ture.” (Liz 1-6). Maya Temples were ceremonial and sacred places where the kings, who were also the religious leaders, could talk to the gods and preform{sic} ceremonies. At the temple the king would use trances and other rituals to “open a doorway” into the world of the gods in order to talk with them. Every time a ritual was preformed it made the temple more sacred. The temples were designed to look like the land when the gods first created the world. The stepped “truncated” pyramids represent mountains; the temples on top of the pyramids represent caves leading into the mountains. Classic Mayan temples design seems to be innovated from a technique used by other Central American Indians, the Olmecs. These people built fake mountains by piling rock, and building a foundation on top to build a temple. The Mayans developed these temples further by adding sculpture, and painted faces onto these pyramids. The whole building would then be covered with plaster, and painted red or other bright colors. The Temples were often small, and had three dark rooms in their interior. One of the rooms would be an inner sanctuary where the king preformed his rituals (Liz 1-6). That temples were, in fact, religious buildings is beyond question; structures of the same shape were still in use when the Spaniards arrived and described with horror the bloody sacrifices that took place within the temple walls. Some Mayan temples have multiple doorways and suites of interconnected rooms. In some rooms, plaster-and-stone thrones look through doorways onto courtyards where one can easily envision crowds of religious supplicants (Culbert 165). Many temples also Staats 4contain architecture that curiously corresponds with certain astrological phenomenon. Most temples constructed during the Classic period have a total of 365 stairs, and openings that align with the summer and winter solstices. When the temples were built, the ...
