The Mayans, part two
Since the sixteenth century Mayan architecture has drawn the attention of the powerful West. Their pyramids, temples and palaces had been abandoned long ago, but the jungle and the lack of information served as incentives for their first scholars. The materials that were disposed of the architects Maya limestone blocks for the coating and dirt, gravel and stone slabs to fill the cores and basements, getting cement for the attachment of calcium carbonate.
The mahogany and zapote provided the lintels of the doors, the reinforcements for the vaults, as well as scaffolding, ladders and rollers that facilitated the work. The technical achievement was the most characteristic false vault, which is nothing more than two walls that meet at the top of spun by approximation of stones. The stucco was used to plaster floors, walls and sculptures, and was obtained by mixing lime with water in a rubber plant. The enormous weight of the vaults and the crest (masonry walls that stood on it) forced to increase the thickness of the walls and reduce vain. The styles are the most important of Peten (Tikal, Uaxactún), characterized by imposing mass front smoothed by the height of facing Massifs and shrines, irregular plant with a single door; Valley Motagua (Copan, Quiriguá) becomes singular for the use of blocks of Trachyte, the abundance of sculptures and profuse decoration of the friezes, the region of the Usumacinta (Yaxchilán, Piedras Negras) possesses vast acropolis, and noted for its stucco decoration and the sense of lightness to it print their large porches and figures of the facades, the area Puuc (Uxmal, Kabah, Sayil) is characterized by the use of columns, baseboards simple, smooth walls and friezes enormous and richly decorated with stone mosaics; and the region Chenes (Hochob, Dzibilnocac) and decorate the whole surface of the stone walls with masks. Finally, the Rio Bec style includes towers coated masonry shell similar to the real Tikal.
Sculpture
Includes a variety of events: altars, steles, tombstones, zoomorphic lintels, panels, thrones, jambs, columns, statues and markers package ball game. Its main features are the use of the relief, the monumentality in the treatment of the themes, use of color on the surface, the dependence of the architectural field, the profusion of signs, calligraphy and ornamentation, the relevance of curved lines and character brindle and theatrical of the composition. The memorial stelae are among the magnificent work that the highlight of Tikal, Copan, Quiriguá and Coban. These are huge slabs of stone nailed vertically in the ground, where the Maya sculptors carved in low relief images of the jubilee of their kings. Stood at the end of a particular time period, every five and every twenty years, and in them, using hieroglyphics, is narrated the most important events of the reign. Excellent lintels are the figurative which flanked the gates of the palaces and temples of Yaxchilán, the altars of Piedras Negras and zoomorphic of Quirigua, but perhaps the summit of the Mayan sculpture are panels of the buildings of Palenque. The palace, and the temples of the inscriptions, the Sun, the Cross and the Cross Folias, are one of the best examples of how man is able to translate their religious universe in stone.
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