Intellectual Adventure Into Mysterious Maya

(In 1502, while sailing along the Gulf of Honduras, Christopher Columbus gazed at the Yucatan peninsula in the distance, and heard for the first time of the mysterious civilization hidden behind the misty green coastline – the Maya. Much research has taken place into the civilization since. Centuries of study have unearthed some similarities between Maya civilization and Chinese civilization. A debate about whether the two ancient civilizations share the same origins continues to this day. And that debate has resumed in recent weeks with the opening of a grand exhibition on Maya in Beijing. Our reporter shanshan went there to try and solve some of those Maya mysteries for us. Let’s hear about the discoveries she made in Cultural Carousel)

To the north of the Centenary Altar in Beijing you’ll have observed recently a curious sight. It’s a large, dark red pyramid not of the Egyptian variety but something different. The flat-topped structure is a familiar sight at ancient ruins in the jungles of central America. The construction of the temporary pyramid here in Beijing marks the beginning of an exhibition on the mysterious Maya civilization.

As I climbed the steps of the pyramid, I found it awe-inspiring. I had learnt from books that the pyramids represented mountains, and the temples on top of them caves leading into the heart of the mountains. Both were considered sacred places, opening a doorway for Maya people to communicate with the gods.

Crossing the pyramid, I encountered two stone pillars engraved with complicated Maya hieroglyphics, which serve as the entrance to the exhibition. Going through the gate, I entered a dark tunnel which seemed to transport me back in time. At the end of the tunnel, there was a spacious hall, housing 186 precious items from Mexico. Then, I begun, almost like an archaeologist, to uncover the secrets of Maya civilization that are buried in the rainforests.

Mayan civilisation originated in the Yucatán peninsula around 2600 B.C. It gained prominence around A.D. 250 in southern Mexico, Guatemala, northern Belize and western Honduras. The Mayans lived and prospered for at least 4000 years, creating a splendid culture. They were somewhat of an enigma, appearing and disappearing, much to the puzzlement of scholars. Hundreds of Maya city states sprung into life almost out of nowhere and left without trace just as abruptly, their inhabitants disappearing into the jungles, never to return.

Some Chinese scholars put forward the idea early in the 20th century that Maya people shared the same origins as the ancient Chinese. That school of thought grew and comparisons began to be drawn between unearthed relics of the two civilizations, the similarity in customs of the two peoples and ancient book records. There is a book written by a Chinese scholar during the Tang dynasty recording that ancient Chinese had traveled eastward by ship to a remote country named “Fusang”, which is believed by some scholars to be today’s Mexico. The same deduction was made by a French scholar during the 18th century after his extensive research. Coincidentally, a Maya legend goes that their ancestors came to their habitats by sea from the west.

Professor Hu Chundong supports the notion of close Chinese-Maya links. A retired teacher at the Beijing Normal University, he has devoted much of his spare time to the study of the Maya hieroglyph since 1975. After reading hundreds of books on it, including English and Russian versions, Professor Hu has even found similarities between the Mayan and Chinese languages.

“I have draw the conclusion from a comparison between the Maya and ancient Chinese language. I adopt the method of contrastive linguistics, which is employed worldwide to compare two languages. I chose 100 popular words of each language, and found that 22 are similar in pronunciation. For example, the Mayan pronunciation of ‘meat’and ‘deer’ are very similar to those in the dialects of southeast China. According to the linguistic formula that the longer two civilizations separate, the less similarities there will be in their two languages, I conclude that Maya people left Asia 5000 years ago.”

Professor Hu Chundong’s discovery is a new one in this field. Previous evidence has centered around the discovery by archaeologists of similarities between Maya and Chinese handicrafts.

The similarities can be observed at the ongoing exhibition. I came across a clay figure depicting a woman sitting down which was unearthed in the Mexican state of Campeche. Her long, thin eyes, as well as her hairstyle and clothes had the look of similar figures from China’s early Tang Dynasty. The figure is considered by Mexican scholars to be “of Chinese style”. Then, I saw a pottery pot 4000 years old which was decorated with eight-angled stars. Experts told me that such decorations were common on jadeware during the Neolithic Age in China, some 4000 to 10,000 years ago.

