual strength.
The Earth was often represented through a cornfield where growth was the life of the Mayan people.
PAUAHTUN
Among the most complex figures of the Maya pantheon is ascribed Pauahtun, quadripartite figure of a carrier of the sky that sometimes appears in the conch shell, others on a tortoise shell, or caught in a spider web: always represented with a mesh hat, he was among other things, the god of thunder and mountains, while its ancient form was associated with monkeys desks, so the art of writing.
In defining the scope of Mayan schells, corresponds to the god N.
VENUS
The erotic connotations attributed to this planet in Western cultures were completely unrelated to the vision of the Maya, they instead hired as a male deity.
In their astronomical surveys kept the two distinct phases in which Venus appeared as a morning star or evening, and the wars fought during the classical period were often decided in connection with certain days of the cycle of this planet.
Hunahpu enjoyed a double bond with the sun and Venus similar to one of the powerful gods of the Palenque Triad.