Mesoamerican religion is a group of indigenous religions of Mesoamerica that were prevalent in the pre-Columbian era. Two of the most widely known examples of Mesoamerican religion are the Aztec religion and the Mayan religion.
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👉 Mesoamerican religion in the context of Mesoamerican writing system
Mesoamerica, along with Mesopotamia and China, is one of three known places in the world where writing is thought to have developed independently. Mesoamerican scripts deciphered to date are a combination of logographic and syllabic systems. They are often called hieroglyphs due to the iconic shapes of many of the glyphs, a pattern superficially similar to Egyptian hieroglyphs. Fifteen distinct writing systems have been identified in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, many from a single inscription. The limits of archaeological dating methods make it difficult to establish which was the earliest and hence the progenitor from which the others developed. The best documented and deciphered Mesoamerican writing system, and the most widely known, is the classic Maya script. Earlier scripts with poorer and varying levels of decipherment include the Olmec hieroglyphs, the Zapotec script, and the Isthmian script, all of which date back to the 1st millennium BC. An extensive Mesoamerican literature has been conserved, partly in indigenous scripts and partly in postconquest transcriptions in the Latin script.
After the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire in 1521, Spanish colonial authorities and Catholic Church missionaries aimed to purge indigenous culture, religion and traditional institutions, which included the destruction of texts of Mesoamerican and pre-Columbian origin. However, some Mesoamerican texts were spared, particularly from the Yucatán of southern Mexico, recording the languages of the area. These surviving texts give anthropologists and historians valuable insight into the origins of Mesoamerican languages, culture, religion, and government. Languages recorded in Mesoamerican writing include Classical Maya, Classical Nahuatl, Zapotec, Mixtec, and various other languages, particularly of the Oto-Manguean and Uto-Aztecan families.
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Mesoamerican religion in the context of Maya religion
The traditional Maya or Mayan religion of the extant Maya peoples of Guatemala, Belize, western Honduras, and the Tabasco, Chiapas, Quintana Roo, Campeche and Yucatán states of Mexico is part of the wider frame of Mesoamerican religion. As is the case with many other contemporary Mesoamerican religions, it results from centuries of symbiosis with Roman Catholicism. When its pre-Hispanic antecedents are taken into account, however, traditional Maya religion has already existed for more than two and a half millennia as a recognizably distinct phenomenon. Before the advent of Christianity, it was spread over many indigenous kingdoms, all with their own local traditions. Today, it coexists and interacts with pan-Mayan syncretism, the 're-invention of tradition' by the Pan-Maya movement, and Christianity in its various denominations.