Done by: Juliana, Carlen and Hubert

The Ancient Mayan civilization is known to have

began 2600BC. It was established in the pre-classic/ Formative period. The Maya civilization was one of the most dominant indigenous societies in Mesoamerica. Mesoamerica is a term used to describe Mexico and central America before the Spanish conquest.

 The Mayan Civilization was located in central America which now

known as the areas of Yucatan, Guatemala, Belize and southern Mexico

The area lies between the

Tropic of cancer and the equator

The empire was enormous,

Scattered through out the rain Forests. There were more then 20 Different areas. Each one of these areas could be considered as different states which had their own rulers, Surrounded by smaller cities, villages And farmlands

 Because of the lush rain forests they had to clear away

vast amounts of trees to build their structures. There was no ground water, large reservoirs had to be built underground to store rain water.
Trade routs had to be created by clearing away paths

through the forests

 The Mayans survival depended largely on agriculture Mayan survival depended largely on agriculture. But their

economy was based on the trade of valuable items, such as jade and the green feathers (green was a sacred colour the the Maya). The feathers were called Quetzal feathers .

The Maya traded jade for sculpture and jewellery, quetzal

feathers and animal pelts (such as those from jaguars) for royal costumes (eventually these kingdoms had large families of aristocracy who demanded fine and luxurious clothes and adornments), obsidian for weapons and pyrite for mirrors. (They did not use any metal.) They used cacao beans as money and cermaics.

 Trade in mayan ancient civilisation were more centred

primarily around foods like fish, squash, potatoes, corn, honey, beans, turkey, fruits, chocolate drinks. Trade were secondly base on raw materials such as limestone, marble, jade, wood, copper and gold; and manufactured goods like weapons. The types of trade varied greatly regionally with specific districts of kingdoms typically specializing in a specific trade which contained workers of every skill set needed to produce their designated specialty.

. The Maya relied on a strong middle class of skilled and semi-skilled workers and artisans which produced both commodities and specialized goods . The specialist class would sell their services and create luxury goods based upon their specific skill set . . The king is on top of the game to cooperate with other kingdom. . All classes of Maya society invested in other ventures such as mass farms, large workshops and public works.

Commodities
Artists were considered to be amongst the most important tradesmen in Maya society and owning art from specific artist was a symbol of great wealth.

 The Mayans were extremely religious and believed in various gods. They believed in a multi layered universe, in their religion this universe

consisted of 13 heavens and 9 underworlds. Earth was believed to be one of the layers of this universe. Earth was considered the divider between the various underworlds and heavens. Different gods ruled the different planes.
Hunab Ku- creator god. He was believed to be directly involved in the

creation of the universe. His name directly translated means only god Major Celestial gods-kin (god of the sun) - Uh (god of the moon) -Noh Ek (god of Venus) -Xaman Ek (god of the north star) Had many lesser gods as well eg(god of rain, wind etc)

 The Mayan rulers believed that the were divine and that they

were directly descended from the gods. They proved this by tracing the genealogies back.

The Mayans had many rituals and ceremonies

Human sacrifice this was necessary because they believed it

allowed for successful agriculture, trade and health

Because the Mayan rulers were considered descendants from the

gods, their blood was the ideal sacrifice. The would offer their blood through Blood-letting ceremonies- noble pierced their tongues or genitals to shed blood as an offer to the gods. They would also capture nobles from other cities and sacrifice them.

The ball game was a deadly sport played amongst the Mayan people. It took place in a stone court with inward sloping walls and a stone rings hung high up on the walls. The aim of the game was to get a rubber ball (4kg) through the hoops without using any hands. Game ended when the ball touched the ground or if someone managed to get the ball into the hoops (which was extremely difficult to achieve) The games were filled with religious importance. Religious leaders, nobles and rulers attended the games.

Winners were treated as heroes, looser were often killed as punishment Oldest ball court discovered dates back to 1700 BC. Its is 73meters long, 7m wide and 1,8 m high

 The lives of women were not very well documented Women were considered very important in society The bared the children and propagated culture by doing so.

