It's a small wonder that we know anything about the Maya cultures of Central America at all. While many ruined sites of their great cities are still dotted around a region that stretches from modern-day Mexico down to Honduras and El Salvador, much of the other hard evidence has been destroyed. The Maya were great recorders, writing histories, astronomical calculations and myths in great tomes or codices. Unfortunately, the Spanish conquest of the area brought with it the Spanish bishop of Yucatan, Fray Diego de Landa, who decided in 1560 that "they contained nothing in which there was not superstition and lies of the devil, we burned them all".
After Fray Diego's enthusiastic book bonfire, only four Maya codices remain, and in a typical post-colonial moment these are named after the cities in which they now reside: the Dresden, Paris and Madrid codices. Only the Grolier Codex has remained in the Americas. Yet despite all this lost knowledge, there is still an enticing amount that we do know, as a new book by Timothy Laughton, The Maya, illustrates.
Such was the ancient Maya's fascination with noting and following the movement of the stars, that most early anthropologists believed that the civilisation, which lasted from the first or even second millennium BC right through to the early 1500s AD, was one of peaceful astronomer/priests. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth - the Maya were not one cohesive empire but a collection of warring city-states and much of their comprehensive astronomical calculations were used to work out the most auspicious time to kill each other. There were common themes which drew the Maya people together and mean we can view them as an entity: their myths, their understanding of the cosmos and their religious beliefs.
The three were intricately interconnected and tended to influence every part of Mayan life. Nothing was done without consulting the stars, which they believed played out mythical stories every night in a kind of spiritual omniplex. Even the trademark massive stone pyramids which dominate the ruined cities were built to replicate the mountains which the Mayas believed housed the souls of their ancestors. In the tropical lowlands of Guatemala and Mexico, these mountains were often far away and the pyramids served as both reminder and royal tomb.
Another interpretation was common currency on the New Age traveller trail when I was in Central America: that the Maya, many of whom evacuated the cities in a matter of years, actually found their way by a spatial loophole to Egypt, where they set about throwing up pyramids all over again.
Ancient cultures have a habit of attracting such bizarre theories. The irony is that there is plenty of food for thought within the established facts. Given our contemporary fascination with soccer, it's worth thinking a while on the Mayan version of the game. At every Maya site in Central America, a ball court will be found, always in a position of sacred importance - vast and adorned with carvings in Chichen Itza in Mexico or between the main plaza and the acropolis in Honduras's Copan. The sacred position of the ball court gives some clue as to the real importance of the game. Far from being a nice day out with a scarf and a rattle, the ball game was less a game of two halves and more a game of life and death. Literally, as the losers were put to death as human sacrifices, and metaphorically, as the Maya believed that these sacrifices were necessary to appease the deities, ensuring the continued survival of the dynasty.
And, if you thought the All-Ireland final was ferocious, check this out: the loser's head would be cut off, dipped in liquid latex and used as a ball for the next tournament.
Spiritual myth was a part of every level of Mayan life, and everything was interpreted through a rigorous belief system. Although the intricate designs from their buildings, vessels and codices have been replicated on everything from wallpaper to duvet covers, the concept of decoration was alien to the Maya and there was a lesson to be learnt from even the most abstract of designs. Of all the deities, the maize god and the Hero Twins pop up with the most regularity.
The maize god was of prime importance, because it was believed he brought about the present world age and because the Maya thought the first people were made out of maize - a curious belief, but then, coming from a culture that believes women were made out of a spare rib, we're in no position to talk. The maize god, Hun Hunahpu, was killed in the dread underworld Xibalba but was avenged by his sons, the Hero Twins, Hunahpu and Xbalanque.
In a rather Irish Catholic touch, it was believed that these early ancestors of the Marvel Comic superheroes were conceived when the decapitated head of Hun Hunahpu spat into the hand of their mother, Blood Moon. Yeah, sure.
The Maya continue to withhold many of their secrets but the facts that we do know exercise a certain fascination. Perhaps the most relevant of all is a very precise date they have left us - a date in the future rather than the past. Rather than using one calendar, the Maya used several, including a 260-day one for making predictions and the 365-day solar one similar to our own. The third, however, is called the Long Count, consisting of a continuous count of days beginning from the start of the current world age on August 13 3114 BC, and running through a cycle of some 5,200 years. It is due to end on December 23rd, 2012, giving us a date for the end of the world.
The Maya, Life, Myth and Art by Timothy Laughton is published by Duncan Baird priced £17.99 in the UK