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What geographical features did the Mayan lands include?
Rugged highlands and dense swamps.
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Give a description of what a Maya might have looked like?
Short, straight black hair, flat forehead, crossed eyes, blue black or red skin, and tattoos.
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Why did Mayas tie objects from their infants' foreheads?
They valued crossed eyes, and wanted their eyes to cross.
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Why did some Mayas tie boards to their children's heads?
They wanted their heads to be flat.
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What did early Mayas eat?
Fish and crops.
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List the three Mayan eras, including their beginning and ending dates?
Pre-classic (2500 B.C to A.D 250), Classic (A.D 250 to A.D 900), Post Classic (collapse to Mayan Empire to Spanish Conquest in the 1500s).
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What did the Mayas develop in the classic era?
Improved agriculuture methods, advanced mathmatics and astronomy.
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What was the largest Mayan city in the classical era? How large was its population?
Tikal was the largest, the population was 100,000 or more.
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What is the great mystery of the Mayas?
Why the Mayan civilization ended.
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Who met Mayan traders in 1502?
Christopher Columbus.
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What were raised roads called?
Causeways.
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What were Mayan tools made of?
Stone and limestone.
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What is the name of the largest and perhaps oldest Mayan city?
Tikal.
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How big was the population of the largest Mayan city?
Over 100,000 people.
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How many pyramid temples did the largest city have?
Eight.
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What is the name of the second largest Mayan city?
Copan.
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How many main plazas does Copan have?
Five.
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Describe the most famous ruin in Copan?
The great staircase, 30 feet wide, 63 steps, picture writing on each step.
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What city contains the Well of Sacrifice?
Chichen Itza.
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Name an important ruin of Chicen Itza.
The large observatory tower. This was used by ancient astronomers.
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What did people call the ruler of each city-state?
Halach Uinic (the real or true man).
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What did the Mayas believe the halach uinic was?
A living god.
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What may the halach uinic also have served as?
A high priest during religious ceremonies.
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What was the Mayan name for the priests?
Ahkin.
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What did the Mayas believe about the Earth?
It was flat, it was on the back of a crocodile in a large pond. