Tiempo histórico y tiempo mítico entre los mayas del Periodo Clásico (ss. II-X d.C.)

Abstract

The use and development of a rather precise calendrical system enabled the Maya of the Classic Period of this Mesoamerican civilization (centuries 2^nd through 10^th A. D.) to turn time into an habitable space. For them, time was like a path leading to either the past, in the form of an historical record registered in written documents, or the future, by way of forecasts and prophecies. Compared to other archaic cultures or early civilizations, the Classic Maya has been known for years for the peculiarity of having a linear, historical concept of time, including absolute dating. Yet the decipherment of the hieroglyphic inscriptions has revealed that this historical concept of time meshed with mythical time to make up a single temporal dimension —which was at once linear and cyclical— for the actions of men as well as gods. With obsessive accuracy and recurrence, the Classic Maya used calendrical Information as mortar for the construction of an historical (especially political) and religious discourse on their monuments, full of cross references to contemporary, past and even future events in texts commemorating anniversaries in several calendarial cycles.