The Lost Secrets of Maya Technology

by James A. O'Kon

  Construction materials: cement, timber, worked stone, sascab, stone rubble, tools, rope, henequen, latex.

  Vegetable products: sweet potato, tomato, pumpkin, Jerusalem artichoke, chili pepper, cassava, melon, cacao, arrowroot, yucca, guava, strawberry, peanut, numerous squash varieties, maize and corn, honey, pineapple, cherry, prickly pear, tomatillo, manioc, jocote.

  Animal products: turkey, duck, deer, caiman, rabbit, turtle, fish, possum, quail, pheasant, dove, dog, iguana.

  Trade goods: chicle, rubber, copal.

  Moving The Big Banana

  Because the Maya depended on manpowered transport based on the tumpline, loads were sized to be transported by a single bearer. In construction, the size of building stone was limited to the size and weight that could be easily transported by porters with tumplines. The standard size of worked stone in Maya structures was based on a weight of approximately 125 pounds. The coordination between stone size and weight/carrying capacity simplified the type of transport used for the construction process. With few exceptions, Maya engineers did not utilize large-size or heavy building stones, as was done with other ancient civilizations. The other ancient civilizations applied work animals or mass human labor for transporting large stones. The Maya used transportable-sized building stones as part of the management, efficiency, and ease of their construction process.

  In the course of constructing a monumental building, the use of large stones as part of the art and architecture was sometimes unavoidable and became an absolute requirement when erecting large components or art works. The transport of large stone sections was carried out by shaping the stone into the form of long cylinders (Figure 11-3 and Figure 11-4). The methodology of moving large stone elements from the quarry to the building site used a combination of henequen rope, timber rails, the sacbe system, and the kinetic energy of Maya manpower.

  The circular stone transportation cylinders were shaped at the quarry. The diameter and length of the cylinder depended on the dimensions required for the art and architecture at the destination construction site. Timber rails were placed on the paved surface of the sacbe (Figure 11-3). The stone cylinder was then placed on the rails, and a pair of henequen ropes were wrapped around the cylinders at equal distances from the centroid. Two teams of manpower pulled on the ropes, and the rotation of the mass moved the cylinder forward. The rope-pulling team moved the cylinder forward when the ropes unwound and rotated the cylinder clockwise. When the ropes were pulled, a distance of 7 feet (2.3 meters) would be advanced by each turn of the stone cylinder. A pair of 100-foot-long ropes would rotate the cylinder 14 turns and 100 feet (30.3 meters) in distance. The rope would be rewound and the cycle repeated until the destination site was reached. The large stones were moved by the energy of Maya manpower.

  Historical parallels to the transport of large stones include the movement of large stones by contractors during the Roman Empire. Roman contractors transported large stones in the shape of cylinders The Romans had the advantage of beasts of burden and metal in order to assemble their transport system. A hole was drilled at the horizontal centroid of the cylinder. Molten lead was placed in the hole to set an iron axel. A rectangular frame with a tongue was attached to the axels, and oxen were harnessed to the tongue. The oxen pulled the cylinder from the quarry to the construction site.

  Examples of several Maya stone cylinders have been found and investigated. The cylinders are often positioned on or adjacent to ancient sacbes. Figure 11-4 illustrates a stone cylinder encountered at Santa Rosa Xtampak. The cylinder, which is in excellent condition, was resting adjacent to a sacbe. Archaeologists have opined that these cylinders are road rollers used to compact the road surface. This is not an accurate description of the purpose of the cylinder. The surface of sacbe was paved in cast-in-place concrete, and road rollers are not required for placing cast-in-place concrete pavement. The use of the cylinder as a device for transporting large sections of stone is more appropriate to Maya construction practices.

  Figure 11-3: Moving large stones in the shape of cylinders. Author’s image.

  Figure 11-4: Stone cylinder investigated at Santa Rosa Xtampak in 1990. Author’s image.

