Mayan Technology

Basic Needs

• Mayans lived in one room houses with grass roofs, dirt floors, and branch walls.

• Mayan's health was different than today. They would use tobacco as a medicine.

• Mayans ate some food like us such as beans, avocado, chocolate, fruit, chilli peppers, etc.

Chocolate was very important to the Mayans. They even had a God of Chocolate. They consumed chocolate as a drink with little or no sugar in it so it tasted nasty.

• Corn was just as important as chocolate and there was also a God of Corn. They believed that the very first people were made of corn and consider it sacred

The Mayans

The mayans were an ancient american civilization who ruled Southern Mexico and Central America for over 2000 years until the arrival of the Spanish.

Components:

The Maya excelled at agriculture, pottery, hieroglyph writing, calendar-making and mathematics

Technology:

• Yaxchilan city is sited within a giant omega of the Usumacinta River in order for the Mayans to cross they had to build a bridge. The bridge was 113 meters long!

• Mayan used Jade Tools fabricated from chert and obsidia, these elements were used to make stone cutters, sculptures, and other artisans.

• The Maya invention of hydraulic cement allowed them to build their great high-rise cities.

Language

• The Maya writing system is considered by archaeologists to be the most sophisticated system ever developed in Mesoamerica.

• Glyphs represented numbers, time periods, royal names, and thet were carved into sculptures, objects, buildings,.

• Maya considered this to be a gift from god.

Values

• Mayan religion was characterized by the worship of nature gods (especially the gods of sun, rain and corn).
• The most important deity was the supreme god Itzamná, the creator god, the god of the fire and god of the hearth.
• Ruler: mayan believed that rulers, went to this underworld. Heaven was reserved for those who had been sacrificed or died in childbirth.

• The Mayans also believed that there were three layers of the world: the underworld, Earth, and heaven.

• In Mayan mythology, the jaguar was seen as the ruler of the Underworld, and as such, a symbol of the night sun and darkness.

• Mayan laws were very very strict, they mastered in astronomy and math they had political and legal systems that were organized well.

• Their laws dealt with politics, social issues, crime, property,

• Murder, rape, incest, treachery, arson, and acts that offended the gods were punishable by death.

Cultural Universals

Government

Arts & Leisure

• Mayans were not unified as one, but instead they were a nation of rivalry city states that would go to war with one another.

• The Mayan's beautiful clay pots designed with scenes and were made for the king, nobles, and priests

• A noble family controlled each city, those who were not of noble blood had no chance of becoming a noble. Each noble family is supposedly a descendant of the Hero Twins which makes them believe they should impress their heroes by becoming leaders. The nobles didn't rule alone however and chose people to rule the government, make laws, etc. Mayans basically ruled themselves.

• Craftsmen were very inventive. Craftsmen of different cities had different styles, but they would sometimes mix styles together. Mayans carved masks out of stone and tiled them to make designs.

1 rabbit = 10 cocoa beans

1 pumpkin =4 cocoa beans

1 adult slave = 100 cocoa beans

• There was not much leisure in the ancient Mayas besides them playing the game Pok-A-Tok.

• Cocoa beans were used as money since they were very valuable due to drought. They also used foods or things they traded as money.

Subcultures

Education

Family courtship

• The only time you would go to school in the Mayas is if you were going to become a scribe, otherwise you would watch and learn from your parents as they do their job.

• Men would farm and do hard work while women would stay at home and clean.

• Only the most powerful people taught Mayans, including preists.

• Only math and other abstract subjects were taught in school

• Children watched and learn from their parents and did as they did. Boy nor girl would go to school unless they were to become as scribe.

Honduras:The people of honduras were influenced by the mayans customs, practices, ways of dressing, religion, rituals, codes of behavior and belief systems.

Material culture

• Non-noble Mayan men would typically wear loin cloths while women wore tunics.

• Nobles would wear long skirts tunics, and capes with a big headdress. The designs they had on their head the more important they were considered

• Whenever there were ceremonies the Mayans used instruments such as drums, turtle shell rattles, pottery flutes, etc.

Non-material culture

• Dance costumes were very colorful made out of lightweight material like bamboo and feathers. Green was a common color for dresses.

• Dancing was interesting in the ancient Mayas, some people believe that he Mayans knew a thousand dances.

• The Mayans would give blood to the Gods for giving them life by doing human sacrifices. They would take the heart out of a living person and throw them down the pyramid. It was like a "blood debt."

Fun Facts

Mayans would press wooden boards on the babies heads and would force them to be cross eyed because pushed back foreheads and crossed eyes were "attractive"

The Mayans came up with the concept of zero a thousand years before the Europeans did

The Mayans predicted Lil Wayne