The ancient Maya created one of the world’s most brilliant and successful civilizations. Classic Maya civilization was truly lost until the beginning of the nineteenth century, when brief notices of crumbling jungle cities began to appear in different publications [9] .

Maya territory covers roughly the eastern half of Mesoamerica, Yucatan Peninsula, and its broad base. Maya territory covered the western part of Honduras and El Salvador, extended through the lowlands of Petén in Guatemala, Belize, and most of Mexico east of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec—the states of Yucatan, Campeche, and Quintana Roo—and most of Chiapas and part of Tabasco and Veracruz [9, 14].

Maya civilization is divided into three periods: the Preclassic, the Classic, and the Postclassic . The Preclassic includes the origins and apogee of the first Maya kingdoms from about 1000 BC to AD 250. The Classic Maya period started in AD 300, a date which was found carved, as part of the Maya calendar, on a jade plate. The Classic period defines the highest point of Maya civilization in architecture, art, writing, and population size [15] .

The highest cultural sophistication of the Maya was hieroglyphic writing going beyond pictographic representation. The finest Mayan hieroglyphs are found in the Maya Codices still extant—one in Dresden, one in Paris, and another in Madrid. As all codices had some religious content, they were destroyed by the Catholic missionaries after the arrival of the Spaniards [9, 14].

The Maya and their ancestors have lived for some 4500 years. The Spanish conquest ended Maya civilization, but the Maya people survived this trauma and 500 years of subsequent oppression. Today, several million Maya people continue to live in their ancient homeland and have retained their culture and languages [15]. Rigoberta Menchu is an indigenous Guatemalan of the Quiche branch of Mayan culture. She received the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize. Over the years, Rigoberta Menchu has become widely known as an advocate of the Indian rights [16].

The Maya believed their world was created by Hunab, and his son Itzammá, who was the Lord of Heavens, also Lord of Day and of Night. Ixchel, his wife, was the goddess of floods, pregnancy , and medical matters [14] .

The Maya universe was defined by cosmic trees set at its four cardinal points, together with a fifth, axis mundi, placed at the center, the ceiba [8]. The ceiba was a sacred tree for the Mayas, and it dominated the center of the cosmos (Fig. 9.2).

There is no other nation in history, where the concept of time produced a stronger impact, nor a people who measured passing time, so accurately, as did the Mayas.

The daily journey formed the basis of the calendar which includes the Sacred Round that was 260 days long, and a second cycle of 365 days long, divided into 18 months (uinal) of 20 days with a final period of only 5 days. Each day could be named in terms of both the 260- and 365-day cycles. There was worldwide interest in what might happen on December 21, 2012, as shown by films, books, television specials, and magazines that speak of some kind of universal or cosmic shift in our lives. In fact, the date does mark the completion of a 5125-year Great Cycle. But anyone who understands the Maya timekeeping knows that this date will be followed by a new cosmic cycle that repeats the patterns of the past and reveals new mysteries [13, 17].

In a Maya village, the majority rose before dawn, took a steam bath, ate a maize breakfast, and made their ways to the fields .

Their houses were rectangular, with rounded corners, white walls of stone, mud blocks or adobe, and a special thatch roof. The house contained one or two rooms at most. They slept on mats using cloaks as coverings [6].