Ancient Maya Civilization And Colonial America

Throughout the humanities course, I have been intrigued by a vast amount of information on different cultures. However, there was a particular section that truly caught my attention, and has piqued an interest in me that has caused me to do my own research aside from this paper. The culture of the Mayas, and the Aztecs has been extremely fundamental in understanding my ancestry, being that I am Mexican American. I took an interest in their beautiful architecture, their ritualistic and sacrificial religious practices, as well as their history and how they began. Throughout this paper I will outline the similarities and differences of these two cultures, as well as articulate an understanding of the humanity disciplines outlined above.

​Many of the cultures that we have today have evolved from past events. Such as language it was something that became known throughout the years. Some of the languages that came from that were English, Spanish, German, and Latin to name a few. These languages were derived more past civilizations. One important civilization that is known for having great success is the Mayan civilization. The Mayan civilization is known for many things like they fully developed written language, art, architecture, math and some other factors. Historians have said that they don’t know an exact date of when this civilization rose up but they do mention that it flourished for about 2000 years. Although staring in 250 AD it is said that it was the start of their high point and it continued until the arrival of the Spanish in 1524. The Maya area covers southern Mexico and northwestern Central America. According to Sharer the area is divided into three regions: the Pacific coastal plain to the south, the highlands in the center, and the lowlands to the north. Even though these three regions were under the same civilization they all practiced different religious rituals. Religion plays a big role in every civilization. Some civilizations tend to praise more than one god and they always mention that what they have is thanks to their god. When they see things going wrong they often say that their god is punishing them because they did something that the god/s did not like. This tends to be the same

According to document B the Masonry architecture required central organization, craft specialization, and political power to command a great work face. The Maya were able to accomplish all of that in a organized and efficient way. Something other than the Mayan city that the Maya accomplished that was remarkable was the Mayan calendars. According to document D the Maya developed the calendar further than any other New World people, and their calendar was the most accurate than any other of their time. Again, just that makes the Mayan calendars remarkable, but that was not it. Using the measuring sticks of remarkable the significance the calendar made was huge. In our generation these calendars impacted us humans in ways we wouldn't except. For example, causing us to think and do things because supposedly the world was going to end in 2012. Other than

The Maya were a people from Middle America, which includes modern Guatemala, Southern Mexico, and Northern Belize (Editors). The Maya civilization was considered to be “one of the most dominant indigenous societies of Mesoamerica,” (Maya). “The Maya excelled at agriculture, pottery, hieroglyph writing, calendar-making, and mathematics, and left behind an astonishing amount of impressive architecture and symbolic artwork,” (Maya). They also gave mankind the modern calendar (Jarus, Maya). The Mayans were a very advanced people, but one of the most important things in the Mayan culture was their religion/god worshipping rituals.

The ancient Maya once occupied a vast geographic area in Central America. Their civilization inhabited an area that encompasses Mexico's Yucatan peninsula and parts of the states of Chiapas and Tabasco, as well as Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, and El Salvador. "From the third to the ninth century, Maya civilization produced awe-inspiring temples and pyramids, highly accurate calendars, mathematics and hieroglyphics, and a complex social and political order" ("Collapse..." 1). Urban centers were important to the Maya during the Classic period; they offered the Mayans a central place to practice religion.

The Aztec and Maya were both American Indian people. The Aztec were ruled by a mighty empire in Mexico during the 1400's and early 1500's. The Maya however, developed a magnificent civilization in Central America and Southern Mexico. Both civilizations contributed a great deal to the modern world and invented items that are still used today.

The Maya of Mesoamerica, along with the Aztecs of Mexico and the Incas of Peru, made up the high civilizations of the American Indians at the time of the Spanish conquest. Both the Aztecs and the Incas were late civilizations, between 1300-1533 AD, but the Maya of the Yucatan and Guatemala exhibited a cultural continuity spanning more than 2,000 years, 1000 BC-AD 1542. Many aspects of this culture continue yet today. The Ancient Maya in their time had actually refined writing.

What happened to the Mayan civilization before it mysteriously collapsed is still a mystery, but heart-stopping achievements were made. Throughout 3000 years the Native tribe of the Maya inhabited México, Guatemala, Belize, and Honduras until the Spanish arrived. They were so secluded from anyone else, that they could not learn information from other tribes and they came up with all ideas themselves.(BGE) Trade routes, the creation of beautiful cities, establishing the number system and developing three calendars we all breathtaking achievements accomplished by the Mayan culture. Using scale, effort, genius, and significance four achievements will be argued about which was the most remarkable. Obviously the development

There are three groups, the Mayans, the Inuits, and the colonial Americans. The Mayans had two creators. The Intuits had one creator. The colonial Americans, also known as the pilgrims has one God. The creators and God are important because it showed them how they believed how the world started. All the people worship their “creator/ God” because they think they put them there for a reason. For the Inuits, the creator is a raven that is half human half bird.” He had the powers of both a man and bird, and could change from one to the other simply by pulling his bead above his head as one lifts up a mask”. For the Mayans the creator’s names are Tepeu the Maker and Gucumatz the Feathered Spirit.For the pilgrims, their creator is

For over 2,000 years, the Mayan civilization was a very developed and complex culture with many major advancements that caused its nation to thrive in then Mesoamerica. The Mayan society had an extremely sophisticated method of constructing massive buildings without the use of beasts of burden. They also invented their own Number system, basing it off of the number twenty, unlike our own number system. Another one of their achievements was their calendars, which predicted religious events and even the beginning of a rainy season. The Mayan society built their powerful civilization using these three major accomplishments. In these next few paragraphs, I will provide more detailed explanations to why I believe these three Mayan standards

Maya economy and trade is still one of the more mysterious aspects of Maya life. Research into the area is very tricky, as the records left behind by the Maya themselves in terms of their trade are little. They mostly would document their wars and lives of their leaders much more completely than their trading patterns.

The Classical Maya was lost to the archaeological records until the last 200 years due to it’s abandonment. When the Mayans left there great cities, thick vines and jungles overtook the great monuments they once built. But in the last 200 years, in depth research has lead to breakthroughs into what the Classic Maya was like. The earliest Mayans were agriculturalist, growing crops such as corn (maize), beans, squash and cassava. The Mayans also invented a very accurate calendar, a math code using 0’s, constructed buildings still intact today, and a writing system that took decades to decode. The Mayans were situated in one geographical block covering all of the Yucatan Peninsula (Mexico), modern-day Guatemala, Belize, parts of the Mexican states of Tabasco and Chiapas, and the western part of Honduras and El Salvador. Due to their location on the

The most remarkable achievement of the Maya is their number system. However from all of their achievements I feel the less but still important ones was the cities and buildings they built, their trade network, and their calendar.

The Mayas were great contributors. They were the ones who urbanized a more highly developed writing system. Around the exact time as the Indians they revealed the value zero in mathematics and afterward passed it onto the Arabs (source). When it came to the field of medicine they performed intracranial surgical operations. Lastly, they were tremendous astronomers who discovered that a solar year was slightly more than 365 days, and they also perfected techniques of architecture, hieroglyphics, agriculture and metallurgery. The only thing they failed in was discovering the wheel. Besides that the Mayans contributed in a lot of things that we use today. The Mayas were a very important asset to us because if it weren’t for them taking the time

The breathtaking splendor of ornate cites, the beautifully constructed grand temples, and the ingeniously developed and advanced caledretics, mathematics, and astronomy easily mark one of the most interesting and prosperous periods in Latin American history. Over period spanning approximately six centuries, the Maya of Central America reached artistic and intellectual heights that no other group in the New World had seen