Some scholars also marvel at the fondness for jade among Mayans and ancient Chinese. Both of them believed wearing jade to be a status symbol and something that could keep them healthy. Both peoples maintained a tradition of having jade placed in their mouths after death. At the exhibition, I saw a jade necklace unearthed from a tomb with a pendant in the shape of the letter “T”, which was also popular in ancient China. Experts say Maya people believed that “T” symbolized wind and vitality. Interestingly, ancient Chinese believed “T” represented Heaven.

Many of the exhibits provide the supporters of the Chinese-Maya connection with plenty of ammunition for their arguments. But there is another group which does not subscribe to the idea.

Professor Xu Shicheng is one of that group. An expert in Latin American studies with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, he is also the vice president of the Chinese Association for Latin American Studies. He says the two groups of scholars not only exist in China, but worldwide. One group cannot convince the other of its arguments.

Xu Shicheng has been to several central American countries to visit Maya ruins. He says that the evidence of the Chinese connection is far from convincing.

“Take the language for example. Deciphered Maya hieroglyphs are just a tiny proportion of the whole. Much of its highly complex systems of writing were recorded in books made from bark paper. Because of their perishable nature and book-burning by Spanish invaders, only four books remain today. The Maya hieroglyphs still remain as a great mystery. Therefore, study based on the deciphered ones is not convincing enough.”

Xu Shicheng admits there are similarities between the cultural relics of the two civilizations. But he prefers to explain it as coincidence, saying that such similarities could also be found between Chinese civilization and other ancient civilizations. He points out that differences between the two civilizations far outnumber the similarities. For instance, Maya’s main form of architecture was stone pyramid temples, while in China, it was wooden palaces; Maya’s primary crop was corn which resulted in their worship of the God of Corn, but the major crop in ancient China was rice. What’s more, the Mayans didn’t know how to make metal tools, how to raise livestock, and how to make wheels, which were mastered by ancient Chinese.

Xu Shicheng points out that Maya and Chinese are two independent civilizations, which don’t share the same origins.

“I believe that Maya civilization was built on the inherited inventions and ideas of earlier civilizations in central America such as the Olmec. And Maya people are not gone, since there are still some two million descendants of Maya living in Mexico.

Professor Xu Shicheng points out that some people even say the Mayans were extraterrestrial beings, which is sheer fabrication. But he says there are still many mysteries of Maya, which are beyond people’s imagination. For example, why did it disappear all of a sudden while there were no signs of famine, plague or war? Without metal tools and animal-drawn vehicles, how was it possible to quarry huge slabs in distant mountains and transport them for the construction of magnificent temples? How to reconcile such astonishing cultural achievements as a calendar that could work for 6000 years without error, complex computations in terms of billions, and an exquisite system of hieroglyphs with productivity represented by slash-and-burn farming? What secrets are the statues with their stern expressions and the esoteric language inscribed on the tablets supposed to tell?

Professor Xu Shicheng hopes more people will begin to research the answers to these mysteries. This is also the aim of the exhibition as its chief designer at the Centenary Art Museum Wang Yudong explained:

“The exhibition provides an opportunity for the Chinese to experience the remote Maya civilization first hand. We hope that while appreciating the beautiful pottery, jadeware and stone handicrafts of Maya, more and more people will become interested in solving the mysteries of the civilization. The Maya civilization has made a great contribution to world civilization, with its splendid paintings, architecture, languages and medicine, and the research into it is of great importance.”

After visiting the exhibition, I felt like I had been part of a big archaeological adventure. But instead of knowing all the answers, even more questions came into my mind. Whatever about me, it looks as if the mysterious Mayas will continue to provide scholars here and around the world with plenty of food for thought.