Mayan Empire
A brief history....
By Desmond Kendl and Savannah Lapp Published on March 13, 2014 at 1:46
The Mayan Empire was a very high- tech civilization built in the heart of Mesoamerica. The Mayans lived through many ups and downs, but built many cities and started working with agriculture. The Mayan Empire had a few major cities including the city of Tikal, Copan, Palenque, Uxmal, and also Chichen Itza. The Mayans were ruled by a god-king who served for religious trade and ceremonies.
The Mayan Empire Stretched from southern Mexico into northern Central America.The area has many parts of highland and also a lot of low land. Most of the lowland parts of the region are all in the north. Weather in this region remained to be warm and cool but not much of extreme weather. Even though Mayan city states were independent from all the others, they still were linked by trade and alliances that they had made with each other. The Mayans didn’t have an official currency, but they often used chocolate to pay for things. Agriculture was a major occupation for most Mayan families. They produced many methods to grow crops such as the slash and burn method. This method involves farmers burning existing vegetation and growing new crops in the ashes. It was a very successful method, although the fires may have sometimes gotten out of control. Mayan social classes included the noble class, then the merchants, and finally the Mayan peasants. The nobles were the rich kings and leaders. Most of them were leading warriors for the Mayans. The merchants were the people who controlled trade and went from city to city selling supplies. The majority of the population were the peasants though. Religion was also a major factor in the Mayan’s way of life. They would worship their different gods in many ways. They prayed often and offered up sacrifices of food, flowers, and incense. They were also the first ones to start body piercings. These were done in honor of their gods. Although uncommon, the Mayans would sometimes offer up human sacrifices. When many people think of the Mayans, they think of their writing system. They developed the most advanced writing system in the ancient Americas. Thier writing consisted of about 800 hieroglyphic symbols. The Mayans used these hieroglyphs to record their history. The hieroglyphs were not decoded until recently. |
Information Retrieved from: Beck, Roger, Linda Black, Larry Krieger, Phillip Naylor, and Dahia Ibo Shabaka. World History: Patterns of Interaction. 1st ed. Evanston, Boston, Dallas: McDougal Littell, 2003. Print.