While boys were raised to hunt, girls were taught to look after the household and how to keep the domestic religious shrine. They were also involved in economical, governmental and farming activities. Men and womens task were separate but equal. Eg. Men produced the food, but women processed it. Women were also associated with religious beliefs. The moon goddess is an extremely important god who produced the Mayan population.

 Sculpture:

Stone, wood, stucco, jade also flint and shell The Stela- Large stone slabs covered in carvings. Contents were often the rulers of the cities or gods. Also stone lintels above doorways and also relief panels which were set into the walls of the buildings.

 Painting:

Very few Mayan paintings have been found because of the humidity. Most of them were destroyed many years ago.

 Ceramics:

-Pottery was known as social currency -Accompanied the dead nobles into the grave -Intricate and beautifully carved -palace scenes, courtly ritual, mythology, divinatory glyphs. -incense burners and hand/mold made furines show many scenes and characters from daily life, including rulers etc.

-fresco (pianted onto the wet clay)

Society
The Mayan civilization was not one unified empire, but rather a multitude of separate entities with a common cultural

background.

 Culturally the area is divided into three sections: the

northern, central and southern regions. The earliest evidence of the Maya civilization is found in the southern region. At Izapa carvings depict gods and the Maya writing system. The central region includes the southern lowlands, Here is where the Classic Maya f lourished, along the Usumacinta River Where their living wood would be, wash, drink and grow their crops. The northern region was the northern lowlands,It was populated by the Mayans to the Late Classic period.

Mayan Society, Class System

There was a distinct class system in ancient Maya times. Between the ruling class and the farmer who was also know to be a labourer, The scribes were the educated, artists and architects. And they were a class just above the farmers. Evidence of their skill and innovation remains in works of stone, jade, bone, pottery and flint. And most decision making was done by the ruler/king, who was the head of the tribe.

 Slaves were made up of orphans, criminals, prisoners of war

and other enemies and the children of slaves. They did majority of the physical labour. They were not necessarily treated badly but they were at the lowest level of Mayan society. They were also used mostly for human sacrifice.

On public occasions the king appeared dressed in f lowing white robes, decorated with gold and precious stones, wearing on his head a golden circlet decorated to show who was the king. The provincial governors were nobles of the four royal families, and were supreme within their own governments. The rulers of towns and villages formed a lower order of nobility, not of royal blood. The king usually acted on the advice of a council of lords and priests. The lords alone were military commanders, and each lord and inferior official had for his support the produce of a certain portion of land which was cultivated in common by the people.

Crimes were punished with death - frequently by throwing over a precipice - enslavement, fines, or rarely, by imprisonment. The code was merciful, and even murder could sometimes be compounded by a fine.

Relationships with other

marriage Children were subject to parents until of an age to marry, which for boys was about twenty. The children of the common people were trained only in the occupation of their parents, but those of the nobility were highly educated, under the care of the priests, in writing, music, history, war, and religion. The daughters of nobles were strictly secluded, and the older boys in each village lived and slept apart in a public building. Birthdays and other anniversaries were the occasions of family feasts.

 Unique and spectacular architecture, Mesoamerican

architectural , construction of pyramids with carved stone in order to create a stair-step design Each pyramid was dedicated to a deity whose shrine sat at its peak. During this "height" of Maya culture, the centres of their religious, commercial and bureaucratic power grew into large cities, including Chichen Itza, Tikal, and Uxmal

 Beside the construction of the pyramids, mayan could

constructed temples , palaces , ceremonial platforms. Palaces: The Mayas built palaces for their rulers. One noble family ruled each city Maya Temples: Temples were places of worship, and home to the many priests of the Maya civilization. At the foot of the temple was typically where the Mayas placed their ball courts.

 The Mayans did not really have a transport system,

they went mostly by foot.

They did have human drawn sleighs, which were

pulled by the slaves

The Mayans also had the wheel, but they only used it

for children's toys. Such as carved dogs on wheels which the children could pull around on a string.

