玛雅文化实地考察报告(英文)

Ou Yang 142015 Yucatan Trip ReportOverview of Yucatan TripThe state of Yucatan is located in Southeastern Mexico, which is the major component of Maya region. Specially, it has its own government. We started our field trip from Merida, and made a tour around archaeological sites to Uxmal, Izamal and Chichen Itza, among which Uxmal and Chichen Itza are the main ruling and ceremonial sites of Maya region. After that, we went to Cancun, a famous tourist city situated along the coast in southeastern Mexico. City Tour in MeridaMerida is the cultural, financial and political capital city as well as the largest city of Yucatan peninsula. It is famous for its rich Mayan history and culture as well as some of other remarkable Mexican archaeological sites, which makes it one of the most important tourist cities in Mexico. Thought back to the history of Merida, we know that it was once a Colonial city, making it have a mixed culture of both local Mayan custom as well as Spanish one. As we walked around the street in Merida, we can see a lot of catholic buildings, which are mostly influenced by prehispanic style as well as some European style such as French. Typically, they organized their traditional town in a Spanish style. Standing in the main street, there is the governors palace on one side, and some Catholic Church buildings on the opposite, which is considered to be an organization form that can protect the city. The picture on the left is a famous structure in Merida, the Merida Cathedral. According to our teacher, the cathedral was built on the top of one of the ruined Mayan city. The Spanish rushed in the Mayan city and forced Maya as slaves to build a new religious center in the center of the city for them, which makes the Cathedral look exactly a Spanish style. It is a Catholic Church that built by Mayas, which makes it still remain some typical characteristics of the local custom. For instance, it was highly decorated with beautiful lights all along its walls ad roofs. What is more, they added some traditional Mayan carvings on the wall above the doorway as well as the windows. Attractively, the windows were usually decorated with colorful drawings like some human figures or geometric patterns.After that, we also looked around other building along the way. On some structures, we can see a mixed style of French and Spanish. Usually, there are some human figures like royal women and men, or heroic warriors carved on the wall. Typically, we can see the figure of a warrior standing on the hanging head of another dead man, which may show the victory and power of the warrior. Besides, we walked around the local market. I felt like I have been back in China at the first sight, since I have never seen any market that selling fresh meat in the US. In the US, people usually by meats and vegetables in supermarkets, which are well packed and the meats are usually stored in refrigerator separated by different parts of the animals. It is really an interesting experience by comparing the market in Merida and that in China, which makes me think about the differences between developed and developing countries through a tiny scope.Physical EnvironmentMerida is located in the northwest part of the state of Yucatan, which is not along the coast. The state of Yucatan is a flat area which is only a little above sea level. Through the whole state, it mainly has three land types volcano, tropical rainy forest and rocky mountain. The Yucatan Peninsula is an area with Karst topography whose bedrock is mainly covered by limestones. (That should be the reason that traditional Mayan structures were mostly built with limestones.) As a result, there is very little surface water, not to mention drinking water. Thus, we could find a lot of caves and sinkholes called Cenotes that can be used by the Mayas to access the ground water. As for the climate, Yucatan features a hot and humid climate, and have an average annual high temperature of about 33 degree centigrade. Thus, it is suitable for varies kinds of crops and fruits to grow in this area. Besides, Yucatan Peninsula has only two typical seasons tropical wet and dry climate, which means residents need to store water for dry season. Meridas rainy season mainly run from late May to October, during which residents would definitely do all they can to store the water for the rest of the year. As is mentioned in Gallopins article, the Maya region in Mexico was separated into highland Mexico and lowland Maya, and “One condition separating these two settlement adaptation is the availability of water.” (Gallopin, 1). From this reference, it is apparent that water is a main contributing factor for the development of an area, as we know that lowland Maya was once a thriving region. It sounds quite reasonable that Gallopin claims: “However, in those areas of the southern Maya Lowlands without such water sources and with an abundant though seasonal rainfall, reservoir management may also have centralized population aggregates.” (Gallopin, 3). Wherever have abundant source of water, it can attract people to gather or set up a tribe, because only if with enough water can they fulfill their needs for daily lives as well as agricultural irrigation. AgricultureIn many parts of Maya region, they are short of water but have rich soil, clay and iron. As a result, traditional Mayan economic system is largely based on agriculture. It has large area of farmland within the entire Mexico, but their production efficiency is pretty low because their agriculture is mostly based on labor force rather than high-tech equipment. However, it is also apparent that water is a dominant factor for agriculture. According to Gallopins article, the Maya lowland have an average four-month period of annual drought, which is definitely making it a challenge for farmers to provide enough water for their plants and crops. Consequently, building different kinds of reservoirs