  The Unforseen Benefits of Living Without Dray Animals

  In his book Guns, Germs and Steel, Jared Diamond discusses the lack of animal-derived contagious diseases in the New World prior to the conquest. After the arrival of Europeans, numerous major infectious diseases of Old World origins became established in the New World. There is a likelihood that not a single major infectious disease reached Europe from the Americas. The sole possibility is syphilis, whose area of origin is controversial.

  New World cities were as large as or larger than European cities. Why were infectious diseases in the form of lethal crowd epidemics unknown in the New World? Studies indicate that crowd diseases evolved out of Eurasian herd animals that had become domesticated. Domesticated animals in the Maya world consisted of the turkey, the Muscovy duck, and the dog. The few domesticates in Mesoamerica were not exactly breeding pools for passing on infectious diseases. The Maya did not domesticate beasts of burden or cattle. The domesticated animals in Mesoamerica were unlikely sources of crowd diseases compared with cows, horses, and pigs in the Old World. Domesticated animals of the Maya did not sleep in houses as they had in Europe, and their numbers were low. As a result, the domesticated animals of the Maya were not a source of human pathogens.

  Diamond points out that the lack of animal-derived diseases in Mesoamerica eliminated outbreaks of deadly diseases during the Classic Period. The animal-borne diseases and epidemics did not deter or interrupt the growth and success of the Maya economic culture as they did with the economic climate when European cities were devastated by epidemics. The story was different after the arrival of the conquistadors. Great numbers of Maya were killed by European diseases evolved from Europe’s long intimacy with domestic animals. Without domesticated herd animals, the Maya path to success was not derailed by epidemic crowd diseases.

  The Great Demand on Agriculture for Maintaining Work Animals

  The natural environment of the Yucatán was a difficult place for producing high crop yields. The Maya relied on technology to increase their agriculture yields, considering the six-month dry season and poor soil. The Maya were successful with their agriculture systems and were able to produce a yield that fed the hinterlands and the non-producers in the city, as well as a surplus for export trading. They appeared to maintain a balance of supply and demand. However, the total of agriculture yield went for human consumption. What if the Maya actually had been able to domesticate beasts of burden and wished to optimize the usage of animal power for agriculture, travel, and transportation? A large portion of their agriculture yield would be required to feed their working animals, with a resulting shortage in the other sectors of the society.

  What percentage of their maize might have been required for animal feed, we will never know. However, consider a modern parallel that involved accurate recordkeeping. To estimate the cost of feeding work animals, one can review the required amount of grain required for feeding working animals in the United States during the early 20th century. In 1931, the majority of grain grown in the United States went to feed domesticated animals: 80 percent of acreage that was used to grow grain was dedicated to feeding working animals. Only 20 percent of grain was for human consumption. As a comparison, if 80 percent of the Maya grain crop was diverted from human consumption and used to feed animals, it is apparent that a disaster would have taken place. It is known that grain was not being allocated by the Maya to feed domesticated animals.

  Assets and effort were not required to feed and care for domesticated animals. The porters who supplied manpower for transporting the Maya economy only consumed 2 pounds of grain per day. The Maya porter grew his own food, secured his own water, and groomed himself. The mule or horse required 15 to 20 pounds of grain per day, plus a worker for attending the watering and care of the beasts. Application of t
he required care for domesticated animals would require time and food assets. It is apparent the Maya economy would suffer. Their science, technology, and the construction of monumental cities would react to the economic ripple effect and would suffer. To provide further examples of the impact of domesticated working animals on an economy, when the United States was converting from the use of draft animals to motorized vehicles (during the period of 1914 to 1939), the populations of horses and mules dropped by 13,500,000 head. The reduction in farmland dedicated to animal feed was reduced by 40,000,000 acres. The increase in farmland available for crops for human consumption successfully changed the course of American economic history. In the same manner, it can be seen that the presence of dray animals would have adversely affected the economic history of the Maya civilization.

