Geography The Maya built the most advanced civilization in Mesoamerica. (Southern Mexico & Central America) The Maya settled in the steamy rainforests of the Yucatan Peninsula.

Maya Yucatan Peninsula, Southern Mexico Guatemala, Belize

Farming The Maya adapted to their environment by using the slash and burn farming technique.

Slash and Burn farming

 ECONOMY- The Mayan economy was based on agriculture and trade. Lowlands: Grew crops such as corn, beans, cotton, & cocoa beans. Corn (maize) was the main crop of the Mayan people. Chocolate was considered the food of rulers & gods. Cocoa beans were used as money. Highlands: had valuable stones such as Jade & Obsidian. Cities in the lowlands & highlands traded with each other

Corn was the Main food of The Maya

 CITIES- The Maya built over 40 cities (Tikal, Copan, Palenque, Chichen Itza).  The cities had many buildings with large stone pyramids, temples, palaces, and ball courts.  All of this was built without the use of metal tools or the wheel.  Temples were shaped like mountains and considered sacred because they brought people closer to the gods.

Tikal Write a caption

Chichen itza

WAR- City-states fought each other for power and land. Prisoners were sacrificed or used as slaves. Warfare was bloody and was fought hand to hand with spears, flint knives, and wooden clubs.

 RELIGION-  The Maya were polytheistic. They believed in many gods.  The most important were the Sun god, Rain god, Corn god and Moon goddess.  The Priests conducted religious ceremonies and tried to please the gods by offering blood.  Priests and nobles pierced their body parts with cactus spines or the spine of a stingray to offer blood to the gods.

 The Maya also performed human sacrifice in times of great need.  They sacrificed people captured in war.  In times of drought, they sacrificed people to the Rain god, Chac, by throwing people into underground sinkholes (cenote).

 SOCIETY-  The Mayan civilization was divided into many city-states.  Each city-state had it’s own government and king.  There was a strict social class hierarchy.  Ruler (god-king), Priests, Warriors, Merchants/Artisans, Peasants, Slaves Lower class had to give tribute to rulers. (cloth, salt, crops, work, army)

Mayan Social Class Hierarchy

King-

Priest-

Warriors

Nobles houses Kings being served

Merchants/ Artisans- merchants controlled trade between cities. Artisans made goods, and produced sculptures and codices to honor kings. Peasants- men worked fields, women ran the house, and made cloth. Slaves- criminals, war captives, had to do difficult work, not badly treated but sometimes killed and buried with master. ** Lower class had to give tribute to rulers. (cloth, salt, crops, work, army

Slaves

Use highlighted words or phrases to connect to this picture. Use the words to write a caption for the picture that describes the Mayan civilization using all words. Write your connection on the whiteboard.

 WRITING-  Mayan writing used hieroglyphs in which symbols represented sounds, words, or ideas.  The Maya carved hieroglyphs in stone column monuments called stele. Codex-Mayan book of hieroglyphs. Each codex was made of bark paper wrapped in deer skin. They used turkey feathers to write.

Stele

800 Hieroglyphs

Steles honor rulers Man writing in codex

Mayan codex

 WRITING- The Spanish burned the codex books. Only 4 codex books remain today. Maya legends and history were written in a book called the Popul Vuh.

Spanish burned books. Priests tried to wipe out their old religion.

 ASTRONOMY-  Priests built observatories to study the sky.  Priests could predict eclipses of the sun and moon.  They also figured out that there was 365 days in a year. Sun eclipse: terrified Mayan people

The principal Maya city of the Yucatán Peninsula. People still gather there each year, as they have for centuries, to observe the sun illuminate the stairs of a pyramid dedicated to Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent god. At the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, the Sun gradually illuminates the pyramid stairs and the serpent head at its base, creating the image of a snake slithering down the sacred mountain to Earth.

 MATH-  The Maya developed a complex number system with a base number of 20. Maya were one of the first people with a symbol for zero.  Numbers were written with bars for 5’s, dots for 1’s and a sign for 0.

CALENDARS- The Maya had two calendars. They had a 260 day religious calendar called the Sacred Round. They also had a 365 day farm calendar with 18 months of 20 days and 5 leftover unlucky days. Calendars were used for agricultural reasons, like the best time to plant and harvest crops.

365 day farm calendar Sacred Round: 260 day Religious calendar

Who is this? Evidence

FALL- Around 900AD people left the cities. No one is really sure why. Some say because of warfare, or drought, or not enough food. Historians have several theories for the collapse of the Maya civilization.

Group Number paper 1-48, A-E

The Maya wrote using pictures or drawings called pictographs Each picture had its own meaning. The Maya could write in full sentences and even stories. A story was made by drawing several pictures together. The Maya covered their cities and buildings with hieroglyphs carved into the stone. Most Mayas could read some hieroglyphs. But priests and nobles were probably the only people who knew the whole language. The Maya carved these symbols into stone, and made books from tree bark. They would take one strip of bark and fold it over and over to make pages. These "books" were wrapped with wood and deer hide. They are called codices, codex is singular (meaning one). The Maya would write with quills made from turkey feathers. When the Spanish came, they burned many books. Only four remain today. It probably took several weeks or more to write each codex. Each image was first outlined with black ink made of a coal base. The first drawing was done with a tool made from the thorns of the maguey cactus or from chips and bones of small animals including birds. Brushes were made of animal hair. Using color to illustrate the codices was not done just for looks. Colors and shades of colors meant a lot The Maya gave a special meaning to each color, which they related with gods, nature and the sky. People thought the writers were in touch with the gods. The codices were considered sacred. The books were kept in special rooms inside temples and important buildings.