THE EARLY HISTORY OF BELIZE
and Ray Auxillou
The exciting prehistory of Mesoamerica is just coming to light in the past few years. Beginning with the Spanish conquest, we have a record of Mesoamerica and the Mayan Empire for the past five hundred years. Today, thanks to recent discoveries in the interpretation of the Mayan written language, we are beginning to scratch the surface of three thousand years of history. Many Mayan ruins that have been archeologically explored and excavated have not yet had their glyphs translated. The few that have reveal a world of pre Spanish city states that warred with each other for several thousand years.
Many ruins exist in the jungles of Belize, the Yucatan
Peninsula and the Peten, which until today have not yet been
excavated to reveal their history. many more ruins are yet to be
found. The city states of Mesoamerica rivaled, and probably
surpassed, the social organization and development of Medieval
cities in Europe.
This paper discusses how this came about, and the limits of
what we know today. The emphasis of this study is on the story of
the Maya glyph deciphering, starting with the Spanish manuscripts
and Codices, a brief overview and explanation of the calendrical
system and the logograms and how they work, and, in the last section,
the history of the Maya rulers whose glyphs have already been
deciphered. Early History Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 RAY AUXILLOU was born in England and lived in Belize since 1960. He is a graduate of the Belize Teachers College. Ray spent most of his life on Caye Caulker. He has four daughters and many grandchildren in Belize. He is the author of a number of books about Belize. SILVIA PINZON was born in Colombia and graduated from Florida International University. Her dream is to be able to persue life, studying the Mayan history of Belize. She fell in love with Belize in 1990. |
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