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Brief history of the civilization of mayans
Brief history of the civilization of mayans
Brief history of the civilization of mayans
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The Maya was an ancient culture that flourished on the Yucatan Peninsula in Americanism. They inherited this land from the Olmec, another ancient culture, who lived on the peninsula before them. As well as land, the Maya took on other Olmec customs, such as religion, architecture, and hieroglyphic writing. The Maya used these skills and built more complex versions, as well as inventing a few ideas on their own. These “ideas” included Calendars, Number system, trading throughout large regions, and the architecture of great temples and buildings. However, which of these achievements were the most remarkable? I believe that the Mayan number system is the most remarkable achievement. It consists of all the numbers we use today, and a very simple way of showing the place values. I will explain to you why I think this, as well as measure the achievement it three …show more content…
This means how much the achievement helped a society. The Mayan were the first to come up with the number system in the Americas. “The Mayan number system dates back to the fourth century and was approximately 1,000 years more advanced than the Europeans of that time.“says Michelle Mercer. But the eastern civilizations invented it first. However, the system put the Americanism civilizations in a better place for when the Spanish arrived, they could count. Whats even more important is they could show it in books or hieroglyphs, so archaeologists can know facts about them. For example, how many Spanish ships there were, or how many golden relics got smelted into gold bars. The Mayan calendar is pretty significant too, i mean, it's the calendar we use it today. But actually, they needed numbers to create the calendar. They would have needed numbers to keep track of the year, days, months, were to end, where to start, and where they were now.The significance of the Mayan number system is why I believe that it was their greatest
The mark for zero was a football like shape, the icon for one was a dot, and the one for five was written as a bar. This fits under the umbrella of genius because it was a very advanced intellectual achievement for the time period. Lastly, is their achievement of architecture. Which was highly advanced. In the article it states that, “...archeologists have catalogued more than 2,500 Maya locations of varying size and date…Masonry architecture required central organization.” (Document B, Paragraph 2-3) This means that they had to be able to effectively command large forces to make such gigantic cities. Many of their ancient buildings are still standing today. This fits in the category of effort and genius. This is because it would have taken a lot of work both physically and mentally to complete these massive cities. Overall, the achievements of the Maya are extensive and most certainly
In Europe, there were several advances being made that would affect our society today. However, simultaneously, societies across the world in the Americas would too be making these types of advances as well. One society in particular were the Maya. These people made technological strides that the Europeans themselves could not even fathom. But, what was their most remarkable achievement? One will find that their achievements of their trade network, a convenient method of transporting goods and messages; architecture, intricate buildings built in large cities on a massive scale; and number system, which takes into consideration some of our key principles in today’s math, have a momentous buildup to the Maya’s most remarkable achievement—their complex calendar, an astonishing nearly accurate calendar that governed Mayan society and is still seen in our own society today.
The Mayans lived in Southern Mexico and Central America in their capital, Tikal, which is in present day Guatemala. The Mayans were known for their engineering, one structure they were famous for is their pyramid temple in Tikal (Document 1). This pyramid was the tallest structure in the Americas up until the 20th century and is still standing today. The government must have been strong and well organized in order to carry out such a large task. The Mayan religion had multiple gods and this pyramid was most likely devoted to one or used as a place for sacrifices. Another accomplishment of the Mayans was the creation of their calendar. An extra document that would be useful is one that explains how the calendar was created. The Mayans must have studied astronomy and math to a great length. Similar to the Ancient Egyptians, they wrote with symbols and pictures known as glyphs that were used in the calendar. These glyphs were gods, such as Zotz (Document 2). The use of glyphs is an acknowledgement of a writing system, which is another accomplishment.
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.
For example, they used them for time, like to calculate the time of day. The Mayans built stronger buildings and cities than the Egyptians ever could, which is amazing to me considering how the Egyptians were able to build huge pyramids, but not a building. The Mayans also had to worry about floods that would flood their entire farm in an instant, so they were forced to adapt and raise their crops on a higher field. They would raise each terrace four feet higher and allow fish to swim through every single channel while they dropped eggs which would fertilize the soil. I found this amazing and this made me realize how smart the Mayans were.
In math, the Maya developed a system based on three symbols: a dot, a bar, and a shell. The dot represented 1, the bar 5, and the shell 0. The Maya used the concept of 0, 1200 years before anyone in the Old World. Their number system was based on 20 and the value increased from bottom to top.
