July 1, 2019 Comments Off on The Maya civilization used chocolate as a currency Views: 1562 Ancient Stories, Nostalgia

Did you take your candy today? In Mayan times a single bar might have meant a golden coin. A recent study has suggested that chocolate could have been a form of currency at the peak of the Mayan civilization. And that the loss of cocoa resources, the basis of chocolate, may have further stirred economic disruptions and meltdowns within this renowned civilization that once ruled Mesoamerica.

The Mayans are famous chocolate-eaters across history, with evidence suggesting they were processing cacao as early as 2,600 years ago. They famously mixed cocoa with ingredients such as honey and chili peppers, with water and cornmeal, and consumed the hot-boiling substance over rituals and festivities.

Photo of a structure called “The Observatory” in the Chichen Itza ruins in Mexico. Chichen Itza was the most important city in the northern Maya region, John Romkey, CC BY 2.0

Similar to other ancient civilizations, the Maya did not use any coins as money. Instead, they carried trade with tobacco, clothing, maize, and later on perhaps also cocoa beans.

U.S. archeologist Joanne Baron from Bard Early College Network in New Jersey has taken the task to analyze Mayan artwork from the Classic Maya period (250-900 A.D.). In 2018, Baron’s findings were published in the journal Economic Anthropology, suggesting that the ancient Mayans indeed used cocoa beans in trade. Her research was focused on different kinds of artworks like murals and ceramics, found in the southern Maya lowlands (today territories of Mexico and Central America) and which depict typical market trade scenes and tribute payments to Mayan rulers.

Maya’s Zaculeu was capital of the Postclassic Mam kingdom in the Guatemalan Highlands. Source: HJPD, CC BY 3.0

While Europeans used cocoa beans to pay workers in the 16th-century when they first arrived in the region, it has remained much of a mystery whether such type of market exchange was already in place long before that.

One of the earliest depictions of cocoa used as a form of currency dates to the 7th-century, according to Baron’s research. It concerns a painted mural, displayed in a pyramid that may have been a central marketplace near the Guatemalan border. The mural shows a woman giving a bowl of hot chocolate to a man in exchange for dough used for making tamales, a traditional Mesoamerican dish still popular in the region today. However, at this point chocolate was still not used as a form of currency.

Chocolate may have become something like a coin a bit later, during the 8th and 9th centuries. The evidence consists of nearly 180 different images found on ceramics and murals and dated from 691 A.D. until 900 A.D. The images reveal a variety of tribute items delivered to Maya rulers as a form of tax payment. Such as tobacco and maize grain but also textiles and bags labeled with a quantity of dried cocoa beans. And if cacao ended as currency in the palace, is a strong argument for Baron to consider that it was a currency at this point.

A possible Maya lord sits before an individual with a container of frothed chocolate.

“Standardization of cacao and cotton textiles did occur, however, within the context of tribute payment. Starting at the very end of the seventh century and continuing until the end of the eight, hundreds of polychrome ceramic vessels–many unprovenienced–depicted scenes of enthroned lords receiving tributes,” she writes in the paper.

It is plausible that the palace also collected much more cacao than it actually consumed, therefore, the surplus was spent in other trade, with palace workers or perhaps supplying the palace.

Cacao was a valued commodity to the Mayans as crops were often prone to fail and did not always grow close to their cities. In which case, disruptions in supply could have easily resulted in economic meltdowns and turmoil and tension inside the palace and circles of power.

National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City. Maya mask. Stucco frieze from Placeres, Campeche. Early Classic period (c. 250 – 600 AD. Joyce Kelly 2001 An Archaeological Guide to Central and Southern Mexico, p.105. Source: Wolfgang Sauber, CC BY-SA 3.0

Another body of research, argues that still, as Mayans entered their Classic era, more people were involved in artwork production. Therefore, there simply is more chocolate-related evidence from that period, which does not necessarily allow us to learn whether it really had a significant economic function in society.

However, by the end of the 9th-century, something unknown had happened to the Maya civilization that caused its demise. Severe drought or perhaps a disease may have emptied the Classic Maya cities in the southern lowlands, leading to an ultimate collapse of civilization. And perhaps, just perhaps, it could have been all because of chocolate.

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Tags: ancient cities, Ancient Explorers, Civilizations, history of chocolate, Mayans