Forgotten Past

A look on ancient History, Language and Architecture

WWW.ASTROSET.COM

Maya Cities and Pyramids

Doç. Dr. Haluk BERKMEN

  Several waves of migrations crossed the land-bridge between Asia and America many thousand years ago and populated gradually the new continent. An article published in Nature claims that this fact has now been scientifically proven. Calculations of sea levels between 18,000 to 9,000 years ago attest the possibility of such a land-crossing. The article starts with the following words (1):

  America’s first inhabitants were people from Asia who migrated over a now submerged land bridge between the two continents.

  Another recent archeological research has established that a group of people were living at a site called Monte Verde in southern Chile 12,500 years BP (2). The article in Nature Magazine states:

  If people had migrated almost to the tip of South America by 12,500 years ago, experts agree they must have begun trekking south from Alaska before the glaciers retreated from the American interior.

  The periodic temperature-variations in the north hemisphere during the last 20,000 years have been discussed in Chapter 5, Climatic Changes. From the graph (below) we can tell that around 18,000 years BP the northern regions were cold enough to allow such a crossing. Even after having crossed the land-bridge people had to move further south, because ice sheets did not retreat until the end of the ice-age.

  They entered from point A shown on the map below-left and reached Monte Verde (blue point B) within the next 6,000 years. But not all of them went all the way to the south. By 4,600 BP the Olmec people of Mesoamerica attained an advanced level of civilization exhibiting city life, refined art and architectural design, and even developed a writing system (see previous Chapter 27).

  The languages of the Americas have been classified in three main groups.  Joseph Greenberg and colleagues have proposed that the three Native American language families –Amerind, Na-Dene and Eskimo-Aleut- derive from three separate migrations from Asia (3). The earliest migrants spoke many different, but interrelated Asiatic (Altaic) languages, which have been labeled as “Amerind” a name derived from American-Indian shown in yellow on the map. The green region has been the area where tribes speaking Na-Dene or equivalently Atapascan settled and the light blue region extending from Alaska to Greenland is the area of Eskimo-Aleut speakers (see Chapter 2, Diversification of Languages).

  Instead of trying to read the complex Maya scriptures, which needs a special expertise, a simpler approach would be to try to decipher the toponymy of the Yucatan cities and sites. City names certainly do have a meaning, but nobody until today ever tried to give an etymological explanation of the city-names, or at least I have not come across of such an approach. On the map below-right we see the names and locations of the major Maya cities and sites.

Here is my own understanding of some Maya city names:

  Chichen Itza: In the previous chapter: The Maya word Tchich was found to be equivalent in meaning and sound to the Turkish word “Çýk” (pronounced as tchyck) meaning Augment, Climb. The equivalent of “ckichen” is “chykan” in Turkish, therefore Chichen Itza means “The elevated or superior Itza”.

  Tikal: “Tik” is one of the earliest root-words originating from the Proto-language, meaning “single, unique” which evolved to mean “finger” and “hand” (4). In all Altaic languages (Turkish, Uighur, Chuvash, Chagatai) “tek” means single. In the Eskimo-Aleut languages “tik” means the index finger. In Chinese “tiek” means one. In Atapascan languages “tek” and “tikhi” mean again one. In Amerind languages the Mixe say “tuk” and the Quiche Maya say “tik” for one. Therefore, Tikal means “The single one“, or “Be unique” since the suffix –al exists in Turkish in the form of –il. Thus Tikal is the equivalent of “tekil” and means “singular” or “one of a kind”.

  Copan: In Turkish the same word exists as “Kopan”, meaning “the breakaway one”. This is a valid name for this city, which is far from the main Maya cities as shown on the map above.

  Tulum: The word “tul”, already mentioned in the last chapter, means “full” and is found as “dolu” or “tolu” in Turkish. Therefore, “Tulum” means “filled up” or “crowded”, a perfect name for a city located by the seashore. A further meaning for “tulum” is “a filled-up animal skin”, which is also used for “bagpipe”, an animal skin filled-up with air.

  Uxmal: This name pronounced as “Ushmal” or “Uchmal” contains the root-word “uch” meaning both “tip” and also “leader”, already mentioned in Chapter 10, Etruscan Inscriptions. “Uchmak” meant “heaven” or “high above” in ancient Turkish. For sure Uxmal was one of the most important Maya cities. The so called governor’s palace or the residence of the Maya king is described in the following words by Lewis Spence (5).

  The palace occupies three successive colossal terraces, and its frieze runs in a line of 100 ms, and is divided into panels, each of which frames a gigantic head of priest or deity.

  Therefore, Uxmal means “the leader city” or “the capital city”.

  Without going into more detail on the city names let us turn our attention to the Maya architecture. The inhabitants of Yucatan built stepped pyramids in every Maya city and used them for burying their king, worshiping the sun-god and making blood rituals and sacrifices.

  The Maya had also a very intricate calendar system. The Maya time-keeping involved several interlocking cycles, some of which tracked astronomical events while others seemingly followed abstract time intervals. Maya priests, who conducted the sacred rituals, were also fervent stargazers and decided on the timing of important events basing themselves on both their complicated calendar as well as on the position of the stars. A solar day in Mayan is “kin” and is “gün” in Turkish, while the sun in Mayan is “kinish” and is “günesh” in Turkish. Such similarities can certainly not be coincidental.

  Below we see some Maya pyramids. They are all built on flat land and are fulfilling the role of mountains, lacking in the region. In the new world as well as in China and Egypt the need for pyramid building stemmed from the same desire of approaching the sun. This wish for worshiping the sun-god evolved from simple earth-mounds to advanced architectural stone structures and is found also in the Biblical story “Tower of Babel”.

  The Maya culture and history is part of our forgotten past and needs to be rediscovered.

References

(1)   Nature Magazine, Vol. 422, 6 March 2003, page 10.
(2)
   Monte Verde, T. D. Dillehey, Scientific American, No. 251, page 106, 1984.
(3)
   Ref. 1 of Chapter 26, page 100.
(4)
   Idem, page 115.
(5)
   The Myths of Mexico and Peru, Lewis Spence, page 191, Dover Publications, USA.

<< previous chapter

next chapter >>

"All articles and pictures published in this page are the exclusive property of Haluk Berkmen.  They cannot be copied and reproduced without his permission. If you want to get his permission, please contact us".

 

© Astroset 2004-2010