The Mayan Culture and Mathematics

​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

The Mayan calendars and people were genius. In order to create accurate calendars, the Mayans built observatories, “... to use in studying the sun and moon, planets, and the stars” (Document D) and “... collected information over many years in order to make their predictions and develop their systems” (Document D). This shows the brilliance of the Mayan people. No other accomplishment required this much intelligence in order to be accomplished.

The Mayans most remarkable feats was the creation of their Calendar. The Mayan calendar was considered to be one of the most accurate records of time created by an early civilization. This

The Mayans were an architectural type of people who based some of their masterpieces off of their religion. The

What was the Mayan’s most remarkable achievement? In my opinion, the Mayan’s most remarkable achievement would be their number system. The reason being, because they had to find and create numbers never seen before and not only make symbols for them but keep track of the symbols. Even though they weren’t taught by Albert Einstein or by anybody else. Yet the Mayans had to think of symbols easy to remember and easy to relate to. The numbers weren’t just random numbers, but real number, just like the ones we use. None of the world taught them to base their number system off of 20, they thought of it themselves. It’s almost like they could see the future, but modified their system.

They had an extensive written language, which was both phonetic as well as ideographic. One of only five independently created writing systems in human history. Maya words were in hieroglyphs, each picture with its own meaning. Unlike other ancient

     The Mayans created many things to affect the world. They created a 365 day calendar. They also made great strides in mathematics and astronomy. They used the number zero, which was very advanced for their time period. The astronomers were able to tell what day of the week a date would fall on in future years (Encarta). And they were able to calculate the length of years of other planets with remarkable precision given the instruments they had to work with (Mexico).

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

The Mayans were also were technologically advanced. They used their own math system. One dot stood for one, a bar symbolized five, and a shell figure was zero. The numbers were expressed vertically with the highest on top. The also created a very precise calendars. Two different calendars were calculated 260-day and a 365-day. They were able to calculate the dates because at noon time there was no shadow. This was important for them to use in predicting eclipses, scheduling religious ceremonies, and when to plant and harvest.

* The Mayas created a written language, a numerical system, an accurate calendar, and an advanced agricultural

Mayan Empire, led to development of pyramids, palaces, bridges, as well as a written language, art, and a calendar; This was due to advances in mathematics

In hieroglyphic writing, astronomy, and mathematics, the Mayan Indians were far ahead of any other people in the New World.(Foley 20) The Mayan invented a solar “civil” calendar including three hundred sixty- five days.(Ivanoff 86) The accuracy of the Mayan calculations is all the more extraordinary in view of the fact that they had no

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 ancient Mayans were a very well developed society with a very accurate calendar, skilled architects, artisans, extensive traders and hunters. They are known to have developed medicine and astronomy as well. All of this was developed while the Europeans were still in the Dark Ages.