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1. Is this an alien?

As in the Japanese chapter, before we travel to the Mayan civilization, we must also determine the age and geographical scope of the time in advance.

First of all, from a geographical point of view, compared with the vast and wild Americas6, the Mayan civilization can cover a somewhat narrow range - the maximum distribution range of the Mayan civilization is basically centered on the Yucatan Peninsula in Central America, across Mexico, Guatemala, Belize and Honduras and other countries part of the adjacent areas, with a total area of about 300,000 square kilometers, roughly equivalent to the sum of Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Anhui provinces, slightly smaller than Japan and Germany, similar to Italy, but beyond today's Korea and Britain.

According to the latitude, the land where the Mayans lived for generations was completely located in the tropical range, so the Mayan civilization was a tropical civilization.

Secondly, chronologically, the Maya people were formed around 25oo BC, and their early civilization was born in the fourth century BC, during which it rose and fell several times, and almost completely collapsed in the 15th century, and various cultures were lost one after another, and then they were wiped out by the Spanish colonizers in the 16th century.

The entire history of the Mayan civilization is generally divided into three stages: the Pre-Classical Period (birth ~ 3rd century), the Classical Period (3~9th century, equivalent to the Three Kingdoms to the end of the Tang Dynasty) and the Post-Classical Period (9~16th century), among which the Mayan civilization in the Classical Period was the most prosperous. If you want to appreciate the most authentic and characteristic Mayan culture, you should travel back in time to this era. In addition, what we commonly refer to today as "the destruction of the Maya civilization" refers to the destruction of the Mayan civilization in the classical period at the end of the ninth century, not the invasion of the Spanish colonizers in the sixteenth century, when there was not much left of the Mayan civilization.

Well, the coordinates of the crossing have been determined - the Yucatan Peninsula from the classical period of the Mayan civilization! The most powerful Mayan city-state of Tikal at the time!

Drip, drip! The space-time machine is activated, and the crossing begins!

When you regain consciousness, you will find yourself in a dense rainforest, surrounded by a sweltering and humid atmosphere. Beneath his feet is a dirt path trampled by...... Obviously, you have traveled far back to the Mayan era.

So, you continue along the trail and are lucky enough to see neither a venomous snake nor a jaguar...... Then, at last, the dense jungle came to an end, and the rudimentary paths underfoot were replaced by artificially built stucco causeways. On either side of the road, clear pools of water and green cornfields loomed, while at the end of the horizon farther away, the pyramid temple looms.

- That is the destination of this Mayan tour, the most powerful city-state of the Mayan civilization, Tikal.

It should be noted here that the Mayans have been called the "Greeks of the Americas" by historians - just like the ancient Greeks, in the entire history of the Mayan civilization, there has never been a unified Mayan empire, but only a series of independent city-states. In the Yucatan Peninsula during the classical period, for example, there were more than 100 Mayan city-states coexisting. The city of Tikal, located in the southern part of the peninsula, was the most prosperous and powerful Mayan city-state at that time, and was also the leader of half of the Mayan civilization, somewhat similar to Athens in ancient Greece.

Standing in a field on the outskirts of the city-state, through the cracks in the corn stalks and leaves, you may see a few bronzed-skinned Mayan farmers wrapped in only a loincloth, but this is not surprising - in the summer in the south of our country, the peasants also go bare-chested.

Then, at last, the moment came - at the end of the road, a palanquin with ventilation on all sides slowly appeared (because the environment was hot and humid, the Mayan palanquin was usually a covered sliding pole to allow for ventilation). The palanquin-bearers were as shirtless as the peasants in the cornfields, but their eyes seemed a little strange when they looked closely. But the Mayan nobles who sat in the palanquin...... When you see his face clearly, I am afraid that you will immediately raise the camera excitedly and press the shutter, and then take out your mobile phone and shout: "Wife, come and see the aliens!" ”

Well, although in recent years there have been many "brick families" who have sworn that the Mayans are alien descendants from such and such a constellation. But according to the bones excavated by archaeologists from ancient Mayan tombs, at least biologically, the Mayans should still be ordinary humans like us.

Therefore, what appeared in front of the traverser was not an alien intelligent life, but just a noble Mayan nobleman.