  Maya Nautical Transportation Technology

  The successful economy of the Maya civilization depended on its active trading partners, not only on the land mass of Mesoamerica, but in long-range, seagoing voyages that searched for trading partners along the shores of the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Pacific Ocean. Large Maya cargo vessels plied the open seas and ventured across the turquoise waters of the Caribbean to near offshore islands including Isla Mujeres, Cozumel, and the Belize Cays, but also sailed beyond the Yucatán, to the east across the Caribbean Sea to the 1,700-mile-long archipelago of the Caribbean Islands extending from Cuba to Antigua. Their seagoing cargo vessels traveled north to Mexico and south to Panama in Central America. Maya sea traders traveled afar and encountered trading partners with valuable resources that could be exchanged for the products of Maya industry, elite goods, and minerals that were unique to the Maya world. The long-range nautical trade in materials and ideas also had a great impact on the spread of Maya cultural influence.

  The attraction of long-range trading partners available by sea routes influenced Maya engineering to expand their capabilities in nautical technology, and enabled the design and construction of large, stable, seaworthy cargo vessels. These large cargo vessels were swiftly propelled over the foamy waves by manpower in the form of paddlers. Maya shipbuilding technology combined their knowledge of seaworthy vessel stability, specialized tool design, and durable materials of construction. Maya woodworking skills produced hydraulically shaped, high-strength timber hulls that were compositely integrated with adhesive compounds, waterproof materials, and water-resistant caulking to construct stable seagoing vessels.

  The wide-ranging and lucrative trading of the maritime commerce network promoted the founding of sea ports, riverine trading ports, and land-based navigation aids consisting of fixed, bearing landmarks, fire-illuminated lighthouses, and beacons. These were enhanced with a sophisticated system of celestial navigation enabled by their capabilities in mathematics and astronomy. Maya long-range trade continued well past the Classic Period and was an important part of Post-Classic Maya economy extending into the early 16th century, until the Spanish conquistadors banned their trading and took over the lucrative mercantile trade.

  The Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Pacific Ocean were the marine highways plied by the Maya sea traders. However, the Caribbean Sea was the principal seaway connecting the Maya to sea-based trading partners. Seaports were established along the seaboards of Honduras, Belize, Guatemala, and Costa Rica. The Maya traded unique minerals including jadeite, obsidian, and cinnabar; valued materials including colorful feathers, cotton cloth, clothing, and cocoa; and manufactured goods including ceramics, obsidian swords, and knives. In turn they traded for gold, copper, and metal axes.

  The Maya sea-trading network and its trademark cargo vessels, powered by 30 or more paddlers and crewed by sailors and navigators, are not the fanciful stuff created from folk tales or notions from archaeological whimsy. Maya art has revealed clues to the design and construction of their seagoing vessels. Furthermore, artifacts of the large craft have been uncovered and investigated by experienced archaeologists.

  Nautical engineering of seagoing vessels is an example of Maya technology that had a European eyewitness of outstanding character. Descriptions of Maya seagoing vessels were documented by the most famous of Spanish navigators and explorers. The first and most notable written account describing Maya sea traders involved the great navigator Christopher Columbus, during his fourth voyage in 1502. While traversing the Caribbean off the coast of Honduras, Columbus’s fleet of galleys confronted a large Maya seagoing cargo vessel in the Bay of Honduras. Christopher Columbus’s son Ferdinand described the encounter in his journal, as quoted from J.M. Cohen’s The Four Voyages of Christopher Columbus (1969):

  ....by good fortune there arrived at that time a canoe long as a galley and eight feet wide, made of a single tree-trunk like the other Indian canoes; it was freighted with merchandise from the western regions around New Spain. Amidships it had a palm-leaf awning like that on Venetian gondolas; this gave complete protection against the rain and waves. Underneath were women and children, and all the baggage and merchandise. There were twenty-five paddlers aboard, but they offered no resistance when our boats drew up to them.

