Maya Notes

Textbook:

• Discovered ancient cities in A.D. 1839 by archaeologists John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood

• A.D. 300: Maya develop complex culture in parts of Mexico and Central America

• Area of settlement: Peten

• Problems:

  • Thick forests block out sunlight
  • Stinging insects

• Year-round water sources: Swamps and Sinkholes (area where the soil has collapsed into a hollow or depression)

  • Sinkholes gave access to network of underground rivers and streams

• Worked to clear forested areas

• Planted fields of corn and other crops

• Built cities under government direction

• Set up more than 50 independent city-states

  • Connected by culture, political ties, and trade
  • Often fought each other for control of territory
  • Ruled by king: claimed he was descended from the sun god
  • God-kings expected people to serve them

• Greatest Maya king: Pacal II

  • Ruled city state Palenque for 67 years in the A.D. 600s
  • Built many structures → among some of the best examples of Mayan architecture

• Strict class system

  • King
  • Nobles and Priests
  • Farmers, Artisans, and Hunters
  • Paid taxes and worked on large building projects

• Believed that the gods controlled everything that happened

  • Priests performed ceremonies to please the gods
  • Sometimes included human sacrifice

• Drought:

  • Tried to please Chac, god of rain, by offering lives of their captives

• Women:

  • Significant role in Maya city-states
  • Calakmul: at least 2 women served as ruling queens
  • One may have helped found the city
  • Often married into royal families in other Maya city-states
  • Increased trade
  • Formed alliances

• Priests were advisors

  • Thought the gods revealed their plans with movements of the sun, moon, and stars
  • By watching the stars, they learned about astronomy

• Developed calendar system to predict eclipses and to schedule religious festivals

  • Decide when to plant and harvest crops

• 2 major calendars:

  • 260-day
  • Religious events
  • 365-day
  • Agricultural and seasons

• System of mathematics:

  • Base 20
  • Concept of 0

• Written language to record numbers and dates

  • Carved hieroglyphics on stone monuments and used them in books

• A.D. 900: Maya civilization collapsed:

  • Historians do not know why
  • Evidence that it may be conflict and increased warfare among city-states
  • Erosion and overuse of soil may have led to less food production
  • Illnesses and starvation

BrainPop:

• One of the first great civilizations of the Americas
• Stretched from the Yucatan Peninsula to El Salvador
• Came thousands of years before the Aztecs
• First settlements almost 4,000 years old
• Wasn’t a centrally controlled empire → loose collection of independent states
  • Each had its own ruling family
• Peak of civilizations:
  • Capitals of states were major urban centers
  • Dominated by massive step pyramids and huge palaces for the ruling families
• City-states controlled surrounding farmland and smaller towns
• Looked to expand influence through military conquest
  • Cities constantly at war with one another
  • Did not speak the same language
• Considered the same civilization because they shared common culture
• Most complex writing system in Mesoameria
  • Maya script = looks like Egyptian hieroglyphics
  • Phonetic symbols
  • Sounds instead of ideas
  • Hundreds of phonetic symbols
  • Much of what we know about them came from their writings
  • Carved into stone/wood, painted on wood, painted on early type of book called a codex
  • Inscribed onto giant stone columns (stelae)
  • Depict stories of conquest, rulers, and gods
• Religion = center of Maya culture
  • Desire to understand gods drove many scientific and technological advances
  • Step pyramids often topped with temples
  • Dedicated to important gods
  • Astronomical observatories
• Created detailed charts of the stars
  • Shifting night sky was story of gods’ activities
• Temples and pyramids constructed to align with specific constellations
• Pleiades cluster
  • Believed ancestors came from there
• Maya calendar
  • Marked time
  • One of the most accurate in history
  • 365-day sun cycle
  • 20 day names
  • 13 day numbers
  • 20,000 unique days
  • Takes 52 years to complete one calendar round
• Maya number system
  • Base 20
  • Bar = 5
  • Dot = 1
  • Shell = 0
  • One of the earliest civilizations to use concept of 0
• 8th century
  • Disappeared
  • Cities abandoned
  • Left behind ruins
  • Droughts?
  • Bad environmental management?
  • Starvation?
• 16th century
  • Spanish arrived
  • Encountered small, scattered settlements
  • Took more than 150 years to to conquer
  • End of 17th century: Spain completed conquest
• Maya people still live in the same area

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