A woman harvests cacao pods by hand at a company-owned plantation in Ghana. The main ingredient in chocolate, cacao is one of Africa’s largest export crops.
© Ron Giling from Peter Arnold, Inc.

On a cold winter night there is nothing better than a mug of hot chocolate to warm you up. Though it is a simple drink, there is a long history behind the warm treat. Many say the first people to drink chocolate beverages were the Maya. The Maya were an Indigenous (native) people who developed a civilization in Central America and southern Mexico. ​​As far back as 500 B.C., the Maya made a drink containing ground-up cacao, chili peppers, corn meal, and water. The word chocolate comes from chocolatl, a word Spanish conquerors may have created by combining the Maya word chocol, which means hot, with the Aztec word atl, which means water.

While there are many records on the history of hot chocolate, no one knows for sure who invented chocolate milk. Some historians believe Jamaicans had been making a hot drink with cacao shavings boiled with milk and cinnamon since the 1500′s. Some people credit the British physician and botanist Sir Hans Sloane. In the early 1700′s, Sloane lived in Jamaica. There, he was served cocoa to drink. Cocoa is made from a tropical tree called the cacao. Botanists believe the cacao tree originated in the northern Amazon River Basin in South America. Sloane added milk to the cocoa to improve the taste. Sloane brought the mixture with him when he returned to England. The beverage was originally marketed as a medicine. While you can heat up chocolate milk to make hot chocolate, it will not be as dense and creamy as traditional hot chocolate.

An Aztec sculpture found in Amatlan, Mexico, shows a man holding a cacao pod. The Aztec people ruled an empire in Mexico in the 1400′s and early 1500′s.
Museum Collection Fund, Brooklyn Museum

What most people call “hot chocolate” is actually hot cocoa. The difference is that hot cocoa is made from cocoa powder, sugar or sweetener, and hot water or milk. Hot cocoa does not contain the fat and calories of chocolate. Hot chocolate is made from melted chocolate, sweetener, and either dairy or non-dairy milk. In many places, hot chocolate is called drinking chocolate.

Manufacturers invented a press to force cocoa butter out of roasted cacao beans, forming dry cakes. The cakes are then ground into the reddish-brown cocoa powder that you can buy at the store. Dutch-processed cocoa powder is made from cacao that was soaked in a solution before being ground. The solution lowers the acidity of the chocolate. Dutch-processed cocoa powder has a darker color and a less bitter flavor than regular cocoa powder.

Whether you drink hot cocoa or hot chocolate, you can put some marshmallows or whip cream on top for some added sweetness. However you enjoy your warm chocolate beverage, stay cozy!

November 6, 2017

Quetzalcoatl, whose name may be translated as feathered (or plumed) serpent or precious twin, was a great Mesoamerican god. He was also a culture hero, a legendary figure who represents the ideals of a cultural group. As a god, Quetzalcoatl «keht SAHL koh AH tuhl» was worshiped by early peoples of pre-Hispanic Mexico and Central America, including the Toltec and the Aztec who succeeded them in central Mexico. Quetzalcoatl was a creator god and a wind god. He also was associated with learning, with the Aztec zodiac, and with fertility, water, and vegetation. As a culture hero, Quetzalcoatl taught humankind how to make arts and crafts and measure time. He was also a Toltec priest-king called Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl—an embodiment of the god.

The great Mesoamerican god Quetzalcoatl. Credit: WORLD BOOK illustration by George Suyeoka

There are various stories and versions of stories about Quetzalcoatl, both the god and the semidivine ruler. Many of these tales place Quetzalcoatl in conflict with his brother Tezcatlipoca «tehs KOT lee POH kuh». For example, one myth describes how Quetzalcoatl and his three brothers, including Tezcatlipoca, were given the task of creating the world. At first, they cooperated, making fire, the heavens, the waters, a great fish whose flesh became Earth, and half a sun. The half-sun did not give enough light, so Tezcatlipoca decided to transform himself into a sun. A long struggle followed, with the brothers knocking each other out of the sky and placing different deities there as the sun. After causing great destruction with fire, floods, rampaging giants, and a tornado—and collapsing the heavens themselves—the brothers finally reconciled, repaired the damage, and created a new sun by sacrificing Quetzalcoatl’s son.

Other stories about Quetzalcoatl tell how Tezcatlipoca corrupted him by giving him an intoxicating drink. In some accounts, a disoriented Quetzalcoatl coupled with his sister Quetzalpetatl «keht SAHL pa TAH tuhl». Out of remorse, Quetzalcoatl set himself on fire. After he had burned up, Quetzalcoatl’s heart rose into the sky to become the planet Venus, called the “morning star” when seen before sunrise. For this reason, Quetzalcoatl sometimes is referred to as “lord of the dawn.” Xolotl «SHOH loht», the Aztec god of the evening star (Venus after sunset), is sometimes referred to as Quetzalcoatl’s twin brother. Some stories tell that Quetzalcoatl descended to the land of the dead, where he obtained bones from which he created human beings. In some versions of the tale, Quetzalcoatl sailed away to the east on a raft and was prophesied to return one day.

