Existing comment:
Ritual Warfare:
Raiding for captives between rival kingdoms was a long-standing practice among the Maya. The royal hunt for sacrificial victims to offer to the gods and the personal testing of one's fate were part of the accepted social order. Captive sacrifice was something that was expected of the nobility as part of their ritual duties. The blood sacrifice of noble captives nourished the gods, just as royal bloodletting did. War, conquest, and sacrifice were associated with the ballcourt. It was seen as the portal into the Underworld where the sacred contests of the Hero Twins could be replicated and sacrificed messengers sent to the realm of the gods and ancestors.
Initially, warfare was highly ritualized, associated with the cycles of Venus and the taking of captives without conquering territory. However, changes in attitudes towards war emerged following the introduction of the Mexican war and rain god Tlaloc from Teotihuacan in the Early Classic Period. Sacking of defeated cities occurred in the Late Classic Period when population growth brought intense competition for economic resources. In some areas such as the Petexbatun, this led to siege warfare which disrupted trade routes, upset population distribution, destroyed crops, and killed large numbers of Maya farmer-warriors. |