Communication

The order to read Maya glyphs is also not as straightforward. Maya glyphs are read in "paired columns", meaning that the first glyph block is on the top left, the second is immediately to the right of the first, the third is under the first, the fourth under the second, and so forth. This yields a zigzagging reading order. When you arrive at the bottom of this "paired column", you will then go back up to the top and start the next paired column. In fact, scholars label glyph block horizontally with letters (A, B, C) and vertically with numbers (1, 2, 3). Hence, the reading order would be A1, B1, A2, B2,until you hit the bottom. Then you start at C1, D1, C2, D2, etc.

Communicated with their gods

Bloodletting was one of the ways they communicated with their gods.

There would be human and animal

sacrifices during the festivals. Not all sacrifices ended in death.

bloodletting was usually a personal

sacrifice. People would stab or prick

themselves. It was their own blood that was offered as a tribute to their gods during worship.

When nobles offered blood, a drop was

smeared on a bit of bark. The bark was burned and the smoke floated to heaven where it could be consumed by the gods.

Inventions
The Mayans were the first people

who had a symbol for zero. They also had a counting system where numbers were able to be represented using only three symbols: a dot, a bar and a symbol for zero. Large numbers were expressed using place values. The Mayan counting system allowed the people to record long periods and conduct drainage system .

Calendar System
The Mayans invented an advanced and

accurate calendar system. They first developed a calendar that consisted of 260 days. Each day was given a specific name and a corresponding symbol. Later in their civilization's development, the Mayans created a calendar that followed the solar year of 365 days. The Mayans gave names and symbols for each specific month in this calendar. There were a total of 18 months, with each month being 20 days. the Mayans also set aside a five-day period called "Wayet." These five days were considered unlucky and were not given any names.

 The Mayans were skilled farmers, and had their own farms, and cleared

routes through jungles and swamps, they traded food too. While the Maya diet varies, maize remains the primary their main meal. Made with addition of lime. This was prepared by hand into flat surface cooked on a griddle that is traditionally supported on three stones.

 Chocolate was the favourite drink of the upper

classes. Cacao beans, as well as pieces of copper, were a common medium of exchange. Very little meat was eaten, except at ceremonial feasts, although the Maya were expert hunters and fishers. They also ate dogs and monkeys.

Chile peppers, beans and squash are still grown in the family farm plot

(milpa) right along with

the maize, maximizing each crop's requirements for nutrients, sun, shade and growing surface The Maya farmer cultivated corn, beans, cacao, Chile, bananas, and cotton, and obtained both

honey and wax from bees.

 Clothing:

-materials such as wool from sheep, cotton and maguey were used. -The cotton they used was either brown or white which was often dyed. Elite women got to work with expensive dyes, pearls and feathers. -men commonly wore a cotton breechcloth, and sometimes with a sleeveless shirt. This was either in plain white or dyed in many colours. - Women commonly wore Huipil combined with a type of skirt which was woven and then wrapped around the waist and reached down to the ankles. A sash was wrapped around the waste to hold the outfit together

-The Huipil : this was a loose, sheet-like rectangular garment made from
white fine cotton. A hole was cut out in order for the head to fit through. It could be worn loose or tucked into a skirt. They were used to represent their religion and also what tribe the come from. The different tribes all had different designs, colours and lengths. It was seen as a sign of respect to wear another tribes huipil within their village, but a disgrace to wear another tribes huipil within ones own village. -Farmers wore loincloths or plain material wrapped around their wastes. Moccasins were worn made from deerhide. -Women and men both wore sandals.

 Hair:

- The hair sash was either woven into the hair or prapped around the head, this depended on different tribes. The colours, motifs, designs and widths of the hair sash also depended on the different tribes. On special occasions, hair sashes which were more intricate and woven with finer fabrics were worn on special occasions.

 An important ceremony named the "Descent of the

Gods" marked the conversion from childhood to puberty. Both boys and girls (aged 16 and 12 respectively) wore special jewelry, which was later symbolically removed: boys white beads in their hair and girls a red shell in their beltsrepresenting their virginity. A short time after this ceremony, parents began to think of marriage for their children.

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