When a Spanish expedition led by Hernán Cortés arrived in Mexico in 1519, the Aztec emperor Montezuma II might have associated Cortés with Quetzalcoatl, returned from the east. Montezuma allowed Cortés to enter the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan <<tay nohch TEE tlahn>> (now Mexico City). The Spaniards eventually took Montezuma prisoner and tried to rule the empire through him. The Aztec people rebelled in 1520. However, Tenochtitlan fell to the Spaniards in 1521, and Spain soon controlled the entire Aztec empire.

The Maya people of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula also worshiped a form of Quetzalcoatl called Kukulkan. The famous step pyramid in the ancient Maya city of Chichén Itzá is dedicated to the plumed serpent god.

September 1, 2016

Stone panels decorating a newly discovered tomb tell the fascinating story of the rise and fall of a family of powerful kings known as the “Snake Dynasty” in the civilization of the ancient Maya. Archaeologist Jaime Awe of Northern Arizona University and his colleagues discovered the 1,300-year-old tomb this summer at Xunantunich (SHOO nahn TOO nitch), an important Maya ceremonial and administrative city on the Mopan River in what is now Belize. The tomb, one of the largest Maya tombs ever discovered, held the skeleton of an adult male, who was probably a member of a royal family.

Archaeologists work at the pyramidal temple that hid the discovered tomb at Xunantunich, Belize. Credit: © Jaime Awe, Belize Institute of Archaeology/Northern Arizona University

The Maya developed a magnificent civilization in Central America and southern Mexico that reached its period of greatest development about A.D. 250 to 900. During that time, known as the Classic Period, Maya civilization was centered in the tropical forest of what is now northern Guatemala. Each Maya city governed its surrounding area, and some large cities controlled one or more smaller cities. A king would usually be succeeded by his younger brother or by his son. In some cases, modern scholars know of important Maya dynasties, single families that ruled for generations.

Dr. Awe and his Belizean colleagues discovered the tomb buried under more than 25 feet (8 meters) of debris and rubble that had accumulated over centuries to fill a stairway leading down from one of the Maya city’s temples. Inside, they found the skeleton of a male, probably between 25 and 30 years of age. Grave goods around the skeleton indicated that the person buried was of high social status. The bones of jaguar and deer were placed around the skeleton, along with ceramic bowls and a number of obsidian (volcanic glass) blades. Two niches (hollows) in the walls of the tomb contained many pieces of flint that were cut into the shape of animals, leaves, and other symbols.

But the most interesting artifacts in the tomb were a pair of stone panels engraved with Maya hieroglyphics. The researchers believe the panels were originally part of series erected along a grand stairway at the ancient Maya city of Caracol, about 26 miles (42 kilometers) south of Xunantunich. Scholars believe the panels were ordered by K’an II, the king of Caracol known as the Snake Lord, to commemorate his military victory over Naranjo, just west of Xunantunich, around A.D. 642. The panels describe how the defeated lord of Naranjo participated in a ceremonial ball game before being sacrificed to the gods. The panels go on to record details of a tumultuous period for the conquering family—the Snake Dynasty—marked by deaths, fights over royal succession (inheritance), and marriages of alliance with royals from nearby cities.

By about A.D. 680, the people of Naranjo had rebelled against and defeated the Snake Dynasty of Caracol. Archaeologists believe the stone panels were then torn from the walls at Caracol and eventually used to decorate the tomb at Xunantunich, which lay within the expanded territory ruled by Naranjo. Xunantunich and the surrounding cities went into a sudden decline about A.D. 900, marking the end of the Classic Period of Maya civilization. Eventually, the cities were abandoned and overgrown with forest.

August 28, 2014

A Mayan city was recently rediscovered in southeastern Mexico, near El Mirador in Guatemala. (World Book map)

Archaeologists have rediscovered the “lost” Maya city of Lagunita, along with another previously unknown city called Tamchen. Both cities are hidden deep in the jungle of the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve in southeastern Mexico, near the border with Guatemala. The cities flourished around A.D. 600 to 950, near the end of what scholars call the Classic Period of Maya civilization. Among the ruins, archaeologists found plazas and the remains of what are thought to be palaces and stone pyramids up to 65 feet (20 meters) high. The scientists believe there are several other Maya cities in the region that remain to be discovered.

