Ancient Mayans were essentially a Stone Age culture, and split and fashioned the massive blocks of their ceremonial buildings with harder stone working on softer stone.
Limestone blocks were quarried using wooden wedges, which expanded when wet, forcing planes of stone apart. Chisels and string rasps allowed masons to cut grooves and right angles in blocks.
Huge blocks were transported on rollers dragged by men straining at ropes. They were levered into position with sand pits.
The true Roman arch with a keystone was never developed in the New World. Instead, builders used corbelled arches, which are nowhere near as able to support great weights of stone. Thus, Mayan buildings are long and narrow, or very tall (built upon mounds of earth) with tiny temples on top. New World pyramids are not triangular, as in ancient Egypt, but square, with stepped, not gradually sloping, sides. The steep steps up which one climbs in chicken Itza (actually a Toltec, not Mayan, ruin) are not a staircase, but a symbolic number of steps which only priests ascended.
A device known as a "roof comb" tops many temples. Few of the open-work (again, because of the structures' inability to support heavy weights) crests have survived intact.
Mayan temples were brightly coloured. Decorative friezes ran the length of temples, and doorways and lintels were carved. Wood was also carved, but very few pieces have survived the jungle climate.
The interior of temples were often covered with fresco murals. The most famous examples are the elaborate depictions court life in Bonampak ruin in Mexico's Yucatan state. The discovery of them gave archaeologists an invaluable insight into Mayan life and ritual.
Stelae are tall columns carved with the faces and ceremonial dress of kings and their battle exploits.
Smaller Mayan temples were the same shape as commoners' homes made of reeds or wattle and daub with "palapa" -- palm-thatch roofs -- which is a remarkably efficient roofing material for a humid climate. The Mayan word for roof is "where the rats run," a reference to rodent populations inhabiting the palapa.
When the Conquistadores arrived, Mayan temples were torn
down and their stones used as foundations of Catholic churches. Cathedrals in small towns in Yucatan still contain these rocks.
Limestone blocks were quarried using wooden wedges, which expanded when wet, forcing planes of stone apart. Chisels and string rasps allowed masons to cut grooves and right angles in blocks.
Huge blocks were transported on rollers dragged by men straining at ropes. They were levered into position with sand pits.
The true Roman arch with a keystone was never developed in the New World. Instead, builders used corbelled arches, which are nowhere near as able to support great weights of stone. Thus, Mayan buildings are long and narrow, or very tall (built upon mounds of earth) with tiny temples on top. New World pyramids are not triangular, as in ancient Egypt, but square, with stepped, not gradually sloping, sides. The steep steps up which one climbs in chicken Itza (actually a Toltec, not Mayan, ruin) are not a staircase, but a symbolic number of steps which only priests ascended.
A device known as a "roof comb" tops many temples. Few of the open-work (again, because of the structures' inability to support heavy weights) crests have survived intact.
Mayan temples were brightly coloured. Decorative friezes ran the length of temples, and doorways and lintels were carved. Wood was also carved, but very few pieces have survived the jungle climate.
The interior of temples were often covered with fresco murals. The most famous examples are the elaborate depictions court life in Bonampak ruin in Mexico's Yucatan state. The discovery of them gave archaeologists an invaluable insight into Mayan life and ritual.
Stelae are tall columns carved with the faces and ceremonial dress of kings and their battle exploits.
Smaller Mayan temples were the same shape as commoners' homes made of reeds or wattle and daub with "palapa" -- palm-thatch roofs -- which is a remarkably efficient roofing material for a humid climate. The Mayan word for roof is "where the rats run," a reference to rodent populations inhabiting the palapa.
When the Conquistadores arrived, Mayan temples were torn
down and their stones used as foundations of Catholic churches. Cathedrals in small towns in Yucatan still contain these rocks.