Colonists’ religious architecture influenced by Maya

The Mayas influenced the Spanish colonists’ religious architecture. This is concluded in a new doctoral thesis in archaeology that compares Spanish colonial churches and Maya dwellings on the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico and Belize.


The Mayas influenced the Spanish colonists’ religious architecture. This is concluded in a new doctoral thesis in archaeology that compares Spanish colonial churches and Maya dwellings on the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico and Belize.

Religion played an important role in the Spanish colonisation of the Yucatán Peninsula, once home to the Maya civilisation. Together with the Spanish monarchy, religion was a powerful and influential force in society.

‘Colonial churches and chapels represented authority in the form of buildings and architecture that was used to control Maya society. Converting the Mayas to Christianity was an important part of the Spanish strategy and guidelines for the colonisation of Mexico,’ says Teobaldo Ramirez Barbosa, author of the thesis.

He has conducted a comparative analysis of early colonial churches and Maya dwellings on the Yucatán Peninsula and in Belize. Colonialism has usually been interpreted as a unilateral relationship in which the colonist and the colonist culture are not affected. Barbosa’s analysis of Spanish churches and Maya dwellings reveals that the colonised people indeed had a clear influence on the colonists’ architecture.

‘The Mayas have used the same building materials since pre-Hispanic times. My results show that their tradition of using masonry, wattle and daub, stucco and ramada roofs, as well as semi-circular, circular and squared shapes of buildings, can be discerned in some types of Spanish churches,’ he says.

Full story: www.heritagedaily.com/2016/03/colonists-religious-architecture-influenced-by-maya-traditions/110265