The earliest dated monument yet discovered in Tikal and all of the Maya lowlands, Stela 29, has a Long Count date of 8.12.14.13.15, which translates to A.D. 292.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Though Tikal may have been settled by at least 600 B.C., most of the city's edifices were built during what is called the Classic period of Maya history, from A.D. 250 to 900.
During the Spanish conquest of Mesoamerica in the 16th century, the Catholic Church's Friar Diego de Landa supervised the burning of hundreds of Maya codices - fig-bark books rich in mythological and astronomical information. Only four Maya codices are known to have survived.
The Aztecs believe they started up in what's now New Mexico, and wandered for 10,000 years before they got down into where they are now, in Mexico City. That's a weird legend.
On first acquaintance, the mystery of the Mayans of Guatemala can seem simply bizarre, as it was when I first encountered Maximon the god.
Peru was the Incas; it has 3,000 to 4,000 years of history.
The obscurest epoch is today.
The priests say the new dawn will be like the rain that fertilizes the soil before we begin to plant our corn. It will renew the natural cycle of life. The Mayan people will once again flourish. I believe in this very strongly. The holy men say we are entering a period of clarity. We are rediscovering our Mayan values.
The trip I made to Angola to study the prehistoric contents of the gravel beds as a means of deciding the age of the deposits and their economic potential was the first time prehistory had ever been used for such a purpose.
Very good records exist about the Trail of Tears. Journals and other records kept by Cherokees and non-Indians tell such things as which people were where on which day.
Perhaps the greatest Maya mystery of all is the cause of the civilization's abrupt decline. The last dated stela erected at Tikal was put up in A.D. 869; the last anywhere in the Maya world, in 909.