Maya Civilization

Location

Mesoamerican Cultural Region Maya - Yucatán Peninsula

The Maya

• Civilization lasted more than 2,000 years

• 300 to 900 A.D. (the Classic Period) was their hey day

• Civilization mysteriously declined around 1000 A.D.

Cultural Achievements

• Built complex cities without machinery/ metal or the wheel

• Grew corn, beans, squash, and cassava in an inhospitable environment

• Written language• Accurate calendars• Independently invented

Zero

TikalCapital City

• Location: Guatemala

• 10,000 people lived in its 6 square miles

• 3,000 temples, many palaces, ceremonial platforms, ball courts, and plazas

Tikal

Amazing Architecture

• The Great Jaguar Temple

• Built in 870 AD• Built after the death of

Ah Cacau• Named after a shrine

depicting Ah Cacau protected by a Jaguar

Jaguar in Mesoamerican Culture

• Strong, quick, and agile, it’s the biggest cat in the Americas

• Jaguar possessed the ability to cross the worlds of night and day

• The living and the Earth were day, the spirit world was night

The Ball Game

• Known as pokatok• Religious significance• Participants were often

POWs • Losers were sometimes

sacrificed

Tikal Chichen Itza

Image Copied from Vase

How do we know what we know about the Maya?

Mayan Codex

• Hieroglyphs: a stylized picture of an object representing a word, syllable, or sound

• Mayan Codices: ancient manuscript texts in book form: made from bark

• Dresden Codex: oldest American book known

What Anthropologists Decoded

• Language consisted of 800 glyphs- either words or syllables

• Almanacs, history, astronomical tables, ritual schedules

• Number system (bars mean 5, dots mean one, shells mean zero.

Mayan Calendar

• Calendars were at the root of Mayan culture

• The Maya calendar was really three calendars in one

• Calendars were extremely accurate