The Maya were an advanced society, rich and full extraordinary architecture with great complexity of patterns and variety of expressions, that flourished in Mesoamerica long before the arrival of the Spanish in the sixteenth century. They were skilled architects, building prodigious cities of primarily of limestone that remain a thousand years after their civilization fell into decline. Greatness and Grandeur was the signature of all Mayan cities, from the terminal pre-classic period and continued until the abandonment of all the city states by the beginning of the ninth century. The Maya built pyramids, temples, palaces, walls, residences and more. The limestone structures, faced with lime stucco, were the hallmark of ancient Maya architecture.
What is Aztec Mathematics you may be asking yourself well let’s start from the beginning of Aztec Mathematics.Well there were these people called Aztecs who ruled central mexico before the spanish arrived they left the most extensive mathematical writing. They ruled until the spanish came and overthrew the empire. Aztecs used hand, heart and arrow symbols as fractional distances when they would calculate lands. The Aztecs existed around 1200 A.D.
In the early centuries A.D., the Mayan peoples began building their civilization in the center of Mesoamerica. This location allowed the Maya to conduct trade and exchange their local products. They also participated in the slash and burn method, however, evidence shows that they may have developed other methods such as planting on raised beds above swamps and on hillside terraces. Not only did location have an influence on agricultural life, it also had an influence on all other aspects of life. The Maya drew influence from a neighboring society, the Olmec. The Maya blended their customs with the Olmec to create a culturally diverse society. These Olmec customs had quite an influence on other aspects of the Maya society. The Maya had a polytheistic religion with gods of corn, death, rain, and war. These religious beliefs led to the development of calendars, astronomy, and mathematics. The Maya developed two types of calendars: religious and solar. The religious calendar was based on the belief that “time was a burden carried on the back of a God.” The solar calendar was based on the observations of the sun, planets, and moon. Unlike our calendar today, it was consisted of twenty-five da...
Mayan people are still here today, but the mystery still remains: what caused one of the world’s greatest, most advanced ancient civilizations to fall to its demise? To this day, archaeologists from around the world cannot agree on what exactly caused the collapse of Classic Maya society because there is not just one cause, but multiple causes all interconnected to each other that serve only as a hypothesis for the time being. Some of the most popular theories are civil war, overpopulation, climate change, disease and invasion. However, in recent news and extensive research a red flag has been raised; have we found the answer or at least solved part of the mystery? Societal collapse has often been hand-in-hand with climate change, as seen in
In the Central America, most notably the Yucatan Peninsula, are the Maya, a group of people whose polytheistic religion and advanced civilization once flourished (Houston, 43). The Maya reached their peak during the Classic Period from around CE 250 to the ninth century CE when the civilization fell and dispersed (Sharer, 1). Although much has been lost, the gods and goddesses and the religious practices of the Classic Maya give insight into their lives and reveal what was important to this society.
Near 1800 B.C, the Maya people found settlement within Teotihuacan territory and quickly became known as one of the most dominant indigenous societies within Mesoamerica. Best known for their agricultural skills, pottery work, hieroglyphic writing, mathematics and of course calender making this civilization. However, the Maya were the regional groups of Olmec heritage who were the first major Mesoamerican civilization.(Grahm, Liz. 2014) In 1500 B.C, the Olmecs began the effective cultivation of the crops of corn, beans, chili peppers and cotton, along which they established fine arts and the use of symbols to record history. Due to the Olmecs innovative talents at the time, they were also able to branch off and establish other cities.
... a place to develop art and writings. It gave them a reason to write down their history. They are a unique an interesting culture. The Mayans were a highly developed society for their time.
The European and Mayan civilizations had inverse experiences during the Classical era, but they were similar in some aspects. While the Mayans were basking in their glorious success as a civilization, the Europeans stood in their shadow. However, after the Renaissance Era, it was as if the Mayans stood in the shadow of the European revival. These two societies have a definite inverse relationship, in that while one was succeeding, the other was squandering. For example, the forward thinking of the Mayans and their knowledge of arithmetic and science was overshadowed by the revolutionary ideas created by European scientists, the fact that the Mayans had created a complex, and accurate calendar wasn’t nearly as celebrated as a European man who got hit by an apple.
The Maya civilization is a very important culture that has left a great impact on our world today. They are known for their written language, art, mathematical system and astronomical system. The Maya territory includes Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Belize, and southern Mexico. In these areas the Maya thrived in their religious practices, politics, and their use of the territory.