Maya exhibit at Tulane highlights more than just the civilization's calendar

(Gallery by David Grunfeld, The Times-Picayune)
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on December 14, 2012 at 5:55 PM, updated December 14, 2012 at 11:18 PM

There's more to the Maya civilization than a calendar that some believe predicts the world will end next Friday. In the 3,000 or so years since the first Maya put down roots in what is now the Yucatan peninsula, they have built cities and temples; held festivals and religious observances; made textiles, jewelry and pottery; and even played a game that is believed to be an early version of basketball.

Evidence of this society, which eventually spread to Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras and El Salvador, is on display in the Middle American Research Institute Gallery on the third floor of Tulane University's Dinwiddie Hall. The free exhibit, "Faces of the Maya: Profiles in Continuity and Resilience," is open Tuesdays through Fridays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. It will be up for most of next year, institute director Marcello Canuto said.

The Maya also had the only fully developed written language in pre-Columbian America. In addition to the artistic achievements shown in the Tulane exhibit, the Maya were known for their architecture and their mathematical and astronomical systems.

Clothing, masks and rubbings made on intricately carved stones are among the 250 pieces on view, which come from the institute's holdings and the New Orleans Museum of Art.

To be sure, parts of the notorious calendar are there, too - three massive, inscribed slabs that are casts made from the originals in the 1920s by Frans Blom, the institute's first director. The original calendar slabs were in what Canuto called a "god house" in Palenque, a Maya city-state in what is now southern Mexico. That was where kings went to summon deities.

They are in fairly good condition, Canuto said, because they escaped the wear and tear that come from being exposed to the elements for most of the past century.

In the center of the stone slabs on view, Canuto said, are images of a Maya king at two stages of his life, bidding gods to come to Palenque. The hieroglyphic text flanking these men shows the birth of Maya gods on the left and, on the right side, kings from the 7th and 8th centuries.

Canuto said the gods were born at the start of the multicentury calendar cycle that will end next Friday. The Maya calendar, which was adapted from calendars that other groups used, actually consists of three calendars.

One is 365 days long, another is 260 days long, and the third - the one that people have been focusing on - is used to track longer periods of time. This astronomical calendar is known as the Long Count, which, in this case, denotes a 5,125-year cycle that will end Friday, which also happens to be the winter solstice.

Although some people have indicated that horrible things will happen then, Canuto and other scholars of Maya culture are quick to point out that next Friday represents only the end of a cycle, not the end of civilization. It's history, not prophecy, Canuto said.

"The Maya did believe that this was a big cycle that was coming to an end," he said, "but they also knew that things happened before that cycle, . . . and they also knew that things would happen after this cycle."

Continuity was an important Maya attribute. It is evident in a great block, which is part of the exhibit, that came from Copan in western Honduras and features the likenesses of 16 kings sculpted along the sides. It shows the first king of the dynasty, who reigned about A.D. 400, handing something - Canuto isn't sure what - to the last king of the dynasty, who ruled about A.D. 800.

"This is not a historical event," he said. "This is a metaphor for political continuity and dynastic permanence. It would be the equivalent of George Washington handing over a copy of, say, the Constitution, to Barack Obama. It gives you a sense of the permanence of the state."

Nearby cases show off jewelry, ornamentation and ceramics, which, Canuto said, flourished from A.D. 200 to A.D. 900, the so-called classic period of Maya civilization.

One of the more arresting pieces is a bowl that has a 3-D effect. Among the paintings along the outside are two monkeys on opposite sides of the bowl whose heads are represented on handles that jut out.

It wasn't all arts and crafts. At La Corona, a Maya site where Canuto and his colleagues found a clear hieroglyphic reference to Dec. 21 last summer, archaeologists have discovered illustrations showing men participating in a ritual game that, Canuto said, seems to be a precursor of basketball.

Instead of hoops, there were markers on the ground that a big rubber ball had to touch, he said.

That wasn't the only difference. The rules, Canuto said, forbade players to touch the ball with their hands or their feet, but they could use everything from their knees to their elbows, hips and chest to move the ball down the field.

"Players were pretty heavily protected because it was a contact sport," he said. "Many tombs showed that the people in them had suffered a real shock to their systems. It could have been injury due to warfare, but it also could be injury due to a heavy contact sport."

The exhibit isn't limited to long-ago Maya artifacts. There are masks that are still used in the dance of the monkey and the dance of the deer, for instance, and there are pieces of clothing bearing traditional Maya symbols that Canuto and his colleagues found in hieroglyphs, including a statue of the Virgin Mary draped in traditional Maya garb.

"The Maya culture is alive today," he said. "They're still speaking their language, praying to their gods and leaving offerings to their gods. This is not a dead tradition by any stretch of the imagination."