When humans found out that they can actually mold metal and turn it into weaponry, it didn’t take us long to create the first knives, swords, spears, and eventually guns. Metal weapons have been in use for thousands of years at this point, but the Mayans stayed away from this material almost completely. Instead, their primary ingredient for carving out weapons of war was obsidian, a dark and smooth volcanic glass that can cause some serious damage when used as a blade. Mayans would sharpen their obsidian blades to the point of being sharp enough to literally pierce Spanish steel armor.
The Mayans were also adept at ranged warfare and would carve darts and arrows from the same volcanic material. Another weapon often used by the Mayans was an atlatl, a tool that uses great amounts of leverage to hurl spears and darts at ranged opponents. The atlatl was so powerful that they had to move instead to bows and arrows, since it would throw the darts and spears so fast that they obsidian would often shatter on impact, drastically reducing the damage that the target would receive and also destroying the chances of using them again later. We’ve already touched the false notion about the Mayans allegedly predicting the end of the world in 2012, but there were a lot of deep and incredibly interesting things about their calendar. Here’s the short explanation…
They Invented One of the First Written Languages
One of the most tragic things that happen during wartime is the systematic destruction of various documents, journals, and art pieces, either by the winner of the war as an official declaration of supremacy or in many cases, by the loser, in an attempt to hide sensitive information. It's quite self-evident why history and society take great interest in the knowledge and discoveries of the Mayan people, as there were many great benefits to be gained there. Luckily, they employed one of the earliest written languages in mankind's history. The Mayans were heavy writers and tended to write often on everything including stone, stucco, wood, pottery, and even clothes.
Although their complicated language took many decades to figure out, it was no match for the combined intellect of many of the world's finest historians and language experts, who managed to decipher it in the early 20th century. Unfortunately, the Spanish destroyed the majority of that writing when they conquered the Mayan territory, leaving only a small minority of the original writings left in the form of stone monuments from the priest's altars. It's been noted that they wrote about almost every subject, and had a very philosophical point of view about the nature of personal property, culture, and religion. Although the Mayans were deeply religious, they were also very adept at the time in health practices which have been improved but not stopped, even in modern times. Here's what they knew about it…
The Mayans Had Advanced Medical Procedures, Including Surgeries
The Mayans were ahead of their time when it came to treating sick patients, as they had acquired knowledge as to the importance of hygiene, avoiding bacteria and viruses (at least implicitly), keeping wounds clean and away from germs, and more. Some examples of their medical practices include using human hair to suture wounds, effectively keeping them closed and clean, and even dental surgery, when teeth would get replaced by prosthetic ones from jade, turquoise, and pyrite (these prosthetics were even considered beautiful in the Mayan culture).
The Mayans, being heavily steeped in myth and religion, often viewed disease and injuries as punishments from the gods. Mayan health experts would often ask their patients to confess whatever sins they had committed, believing these had a large part to do with their illness. These doctors would prescribe patients medicinal herbs, or to go to sweat baths, similar to saunas.
For Mayans, Calendars Were More Important Than Almost Anything
Love it or hate it, the calendar is the tool we use to help make sense of our days. We consult it when we want to know what our agenda is for the day, we check it to see how long it is until the paycheck comes in, we use it to set up dates and appointments, and even create predictions by setting goals and sticking them to later calendar deadlines. The Mayans also had a strong attachment to their calendar and could teach us a thing or two about the motivational significance of them. According to Mayan mythology, the first set of men and women were destroyed by the gods as a punishment for not consulting with their sacred calendars. This is why the Mayans devoted a lot of time and effort into perfecting their calendar system.
Based on the Mayan calendar, there are two types of events to track. On the one side, there is a secular variety of things. These could be anything from appointments to goals and so on and so forth. They believed these can be adhered to or dispensed with at your own suggestion. On the other hand, there was the sacred portion of the calendar, which tracked astrology and holidays fo the gods. They believed that this part of the calendar should be given the utmost respect and attention and that it even predicted the future. Priests and scribes would attempt to read the sacred calendar and make predictions based on what they found. These predictions would then be passed on to the king, who would relay the information to his faithful constituents.
Mayans Were Fluent Speakers of Many, Many Different Languages
A lot of people believe that because the Mayans were a single nation, they spoke one official language. We also tend to assume that the language was called something along the lines of “Mayan”. Well, when it comes to historical backgrounds, the Mayan empire was actually made up of a large number of small groups of people, each of which had their own dialect. These dialects eventually evolved into their own fully developed languages, making the total amount of languages spoken in the Mayan territories to be anywhere from 21 to 70 different languages.
All of these languages descend from one original meta-language called the Proto-Mayan language, a younger version of the spoken languages that dates back more than five thousand years ago. This is a very similar situation to what happened in Europe, with the meta language of Latin gradually developing into various versions and dialects of languages from English to German. The main Mayan meta language is said to have broken off into six different branches of development, or “sub-languages”, these six branches of Proto-Matan are: Quichean, Yucatecan, Qanjobalan, Mamean, Co-lan-Tzeltalan, and Huastecan. As cool as this may sound, here's something infinitely cooler, did you know that the Mayans still exist to this day?