Ancient Maya Maya Society - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Ancient Maya

Maya Society

Class system

The

ruling

class The nobility Peasants Slaves

TASK:

Create a “Pyramid of Power

” in your packet using

the information provided above

and

your

textbook.

Each level should include an

illustration, examples of people,

and

description of the duties

and

privileges

of each level.

Mayan Mathematics

An advanced number system was developed by the Mayas using a system of shells, dots and bars. The system was based on 20 digits instead of ten digits like we use today. A dot stood for one and a bar stood for five with the shells representing a zero. You can see how this works in the chart below.

Because the base of the number system was 20,larger numbers were written down in the powers of 20. We do that in our decimal system too: for example 32 is 3*10+2. In the Maya system, this would be 1*20+12, because numbers were written from bottom to top. Below you can see how the number 32 was written:

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••

TASK:

Write numbers and create four to five math problems of your own and have your partner figure out the numbers and problems that you wrote.

Confused?

Check

out

this site

:

Mayan EconomyThe Maya participated in long distance trade with many of the

Mesoamerican

cultures, including Teotihuacan, the

Zapotec

, and other groups in central and gulf-coast México, the Caribbean islands .Maya farmers transported their cocoa beans to market by canoe or in large baskets strapped to their backs. Some Maya employed porters, as there were no horses, pack animals.

Agriculture

The basis of the culture was farming, which included not only the cultivation of maize, beans, squash, and chili peppers, but also "cash crops" of cotton and cacao.

Terrace farmers (highlands)

TASK: Read the following two slides and create a list of goods traded at the market.

TRADE IS LIFEBLOOD TO THE MAYA

Diego has never been to the

yaab

, or market, until now. He was amazed at how huge it was – six hundred square feet in the plaza. As he looked around, he saw beautiful buildings and stone monuments. He remembered that this market was called “the place of the thousand monuments.” The walls were painted bright blue, yellow and red. Behind the walls were the fat

ploms

, or merchants, who waited to begin the day’s trading. The temples gleamed high above him.His father had told him that trade is lifeblood to the Maya. He had explained that because the Maya had only to work a small part of the year to harvest their corn, and then have more than was needed, there was leisure time to learn a skill. Every family had their own specialty: products made by hand to trade with others at market.

He hugged his basket of feather headdresses tighter to his chest. This was his family’s craft – bright, beautiful headdresses to exchange for what they needed. There was plenty of everything here at the yaab. Jadeworkers

carved the sacred stone for jewelry and decoration. There were woodcarvers, saltgatherers (who collected the pure white seasoning from the sea when the tide had receded) had brought sacks for trading.

Food was in another section. Just to see it all made Diego’s mouth water. Hot little red peppers, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, squash, and many kinds of beans. Corn was there, and macal

( a root vegetable), and fruits, too. Nearby were the spice traders, who had brought vanilla, pepper and

chaya

(similar to spinach).

If a Maya needed cloth, it too was here at the market. Women sat underneath the awnings, with beautifully woven cloth of every color. There were jewelers as well,, who were highly respected men. They traded the popular jade and topaz, a small yellow stone. There were also jewels from sea shells, obsidian, turquoise, and even pearls. Diego knew you must have many cacoa beans to afford such luxuries.

Diego smiled to himself. He was glad that after paying their taxes of cotton cloth and feather headdresses, his family still had plenty left over with which to trade. He would not have wanted to miss out on this day.

Mayan Hieroglyphics

The Mayans developed the only real writing technique unique to the Americas. The Maya writing system (often called hieroglyphics) was a combination of phonetic symbols and ideograms. The Maya developed a very complicated method of writing, using pictographs and phonetic or syllabic elements. Most likely only members of the higher classes were able to read their symbols. A single symbol could mean a whole word or syllables to be combined with others to form words or ideas.

Maya writing was composed of recorded inscriptions on stone and wood and used within architecture. Rectangular lumps of plaster and paint chips are a frequent discovery in Maya archaeology; they are the remains of what had been books after all the organic material has decayed. Folding tree books were made from fig tree bark and placed in royal tombs. These writings called “codices” recorded important religious and historical events.

Unfortunately, many of these books did not survive the humidity of the tropics or the invasion of the Spanish who regarded the symbolic writing as the work of the devil. Regrettably, obsessive priests ordered the burning of all the Maya books after the Spanish conquest. While many stone inscriptions survive - mostly from cities already abandoned when the Spanish arrived - only 3 books and a few pages of a fourth survive from the ancient libraries

TASK:

Use the symbols below from what is believed to be Mayan Hieroglyphics and create a sentence. Have your partner try to read it.

TASK: View the video from

the link and read the accompanying article. In

your packet, write

a complete paragraph

describing what could have happened to the Maya. History Channel - Maya