The Culture Of The Mayas, And The Aztecs

The Maya were believed to existence in 1800 BC and gone by 1500 AD. They had a lot of big cities but no capital. Many of the people lived in hay huts, some in limestone buildings built on tall pyramids which could actually be used as landmarks. They have a constant reminder the gods are present with the pyramids and first one was built right before Christ birth. Their agriculture was based on the economy, there main crop was corn but also grew cotton, beans, squash and cocao. They hunted deer, duck, turkey, monkeys, iguana, and other things with bow and arrows, blowguns, darts to eat, they did a little fishing. The Mayan art was about politics, the

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 Aztec and Mayan civilizations were two important, early civilizations that settled in Mesoamerica. The Mayan and Aztecs were two civilizations that lived in two different time periods, but they shared many physical and mental characteristics of one another. The Aztec and Mayan civilizations were different but they were more similar. The Aztecs and Mayans were more similar in their location, religion, writing system, government, social structure, gender roles, technology, and sporting activities.

The Maya were noted as well for elaborate and highly decorated architecture, including temple-pyramids, palaces and observatories, all built without

The Maya were a dominating society of Mesoamerica, rich in culture, community, and art. While life may not be completely interpretable yet, much in known about how these societies were constructed, and how their religion dominated their lives. Much is generally made of their massive stonework, their ceremonial complexes, and ritual sacrifices, but their small jade, ceramic, and stone sculpture deserves as much attention as the works of much larger size have received.

Using a base of 20, the system used combinations of dots, bars and shells to represent numbers.(Doc C) Ingenious thinking and mental effort were invested into creating this incredible philosophy of counting using different symbols. Exchange industry, goods, travel, what do all of these words have in common, they were all part of the complex Mayan Trade Routes. The trade routes stretched from Ecuador and Colombia to southwestern United States. They were completely isolated from their neighbours, so the journey to trade with them was treacherous. (Doc A) The significance today would be the fact that people were able to safely travel and explore new places, and meet new people/tribes along the way. Through meeting new people the Mayan culture was able to expand the land and area to which they lived. Copán, Tikal, El Mirador are all exquisite examples of Mayan architecture. In large Mayan cities it took around 80-130 full time workers and two-three months to build one home for a family. Over 2,500 Mayan city locations have been found suggesting that some cities had populations in the tens of thousands, with colossal stone pyramids, palaces, temples, ball courts and other ritual buildings. (Doc B) Mental and physical effort were used in the organization of all of the people and the carrying of the materials without any modern machines and creating the extraordinary

Architecture, the basis of life for the Mayans. Architecture, specifically regarding pyramids. Now, when we think of the word “pyramid” most people will automatically think of the Great Pyramids of Egypt (we’ll get to those). But the Mayans had just as pyramids just as great. See, the technical building of the Maya pyramid was the same as the Egyptians. Both civilizations had pyramids of their own architectural design; Egypt with the well-known triangle and the Mayans with staircases. The use of slaves would help rise the pyramids from the ground, stacking, piling, pulling, and layering stone and clay. The main difference

To put the obvious aside, one way the Maya and Aztec civilizations are different lies in the political environment of both civilizations; the civilization of the Maya consisted of city-states ruled by an individual leader who was usually male, while the Aztec civilization were city-states and conquered territories ruled by one leader. However, it is within this difference that a similarity between the two lies. While the political environments of both civilizations are indeed different, there is a similar element contained within the two. Both the Maya and the Aztec were influenced by the Olmec civilization through trade-this includes not only artistically and religiously, but also politically; in the pyramid temples of the Olmec, special ball courts for a game involving a rubber ball and great skill were used for religious and political reasons, these ball courts, or at least ones similar to that of the Olmec, were also found in the pyramid temples of the Maya and the Aztec and are believed to have been used for similar purposes.

Mesoamerica is full of rich culture. Expeditions have revealed monuments of valiant, female sultan erected for display and iconography feminine in appearance. Women have played a prominent role in defining cultures; such is the case for Maya, Inca, and Aztec societies.

The purpose of this essay is to answer the question “To what extent, if any, did ancient Maya civilization contribute to society in colonial America?”.

Massive temples hidden in the jungles of the Yucatan, mysterious stone stelas, and cryptic calendars eluding to advanced knowledge of the stars and mathematics are just some of the artifacts originating from the “Classic Maya” period (200 CE-900 CE). However, these popular items should not be the only defining characteristics of a society that dominated the Mesoamerican region for nearly a millennia. Dynastic lines, similar to those found in European houses, were important elements during this period in places like Palenque, Tikal, and Calakmul. Additionally, the Maya experienced violent and consistent warfare between localized powers and the backbone of their society, agriculture, suffered through several multi-year droughts. These factors

Mayan city states like Tikal were not only population centers but also served the function of autonomous political and religious centers for the citizens who lived there. The Mayan political structure was based on the establishment of many different political centers consisting of city states. These city states collectively represented Mayan society, but each spoke their own peculiar Mayan dialect.

Some of the most distinct features of Classic Mayan culture were the pyramids. The pyramids were either temples or

Most information that is known about Mayan culture and Mesoamerican societies comes from the countless and scrupulous findings on stone monuments, murals, documents, adorned vases, and conventional sources, where we can survey that the Maya carried out religious exercises with most of these objects. This is evident of the Mayan jaguar lidded vessel from the Fresno Art Museum. Vessels are vases that were used not for just funerary purposes, but also for rituals, offerings, and a plethora of other daily activities.

The immense Mayan empire, now in the present day Guatemala tropical lowlands, was once a vast empire that had its highest point of power and impact close the sixth century AD. Some of the accomplishments made by the Mayans were in cultivation, earthenware and stoneware, hieroglyphic writing, the production of the calendar, and mathematics. This culture also impacted later civilizations by handing down exquisite architecture and figurative artwork (“Maya” 2017). The Maya stayed in one central location for security from invaders in the Yucatan Peninsula. Within this were three individual areas of northern Maya lowlands, southern lowlands, and southern highlands (“Maya” 2017). The organization of the empire included individually ruled city states, with no sovereign power overlooking the entire realm. Architecture