The Differences Of Aztecs And Mayan Civilizations

Carrasco, David and Scot Sessions. Daily Life of the Aztecs: People of the Sun and Earth. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1998.

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.

In history we the people have found to realize that the Maya, Aztec, and Inca culture was one of the most incredible findings of their accomplishments. The Maya, Aztec, and Inca civilizations were really smart in topics of engineering, writing, agriculture and astronomy. Also all three had their beliefs, and good with agriculture. All three cultures used great technologies in their agriculture like slash and burn, terrace farming. They all hunted for religion, they had a huge belief with the people spread throughout each region. They all had a lot of interest in the use of chocolate in the region, and cultivation. They all were pretty much the same just different beliefs.

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.

This particular story is like a complementary to the note lectures about the Aztecs. Also, this lecture help to understand

Though the Inca and Mayan empires existed at different times in history, they have a few things in common. Like other societies throughout history though, they have many things that set them apart from each other. The biggest similarity they share is that they both had control of massive empires that eventually ceased to exist.

The Popol Vuh is unquestionably the most important of the Mayan preserved texts. It is distinguished not only for its extraordinary historical and mythological content, but for its literary qualities, which allow itself to compare with the indian epics like the Ramayana or the Greek Iliad and the Odyssey. Like these, the Popol Vuh is not a mere historical record, it is ultimately a universal statement of the nature of the world and man's role in

The Maya and Aztec civilizations are two vastly different civilizations, as is to expected, however, despite these differences, they do share a number of similarities.

The Popol Vuh is a written documentation of Maya oral history, containing a series of narratives that preserve Mayan myth, deities, religious practices, as well as ethical views and beliefs about the world. Popol Vuh translates into ‘Council Book,’ and is believed to have been used by leaders to consult during times of crisis and deliberation. Although the book is myth, it describes how everything became to exist on earth, how human life began, what to expect after death, and the gods who created life. The Popol Vuh is also an explanation for natural events and social order. The book becomes a way to overcome the human vision and live to the gods design.

The Aztecs were warrior people who lived in the Valley of Mexico, with the capital at Tenochtitlan, during the 1400s. Under their authoritarian state, the Aztecs worshipped their patron god, Huitzilopochtli, among other deities. Despite their warrior tactics and developed belief system, the Spaniards conquered them in 1519. The Incas (or Inkas) were the people who lived throughout the Andes Mountains from southern Peru to central Chile. With a society based on agriculture, the Incas farmed the terrain of the Andes Mountains west of their capital at Cuzco. The Incas suffered a fall to the Spaniards in 1532. The Aztecs from the Valley of Mexico in the 1400s and the Incas from throughout the Andes Mountains during the 1400s are similar and different because of their ideological and intellectual values, their rise and fall by conquest of their empires, and the way they applied the characteristics of their economies to their lifestyles.

The Maya city state of Tikal and Teotihuacan were two of indigenous civilizations during the early Classic period (A.D. 250-450) and late classic period (A.D. 450-900) history of these tribes dating back to the 3rd century. As a result, of both tribes established a civilization around the same century. They both happen to share a verity of similar societal characteristics those being: economic trade, design pyramids for the gods, a fascination with astrology, ritual calendar system, religious ceremonies, temple and home architecture, agriculture, similar art material used to make sculptures, pottery, and complex social hierarchy system. In fact, economic trade was an important part of daily life for the Maya and city of Teotihuacan. A clear similarity was the products both cultures traded amongst each other. The popular items both civilizations would trade would be cacao seeds, corn, clothing, pottery, salt, and obsidian tools. Strangely enough even though gold was a resource in those times both empires did not use it as a form of currency when trade occurred preferably they used cacao seeds (chocolate) a drink that meant nobility. In the same way, trade built networking connections so did religion. Religion is seen as the foundation revolving around both civilizations daily lives both the Mayan people and Teotihuacan believed in a higher power the sun god Kinich Ahau (Maya) and Quetzalcóatl (Teotihuacan). Furthermore, both gods had been publicly praised all over

The Aztecs civilization and the Mayan civilization where the most important civilizations from the new world that amazed many of the Europeans that came to conquer this wonderful rich land. The Europeans where amazed with the Aztec and Mayan culture, their ways of life, their geographical surroundings and their technology. The Europeans and historians today find that the Aztecs and the Mayans where similar in some ways of life like their culture, their technology, their religious events and at the same time they had their differences in their cultures.

This text follows the trials and errors of the Maya gods in their quest to create the ancient world of Central America. The story then switches from the gods and creation to focus on the stories of the famed Hero Twins Hunahpu and Xbalanque. The reader follows along with the brothers on their journey to defeat and seek revenge on the lords of Xibalba who killed their father One Hunahpu. The last sections of the Popol Vuh focuses on the first humans and their future lineages. It ends with an extensive list of all the tribes and nations of the K’iche’

The deciphering of the Mayan hieroglyphics reveal a much more violent depiction of the mind people than scholars originally thought. This new light sure that the Mayans engaged not only in territorial wars blood rituals and sacrifices for religious practices. Their writings are a complex system that contain a certain type of fluidity between concepts, words, and sounds used together to express many elaborate ideas. This is all completed without the use of a definite alphabet. Scholars rely on context with the aid of elite software to interpret the Mayans content. The mayan wrote down much of the information in what is called codices, unfortunately the best majority of the handwritten ledgers were destroyed when the Catholic Spaniards ransacked