Archaeologists have known of the existence of Lagunita since the 1970′s, when American explorer Eric Von Euw returned from the region with drawings of an ancient Maya city he had discovered. However, Von Euw never published a description or the exact location of his discovery in the vast jungle reserve. Ivan Sprajc and his colleagues of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Ljubljana were able to determine the location of the lost city of Lagunita as well as Tamchen by examining aerial photographs of the region. The jungle is so thick in this region that even large stone buildings can barely be seen beneath the dense foliage. The team mapped areas at each site that covered around 30 acres (12 hectares). Residential areas surrounding these city centers would have covered even more ground. At Tamchen, scientists found over 30 deep stone chambers, called chultuns, that the Maya used to collect and store rain water, suggesting a sizable population lived in the city.

Ruins of an ancient Maya temple stand at Palenque, in the state of Chiapas, Mexico. The temple was built about A.D. 650. The Maya civilization reached its height in Mexico and Guatemala during the Classic Period, between around A.D. 250 and 900. Ruins found recently in southeastern Mexico date to that period. (© Ales Liska, Shutterstock)

One building at the main entrance to Lagunita has a facade featuring a doorway in the shape of the mouth of a terrible monster. The facade may represent the entrance to a sacred portion of the city associated with the underworld. The entrance closely resembles a building facade drawn by Von Euw in the 1970’s, so the scientists are certain it is the same site. The team plans to conduct excavations at the site in the future. The excavations may help scholars determine why Maya civilization collapsed at the end of the Classic Period.

Beginning in the A.D. 800′s, the Maya stopped building large pyramids and temples. Over the following decades, they abandoned their major cities in the Guatemala lowlands and other regions. Some experts have linked the collapse to a combination of factors, including overpopulation, disease, exhaustion of natural resources, crop failures, warfare between cities, and the movement of other groups into the Maya area.

Additional World Book articles:

• Archaeology

June 24, 2013

Pyramids, palaces, ball courts, and houses from an ancient Maya city overgrown by centuries of thick jungle vegetation have been discovered in a remote area of southeastern Mexico by scientists from Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History. Occupied from about A.D. 600 until 900, the city has been newly renamed Chactun. The scientists reported that the city, which covered about 54 acres (22 hectares), is the first ancient Maya complex found in a now heavily forested area of Campeche province in the western Yucatán Peninsula. Also found at the site were plazas and altars as well as stone monuments called stelae. The name “K’inch B’ahlam,” which may refer to one of the city’s rulers, was carved on one stele.

The scientists discovered Chactun while examining aerial photographs of the area. Visiting the site required hacking their way along paths once used by loggers and workers who tapped the area’s rubber trees.

The Maya civilization reached its peak from about A.D. 250 to 900. During that time, known as the Classic Period, it was centered in the tropical rain forest of the lowlands of what is now northern Guatemala. By about 900, most of the Maya abandoned the lowlands and moved to areas to the north and south, including Yucatán and the highlands of southern Guatemala. In those areas, they continued to prosper until Spain conquered almost all of the Maya in the mid-1500′s. Scholars are still trying to discover the reasons for the collapse of Classic Maya society in the lowlands. Some experts point to a combination of such factors as overpopulation, disease, exhaustion of natural resources, crop failures, warfare between cities, and the movement of other groups into the Maya area.

In a study published in November 2012, a research team headed by environmental archaeologist Douglas Kennett of Pennsylvania State University concluded that a 100-year drought played a major role in the collapse of the Classic Maya society. The drought, which plagued the lowlands from 1020 to 1100, had followed a drying period that began in about 660. According to Kennett, Maya writings from this period link the drought to widespread famine, disease, and wars, among other disruptive events.

Additional World Book article include:

• Chichén Itzá
• Copán
  
• Mexico (History of)
• The Ancient Maya: Deciphering New Clues (a special report)
• Archaeology (1924) (a Back in Time article)
  

December 21, 2012

If you are reading this, then you know that the world has not ended on December 21, as many people thought the ancient Maya had predicted (though they hadn’t). What happened?

The Maya developed a magnificent civilization in Central America and southern Mexico that flourish between about A.D. 250 and 900. They produced remarkable architecture, painting, pottery, and sculpture. The Maya also made great advances in astronomy and mathematics and developed several calendars, including a complex and accurate yearly calendar. Another of the Maya calendars, called the Long Count calendar, was based on a 5,128-year cycle. Many scholars have calculated that the Mayan Long Count cycle was scheduled to end on December 21, 2012, on the Gregorian calendar that we use today.