is their solution to cope with the problem of seasonal unavailability of water. Depressingly, they do not have a high probability of irrigation, which means it is difficult for them to grow any plants that need a large amount of water regularly. Thus, they mainly grow plants such as corns, coffee beans as well as cotton. According to Dunnings article about Mayan culture and agriculture, “Ancient Maya agriculture was highly varied in nature, adapting to a changeable mosaic environments and responding to shifting cultural pressure.” (Dunning, 1). The region of Lowland Maya have a large variation in rainfall, soil and biological process, which makes it impossible to use a single agricultural model through the whole region. So the ancient Maya developed great diversity of adaptive patterns for their agricultural system as well as civilization. However, after they enter the North America Free Trade Area, the traditional agriculture systems face a severe challenge. A considerable number of rural residents are rushing out from rural places to seek for better job opportunities in either large cities in Mexico or illegally travel to America, leaving large areas of vacant farmland. Hence, the output of agricultural products keeps falling down in recent years. This situation makes Mexicos food supply gradually transferred from self-sufficiency and exported-oriented to imported-oriented, which may also serves as an obstacle in the process of developing and industrializing within the Mexico nation.Economy: Exported-orientedBesides agriculture, Mayan economy also relies on craft production and trade. People earned money mostly by exporting their products like textiles, agricultural and sideline products. In recent years, they also develop E-commerce as a new channel to stimulate their economy. Regarding the fact that Mexico shares boarder with United States, which is a well-developed country, it generates couples of manufacturing industries and automobile industries. Generally speaking, the industrial system of Yucatan area is an exported-oriented one and mainly based on light industry. It has vast area for plants, which means it can provide those developed countries with all kinds of industrial raw materials such as cotton and rubber. According to the article by Dr. South, those exported-oriented manufactures are called maquiladoras, which are “based on labor-intensive assembly of imported components” (Biles, 3). Also, Dr. South mentions that there is a “changing exported-oriented industry in Mexico and posits that the flying geese metaphor, a product cycle variation, provides a conceptual understanding of a transitioning industry.” (South, 4). Not surprisingly, there is abundant cheap labor force in Mexico, which means the governments may try their best to create job opportunities for them. Thus, a lot of developed countries may tend to choose Mexico as a transition base for their industries.Fortunately, we had the chance to visit two maquiladoras. One is a tailoring manufacture factory for American police suits, while another is a manufacture base for Henequen plant. When we entered the tailoring factory, it was full of busy workers and the sound of different machines. Most of the sewing work are completed by worker with different kinds of sewing machines, and the cutting work are done with large machines. All the workers stand when they were working or move around to different places to get materials that they need. According to our guide, this working pattern prevents the condition that the workers feel pain in various parts of their body because of sitting in a fixed place. In the manufacture base for hemp rope, we can see the overview of a traditional Hacienda farm. Also, one of the worker briefly introduced us the process of making hemp ropes. They first use a large machine to smash the Henequen plants, after which the fiber inside the plant will be squeezed out. Then the plants go through a part of the machine, which serves as a dryer to remove the moisture containing in the plants. Finally, the raw material of hemp ropes are made and they will be stored in certain places. Those are really important materials for the workers, because that is how they earn money and live their lives.Archaeological site of Maya RegionWe mainly spent our time visiting three typical archaeological site of Maya in Yucatan, including Uxmal, Izamal and Chichen Itza. Generally, we focused on the characteristic and distribution of those ancient structures, as well as the symbols on the walls of the structures.UxmalUxmal is an archaeological site located in a hilly region of Puuc in northwestern Yucatan. It is said to be one of the most important centers of the ancient Maya. After we entered the site, we first saw a big container that built with stone, which just looked like a swimming pool. It is a Mayans traditional way to store water for their dry season, which is based on a condensation system. The core of the structures was mainly built of large pieces stone rubble and lime concrete, which an overall shape similar to typical pyramids. We can see some collapsed stones beside some structures, which might be destroyed by some extreme weather. The buildings were mostly placed on a general north- south axis. Looked carefully at the way Maya constructed the building, we found that the roof of them are mostly with the shape of a triangle inside, but looks flat outside on the top. As we walked inside, we can see a splendid structure called the Pyramid of the Magician (as the picture showed on the left side), which is also known as the Pyramid of the Dwarf. It is said to be the tallest and most recognizable structure in Uxmal. Intriguingly, the construction process of this pyramid could be divided into several different phases. The Mayans kept building new structures on the top of the existing part of this pyramid, which made it taller and taller and resulted in five nested temples inside the Pyramid