So, why do modern people have such strange associations in their minds when they see the appearance of this Mayan magnate?

There is no way, because the aesthetic standards of the Mayans are too strange in this world, it is not like the way of thinking of the earthlings, and in many ways it is almost the opposite of the aesthetics of modern people - once the "handsome men and beautiful women" in the Mayan society come to the modern world, I am afraid that they will become deformed, and they are extremely ugly, unsightly, and must not be released casually to scare people......

In general, the Mayan aristocracy generally regarded cross-eyed, flat foreheads, and deformed skulls as signs of beauty or nobility, and in order to artificially shape themselves into this "noble" appearance, they also understood the world's oldest plastic surgery, so as to make themselves less and less human.

-- In Mayan society, the average poor person may not be very particular about appearance, and at the same time he is not in a position to pay attention to it. But the Mayan nobility considered themselves not ordinary people, but descendants of the gods. Therefore, in order to distinguish them from commoners and slaves in appearance, most of the Mayan nobles wanted their children to look "out of appearance", so that their children would be abused from birth. Generally speaking, when the babies of the Mayan aristocracy were born, the parents would take advantage of the fact that the baby's skull had not yet hardened and clamped it with a wooden board to deform it. Some people flattened their skulls to imitate a jaguar; Some people pressed their skulls to imitate ears of corn...... In short, it's just how to get deformed, as long as you make it as unhuman-like as possible: people claim to be demigods!

It is not at all a matter of consideration how much suffering Mayan babies will endure as a result of such inhumane abuse.

What's even more outrageous is that the Mayans actually regarded cross-eyed as beautiful, so the Mayan women deliberately hung a small toy on the child's drooping head (Liu Haier) between the eyes of the child, usually a small ball of resin. This resin ball dangles in front of the children's eyes all day long, causing the children to stare at them involuntarily, and finally their eyes become esotropia, which is commonly known as cross-eye.

In addition, the teeth of the Mayan nobles were often deliberately sharpened into a zigzag shape, and some were inlaid with small pieces of jade. In addition, they also like to put things in the bridge of the nose and pierce the chest and genitals...... As for earrings, nose rings, lip rings, tongue rings, etc., they are very common road goods. Ordinary Mayan aristocrats don't dig dozens of holes in themselves, and they are embarrassed to go out to meet people.

In addition to cosmetic surgery, the Mayans were very fond of tattoos – before the invasion of European colonists, Native Americans almost always had tattoos on their cheeks and foreheads. The pampered Mayan ladies also liked to tattoo all kinds of intricate patterns from the forehead to the shoulders, and finally make a face look like a colored relief plate, how to deform, and even the tongue had to be tattooed. Moreover, these tattoos are permanent and cannot be erased at will...... Maybe they think it's good-looking, but the aesthetics of modern people can't accept this, and that terrible visual experience is almost like seeing a horseshoe-shaped three-inch golden lotus wrapped in the feet of women in the old society.

What's worse is that because the medical level of that era was not high enough, medical accidents that led to death due to failed plastic surgery and perforation, wound infection and suppuration were not uncommon. As for the tragedy of being a fool with a broken head and a large area of skin ulcerating due to improper tattooing, it is even more common.

To sum up, because the upper class of the Mayans generally like to change the form of **, to highlight their unique superiority, that is, the so-called "incarnation of the sun god" and the like. Therefore, a qualified Mayan nobleman must usually have the following basic characteristics: first, the head is deformed, the more deformed the more noble; second, it is full of holes and all kinds of ornaments; third, tattoos everywhere from head to toe, generally dominated by pythons, jaguars and other fierce animal patterns; Fourth, everyone has a pair of cross-eyed eyes on their faces; Fifth, bruises all over the body (because of the frequent bloodletting sacrifices to the gods), and sixth, some Mayan nobles had mustaches on their chins, while Mayan commoners were forbidden to wear beards to highlight their nobility.

Therefore, when a traveler from modern society sees a guy with a deformed head, twisted and weird facial features, and cross-eyed eyes, sitting cross-legged on a sedan chair with his toes proud, and slowly moving towards his side, it is no wonder that his first reaction is to think of aliens - who told this Mayan nobleman to make himself look too unhuman?