A Mayan mural depicts a scene at the royal court at Bonampak, where the King (center) is presented with prisoners captured in battle. Defeated rulers and other important prisoners of war were sacrificed to the gods in religious ceremonies. This restored mural was painted toward the end of the Classic Period, around 790 A.D., as rival cities in the Mayan civilization began to fight each other. (© Della Zuana Pascal, Sygma/Corbis)

Some people came to believe that the Mayan Long Count calendar forecast the end of all time. Reports that the end of the world was coming on December 21 spread quickly in newspapers, magazines, and television shows, and flourished on the Internet. Theories about the cause of the apocalypse varied. Some stated that Earth would collide with a rogue planet or asteroid. Others suggested the Earth’s magnetic poles would flip or solar flares would engulf the planet.

Most experts viewed such predictions as nonsense. But people in some areas began to prepare for the worst. Panic buying was reported in Russia, China, and France, as people stocked up on food, candles, and other necessities before the dreaded date. Officials predicted a surge of visitors to Mexico and Central America, with tourists flocking to Maya sites for the fateful day.

Archaeologists who study the ancient Maya noted that no predictions of the end of the world exist in Maya writings or inscriptions. They also pointed out that the end of the Long Count calendar on December 21, 2012, simply marks the beginning of a new calendar cycle.

In response to public anxiety and numerous questions, NASA scientists tried to explain online and during a press conference that Maya-related end-of-the-world predictions were not based on reality. “The world will not end in 2012,” the website stated. “Our planet has been getting along just fine for more than 4 billion years, and credible scientists worldwide know of no threat associated with 2012.” As one NASA scientist said, “Just as the calendar you have on your kitchen wall does not cease to exist after December 31, the Mayan calendar does not cease to exist on December 21, 2012. This date is the end of the Mayan long-count period but then–just as your calendar begins again on January 1–another long-count period begins for the Mayan calendar.” In fact, NASA was so confident the world would not end that it prepared and released beforehand a video that explains to bewildered believers why they are still here.

Additional articles in World Book:

• Chichén Itzá
• Stephens, John Lloyd
• Tikal
  
• The Ancient Maya: Deciphering New Clues (a special report)
• Latin America (1929) (a Back in Time article)

November 14, 2012

A catastrophic drought lasting nearly 100 years caused the downfall of the Maya in Central America more than 1,000 years ago, according to a new report by climate researchers led by Douglas Kennett of Pennsylvania State University. Archaeologists have long thought that climate change in the form of long drought was a factor in the collapse of the Maya, but detailed climate information was difficult to find in the archaeological record.

Ruins of an ancient Maya temple stand at Palenque in the state of Chiapas. The temple was built about A.D. 650, during a period when great indigenous (native) civilizations thrived in Mexico. (© Ales Liska, Shutterstock)

The Maya developed a magnificent civilization in Central America and south Mexico that reached its peak from about A.D. 250 to 900. During that time, known as the Classic Period, the Maya civilization was centered in the tropical rain forest of the lowlands of what is now northern Guatemala. Then, beginning in the 800′s, the Maya abandoned their major cities in the lowlands one by one and finally abandoned most of this region. Archaeologists have no clear explanation for why the Classical Maya civilization, known for its remarkable architecture, painting, sculpture, advancements in astronomy, and an accurate yearly calendar, collapsed so dramatically.

Kennett and his team were able to obtain detailed evidence about rainfall by measuring oxygen isotope levels in a stalagmite, a stone formation that rises up from the floors of caves, from a site in southern Belize. (Different isotopes [forms] of a chemical element, such as oxygen, contain different amounts of matter in the nucleus [core] of their atoms.) Stalagmites form when water, dripping on the floor from the walls and roofs of the cave, carries with it deposits of calcium carbonate, or calcite. Rainfall in a region can be calculated and linked to specific dates by measuring the ratio of radioactive oxygen isotopes in the layers of a stalagmite. The analysis by Kennett’s team indicated a long-lasting, severe drought from 660 to 1000 A.D., which corresponds to the collapse of Classical Maya civilization. The period of drought apparently intensified other factors, including overpopulation, disease, exhaustion of natural resources, and warfare, to bring an end to the Classical Maya civilization.

A Mayan mural depicts a scene at the royal court at Bonampak, where the king (center) is presented with prisoners captured in battle. Defeated rulers and other important prisoners of war were sacrificed to the gods in religious ceremonies. This restored mural was painted toward the end of the Classic Period, around 790 A.D., as rival cities in the Mayan civilization began to fight each other. (© Della Zuana Pascal, Sygma/Corbis)

However, the culture of the Maya never really disappeared. Today, descendants of the Maya still live in Mexico and Central America. They speak Maya languages and carry on many customs of their ancestors.

Additional World Book articles:

• Architecture (Pre-Columbian architecture)
• Stephens, John Lloyd
• The Ancient Maya: Deciphering New Clues (a Special Report)