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...avanzada originó en el área costera del Golfo de México y está registrado en la mitología maya sobre un antiguo y divino rey sacerdote llamado Kukulcán. El mitológico Kukulcán enseñó a los antiguos mayas la escritura, las matemáticas, la arquitectura y el arte del gobierno. Se presenta evidencia que muestra que el origen de la mitología de Kukulcán, así como del origen de estos vestigios de civilización se originaron en el periodo formativo temprano olmeca en la rica llanura aluvial donde el río Coatzacoalcos desemboca en el Golfo de México. La herencia cultural étnica olmeca no desapareció con el abandono de los tempranos centros, sino que se fusionó con el creciente poder de los militaristas chontales mayas de Tabasco, orientados hacia el comercio. La amplia empresa comercial chontal maya junto con su movimiento militar expansivo en las áreas contiguas, difundieron la escritura, las matemáticas y otros vestigios de la civilización olmeca a través del área maya y áreas periféricas.
Abstract
There is wide disagreement among archaeologists, anthropologists, and historians concerning the geographical origin and later geographical spread of the advanced Maya civilization. This study presents and supports the theory that the cultural knowledge which constituted the basis for the advanced Maya civilization originated in the coastal area of the Gulf of Mexico and is recorded in the Maya mythology of an ancient priestly godlike king named Kukulcan. The mythological Kukulcan instructed the ancient Maya in writing, mathematics, architecture, and the arts of government. Evidence is presented to show that the origin of the Kukulcan mythology as well as the origin of these vestiges of civilization originated with the early formative period Olmec in the rich alluvial plain area where the Coatzacoalcos River empties into the Gulf of Mexico. The Olmec ethnical cultural heritage did not die out or disappear with abandonment of their early centers, but melded into the growing power of the militaristic mercantile oriented Chontal Maya in Tabasco. The wide spread Chontal Maya trading enterprise, together with their military expansionist movement into neighboring areas then spread the writing, mathematics, and other vestiges of Olmec civilization throughout the Maya and peripheral areas.
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There is wide disagreement among archaeologists, anthropologists, and historians concerning both the geographical origin and later geographical spread of the advanced Maya civilization. The term Maya "advanced civilization" is used in this instance to describe the advanced and ethnically homogeneous society within Mesoamerica that had internally developed writing, mathematics, public architecture, and some form of political government. (1) This study presents and supports the theory that the cultural knowledge which constituted the basis for the advanced Maya civilization originated in the Vera Cruz and Tabasco coastal area of the Gulf of Mexico and is recorded in the Maya mythology of an ancient priestly godlike king named Kukulcan.
The long coastline of the Yucatan peninsula and adjacent shores fronting on both the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea was the factor that thrust the early inhabitants of the Yucatan and adjacent areas into a leading role in development of the advanced Maya civilization. This leading role was largely influenced by the development and control of the long range canoe routes that ranged from Tampico in the north, around the shores of the Yucatan to the Bay of Honduras, and up the drainage rivers to the highland cities of the interior. This cultural knowledge and the Kukulcan myth was then spread to the Yucatan and throughout the extensive Maya and peripheral areas in the Formative (Preclassic) and early Classic period by the seafaring and mercantile-oriented Chontal Maya. Since the Maya civilization spanned both prehistoric and early historic times, the limited archaeological findings related to the subject, have been supplemented with interpretive study of Maya oral history and mythology that were recorded by the few surviving Maya scribes and the early Spanish observers and historians. Hidden within these ancient oral myths, and the later related art and sculpture that recorded this mythology, can be found a clear identification of the origin of the advanced fundamental elements of Maya civilization such as writing, mathematics, and architecture.
The Geographical Origin of Maya Civilization Derived from the Kukulcan Mythology
In the Formative (Preclassic) period the ancient Maya revered a godlike priestly king from mythology called Kukulcan who brought the vestiges of civilization to their ancestors. Kukulcan, the godlike ruler from Maya mythology, was a holy man with fair skin, long dark hair, and flowing beard, whose symbol was the feathered and winged rattlesnake, and who instructed the ancient Maya in writing, mathematics, architecture, and the arts of government. Incurring the wrath of the gods, he was forced to leave and departed in a vessel of serpent skins to Tlapallan his home in the East, but vowed that some day he would return. This amalgamation of the several versions of the ancient myth closely follows William H. Prescott's account of the later derived Toltec/ Aztec Quetzalcoatl myth. Prescott's research was conducted in the latter part of the eighteenth and early nineteenth-century from primary source documents. Prescott's version is probably closer to the original Kukulcan mythology since he was not influenced by later reports of Quetzalcoatl myth and legends, which bear little resemblance to the older and more valid Formative period Kukulcan mythology. (2)
The revered ancient king called Kukulcan was the first historical figure to emerge from the many gods of the Maya myth of creation and from his description of bringing writing and other elements of civilization to the people would thus have been considered by the Maya as the founder of their civilization or culture. In this respect, he can be likened to Abraham who emerged as a historical founding father from the creation mythology of Genesis in the Judaic-Christian Bible. The myth of Kukulcan instructing the Maya in writing and other elements of civilization ostensibly could not have been tied to one single king or ruler, but would have originated in the oral history of a powerful dynasty by that name or with that symbol. This ancient dynasty would have been one that had developed the first organized community which supported a large and precocious leisure class of nobles, and over an extended period of time developed writing, mathematics, and other vestiges of civilization.
The fact that Kukulcan in the mythology came from his homeland in the East is misleading. The East referred to in Maya mythology is not geographical east, but the heavenly East associated with the Maya mythology of creation and...
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