  The large canoe was loaded with trade goods, the costliest and handsomest of which were cotton mantles and sleeveless shirts embroidered and painted in different designs and colors, long wooden swords edged with “flint knives that cut like steel” [perhaps obsidian]; copper hatchets and bells; and a crucible for melting copper. Notably, they also had “...many of the almonds [cacao beans] which the Indians of New Spain use as currency; and these the Indians in the canoe valued greatly, for I noticed that when they were brought aboard with the other goods, and some fell to the floor, all the Indians stooped to pick them up as if they had lost something of great value.” Impressed with “the great wealth, civilization, and industry of these people,” Columbus nevertheless continued east in search of “a strait across the mainland that would open a way to the South Sea and the Lands of Spices.” Columbus did retain from the canoe an older man and cacique named Yumbé, “who seemed to be the wisest man among them and of greatest authority, as an interpreter.”

  This historic description of the Maya cargo vessel included the critical essentials to re-create a basic design of the craft: the size of the craft, its composite nature, fabricated from a single log, the cabin/palm leaf shelter, the number of paddlers, crew, and passengers, and the trading merchandise. Columbus considered some of the merchandise to be valuable assets and seized selected items in the cargo. Limited images of Maya vessels have been encountered that provide illustrations of their configuration and design elements. A mural from the temple of the warriors at Chichen Itza, a frieze from a Maya structure, and a carving on a bone unearthed at the ancient city of Tikal indicate significant details of nautical engineering features that provided the craft with stability in open seas.

  Descriptions carried out by marine archaeologist Dr. Paul Petennude and sculptor Philippe Klinefelter provided additional details. Petennude investigated a partially degraded seagoing canoe at Paalmul on the east coast of the Yucatán. Dr. Petennude, in a personal conversation with the author, described the canoe as constructed of manilkara zapota wood. The remnants of the canoe consisted of two-thirds of the original vessel. He estimated the craft to be 60 feet (18 meters) in length and 8 feet (2.5 meters) wide.

  Klinefelter, an expert on Maya tools, encountered a large seagoing canoe on the shores of Lake Atitlán, Guatemala, in the 1970s. The lake is known for high waves and a rough, sea-like surface. Canoes on this lake would be built as seagoing vessels in order maintain stability in the rough water of the vast lake. Klinefelter stated that the canoe was 80 feet (24 meters) long and approximately 8 feet (2.5 meters) wide; the craft included the design elements of a Classic Period Maya canoe. The specimen was made of a single log from an avocado tree.

  The Design Criteria for a Seaworthy Maya Vessel

  The combination of eyewitness accounts, painted impressions by Maya artists, and in situ observation of artifacts of seaworthy vessels has p
resented forensic engineering with a wide range of clues for investigation of these craft. The various accounts agree on the size of the vessels, the nature of construction from a single log of high-strength timber, and configurations of the salient design features that were combined to construct a seaworthy cargo vessel. Studies of the design and construction of the fabled vessels of Maya sea traders could only extend to a certain point. The basic marine engineering configuration of the craft, proven materials of construction, specialized tools used to shape the hull, and methods of connection of the various component parts of the vessel were recognized by experts in marine architecture. The sum of the parts was the ability of the vessel to react in a seaworthy manner when traveling in heavy seas.

  The capability to recognize the unique features of good boat-building practice was within the expertise of a professional experienced in marine architecture, Colonel Douglas T. Peck, U.S.A.F., retired. He is a historian of early seagoing vessels and navigation, experienced sailor, author, and investigator of the marine engineering of Maya cargo vessels. His identification of the principles of naval engineering in Maya cargo vessels, combined with the author’s knowledge of structural engineering and computer reconstruction using virtual images, enabled the development of criteria for design features and methods of construction of seaworthy Maya cargo vessels.

  Naval Architecture Design Features

  The historical and contemporary observations and Maya renderings of vessels illustrate salient design features of a prototypical Maya seagoing vessel. Their feats of marine architecture were developed over 1,000 years. Figure 11-5 is a naval engineering drawing and specifications of the design features that shaped Maya seagoing vessels and developed the hydrodynamic factors that enabled sea voyages.