Mayan Civilization

Cult of the Jaguar continued

Map

Political Systems

• City states united in a loose confederacy• Ruled by powerful semi-divine kings called

halach uinic ("True Man") and his lesser nobles

• Nobles own most of the land and are the important merchants

• Priests– Maintained an elaborate calendar and transmitted

knowledge of writing, astronomy, and mathematics• Population largely rural used cities for primarily relgious

centers

War

• Mayan kingdoms fought constantly with each other and warriors won tremendous prestige by capturing high-ranking enemies

• Captives were usually made slaves, humiliated, tortured, and ritually sacrificed

Tikal

Temple of Jaguar

Temple of the Jaguar

• Tikal was the most important Mayan political center between the 4th and 9th Centuries

• Meeting place for all Mayan city states on important astronomical/religious dates

• 40,000 people lived here

Economic Systems

• Agricultural society – Terrace farming– Shifting cultivation– Maize, cacao

• Architects, sculptors, Potters• Cacao used as money• Merchants traded in luxury goods like jade,

fancy textiles and animal pelts

Religion• Polytheistic; gods

made people out of maize and water

• Human Blood Sacrifice and ceremony keep the gods happy so they keep the world going and agriculture good

Mayan Ball Game

• Winners live losers sacrificed to the gods

Human Sacrifice and Bloodletting Rituals

• Bloodletting involved both war captives and Mayan royals

• Bloodletting involved pircing the tongue and/or genitals and dripping the blood down a rope into a bowl before offering it to the gods

Religious Ritual

• Killing animals, slaves, children, and prisoners of war were important parts of their culture

• occurred on important dates, when priests demanded it, or as punishment for crimes.

• Burned copal resin along with the sacrifice, creating more smoke and a sweet smell.

• Offerings to the spirits were to insure agricultural success.

Priests –

• responsible for keeping calendar, holding ceremonies to the gods and Human sacrifice

• Most important Priest called Ah Kin Mai ("The Highest One of the Sun")

• ruled over priests below him (called Ah Kin , "The Ones of the Sun").

• There were two special priestly functions involved in human sacrifice: the chacs, who were elderly men that held down the victim, and the nacon, who cut the living heart from the victim.

After life

• The Mayas believed in an elaborate afterlife, but heaven was reserved for those who had been hanged, sacrificed, or died in childbirth. Everyone else went to xibal, or hell, which was ruled over by the Lords of Death.

Social Hierarchy

• King and ruling family• Priests• Hereditary nobility (from which came the

merchant class)• Warriors• Professionals and artisans• Peasants• Slaves

Mayan beauty

– prized a long, backward sloping forehead– infants would have their skulls bound with

boards. – Crossed-eyes favored – infants would have objects dangled in front of

their eyes in order to permanently cross their eyes (this is still practiced today).

Intellectual Developments

• astronomy, calendrical systems, hieroglyphic writing, ceremonial architecture, and masonry without metal tools

• Could plot planetary cycles and predict eclipses of the sun and moon

• Invented the concept of zero and used a symbol to represent zero mathematically, which facilitated the manipulation of large numbers

• calculated the length of the solar year at 365.242 days– about 17 seconds shorter than the figure reached by modern

Maya Number System

Mayan Calendar

• Interwove two kinds of year– A solar year of 365 days governed the agricultural

cycle– A ritual year of 260 days governed daily affairs by

organizing time into twenty “months” of thirteen days each

Art

Writing

• ideographic elements and symbols for syllables

• Used to write works of history, poetry, and myth and keep genealogical, administrative, and astronomical records

Mayan Decline

• By about 800, most Mayan populations had begun to desert their cities– Full scale decline followed everywhere but in the

northern Yucatan

• Possible causes include foreign invasion, internal dissension and civil war, failure of the water control system leading to agricultural disaster, ecological problems caused by destruction of the forests, epidemic diseases, and natural disasters

Aztecs – c. 1350- 1550

A Continuation of the Olmec and Maya cultures

Location / Geography

• Central Mexico (not the Yucatan)

• Capital at Tenochtitlan (island) 500,000 people

• Total Pop: 10-20 million

Politics• Theocracy led

by divine king/Priest

• Military – nearly constant brutal wars for conquest, collect tribute, captives for slaves and sacrifice

Economics• Agriculturally based• merchants are limited

by what they can carry since they don’t have large pack animals

• Chinampas – huge floating islands for agriculture

• The great market – daily trade in the merchant section of large cities

Chinampa

Religion• Polytheistic• Many Temples based

on astronomy for worship, agricultural planning and sacrifice

• Each holiday included ceremonies involving human sacrifice/cannibalism

• Fatalistic and cyclical view of the world

Social

• Large gap between upper/lower classes• Role of Women – decide fate of

prisoners, domestic chores (grinding maize), can inherit land

• Common people in constant fear of war/sacrifice/slavery

Intellectual

• calendar, numbers and pictorial writing similar but not identical to Maya

• Capital built on an island required great planning and coordination

Art• Temples• Gold objects• Sculpture• Skull racks

Conquered by Spanish

• Spanish conquistadors led by Cortes crush the Aztecs during the 1530s

• More on that later

Inca c. 1350 – 1550

Geography• Western coast of S.

America• Total Pop: 10 million• Capital at Cuzco,

religious center Machu Pichu

• 4000 miles in length• Made up of hundreds of

tribes loosely ruled by the Inca

• Empire included deserts along the coast, jungle and high mountain villages

Politics• Loose confederation of tribes • Smart captives were

trained/brainwashed in Cuzco to rule for Inca and then sent back home to be Incan governors

• Maintain authority by trading supplies to “good” regions and not to “bad” regions

• Constant need to expand in order to support the trade/bribery with other regions

Divine Kings

• Emperor and principle wife seen as gods

• Inca nobility dominate the bureaucracy

Macchu Picchu

Economy• Agriculturally based –

– terraced farming, – different crops based on

location and altitude

• Lots of labor/workers necessary for transport of goods

• Excellent Roads/infrastructure for transfer of goods from coastal desert to jungle to mountain villages

• Trade from different regions provided lots of different food to eat

• Domesticated and bred hundreds of varieties of potatoes, tomatoes, peppers

Draw Bridge for Security

Religion

• Religious tolerance but must worship Incan gods

• Polytheistic, sun god is most important

• Human sacrifice rare• Great Inca – emperor,

descendant of the sun god

Social Life

• Diverse geography = diverse population

• Social hierarchy– Kings/nobles– Merchants/rich– Farmers– slaves

• land/money split to several heirs kept people more equal in wealth

• “Mita” – obligation to the empire (military service/public works)

• women have almost no rights but work hard farming and run the home

Intellectual life and Art

• No writing!• Incan Knots (Quipu) used to keep records

of taxes, population, trade and names• Mummies are common• Nazca lines in the desert sand form animal

shapes (possibly festival dancing patterns?)

Quipus (FYI only)• Quipu means "to tie". • A quipu was composed of a rope to which a

collection of counting-threads, each about 60 centimeters long, were tied.

• Information was recorded on the threads using different materials, colors, ties and placement. The most important information was placed on the leftmost thread. Yellow, white, and red represented gold, silver, and soldiers, respectively.

• In a population census, men and women were counted on separate quipus, in which the:

• 1st thread recorded persons over the age of 60 • 2nd thread recorded persons between 50 and 60

years ... • 8th thread recorded babies, 0-1 years. • When an event was to be recorded, a Quipu was

used to store facts. The story itself had to be memorized and could be retold using the Quipu's recorded facts. Interpretation of a Quipu was complicated because every counter, Quipucamayo , used his own system of ties and retold information from the Quipu orally