Mesoamerica — the southern regions of Mexico and the northern countries of Central America, including parts of Guatemala, Belize, Honduras and El Salvador — is the home of one of the world's great early civilizations: the Maya.
The indigenous culture of the Maya goes back over 3000 years. They were an aggressive, warrior people who practiced animal and human sacrifice, and are hard to romanticize. The Spanish arrived in the 1500s and it was all over by 1697, when the last Maya city surrendered.
The Classic Period of Mayan culture produced highly sophisticated art forms — architecture, sculpture, and painting, as well as astronomy, hieroglyphic writing, and an advanced calendar system. There was no written music, but various Pre-Columbian flutes and wind instruments, drums, rattles, and metallic percussion have come down to us. Starting with these simple traditional instruments, native and western Ambient musicians have created electro-acoustic sound worlds that summon up the shamanistic and ritual spaces of this ancient culture.
On this transmission of Hearts of Space, magical sound worlds of early Mesoamerica, on a program called MAYAN SKIES.
Music is by JORGE REYES, ANTONIO ZEPEDA, MICHAEL STEARNS, SORIAH+ASHKELON SAIN, LUIS PEREZ, and SUSPENDED MEMORIES.
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