of the Magician. It is a remarkable ceremonial architecture and residents living in that area might held ceremonies for special issues. As we took a deeper thought of the features of this pyramid, we can assume that it might be influenced by some sort of regional political dominance, as the ruler might want to have a figure for their own power. “An examination of Uxmals architecture and associated architectural sculpture supports the idea that Uxmal exerted some sort of regional political dominance during the Terminal Classic period. One building critical to this interpretation is the House of the Governor.” (Dunning, 3). According to Professor Dunning, politics might play an indispensable influence on the construction appearance of a tribe, as we know that ancient Mayan led their lives with tribalism. Also, we can assume that the Maya region in Puuc should be a large and thriving tribe once upon a time, because completing such a splendid structure needs a considerable amount of labors. It is really surprising that the designers were able to find a way to construct such a complex building without any high technology at that time.Then we walked deeper into the site, we were able to look closer to the House of the Governor (As the picture showed above). The House of the Governor was the residence for the ancient ruler of Uxmal, which also played the part of a major administrative center and astronomical maker. There are four major structures around this plaza, which form a square area inside them. According to the interpretation of our guide, Mayan might pay extra attention to the height of their building as they believed that the world are separated into three parts: upper world, middle world and under world, among which have a strong relation with one another. “it is note-worthy that the North Structure occupies the highest platform in the complex, the South Structure rests on the lowest, and the East and West Structures are supported on platforms of equal, intermediate height.” (Dunning, 5). As I could see, the height of the four buildings are ascending clockwise, with the height of the steps as tall as the height of the buildings first beam on their left side. The depiction is corresponding to what the guide have said and support the idea that belief and worship are also important factors for architecture besides politics. Looked around the buildings, there are many small rectangles outside like doors or windows. Inside the “holes”, they look like a small space for people to live in, thought the height seems quite limited for modern people. Above the small “holes”, we can see some special symbols, which looked organized and are similar to each other. Intriguingly, the House of Governor was built with a special design that the alignment was set up to track Venus most southern arc as it rises over the horizon and just above the Nohpat structure. “Governor itself is blanketed by a complex, interpenetrating array of architectural sculpture executed in a “stone mosaic” technique typical of Puuc architecture.” (Dunning, 4) On our way touring the site, we can see many human figural sculptures, or some symbols of animals like serpents or feathers. “He is portrayed as a cosmic ruler surrounded by two-headed serpents with sky-band bodies.implies that Uxmals ruler intended to convey the message that he stood at the apex of both an intrasite and regional political hierarchy.” (Dunning, 5). Comparing the description in the article and what we have seen in the real site, we can know that the governors in Maya were accustomed to declare their own power through symbols and constructions in their “Kingdom”. Izamal Izamal is a small but popular town in eastern Yucatan, which is pretty religiously important. It is known as the Yellow City as well as the City of Hills. Most residents living in the town are Catholics, others are mainly Christians. It is noticeable that most of the walls in the town are printed yellow, which is due to religious reasons. What is more, we can see many stone hills around the town, which are actually the remains of ancient temple pyramids. We walked on the street way, which is covered by cobblestones, giving out a feeling of extreme tranquility and old fashioned. The structure showed in the picture is Monastery of Izamal, which is standing at the heart of Izamal and served as a religious center. There is a tradition Catholic Church up in the structure, as Izamal was once a center for the worship of Mayan Gods. As the guide said, most of the Maya structures in Izamal have not been reconstructed since it was first built, thus Izamal does not attract as many tourists as other Mayan archaeological sites, making it like a magical and sacred places that was kind of isolated with the outside world. Chichen ItzaChichen Itza was the last Maya archaeological site that we visited, which is on our way from Merida to Cancun. It was once a Maya social center and was deeply influenced by religion. As all the rivers goes from south to north, citizens who lived in this place all used the water in the south side of the rivers, which will contain less pollutants. The traditional house of this site is a kind of stone house, which has a pointed roof. Similar to pyramids we saw before, the foundation of the house is mainly built with stones. Specially, the Mayan use woods to form the framework of the house, and then fill the frame with some special mixture of plants. The sea level went down year by year around Yucatan, which results in the appearance of more and more large stones. Consequently, the structures in Chichen Itza were mainly constructed with large limestones. As we walked inside, we saw the icon pyramid at the first sight, distinguishing by its height of thirty meters. The short structure beside the pyramid was used for ceremony, inside which the rooms are all temples used for Mayas worship. Outside the wall, there are mainly two specific symbols serpents and humming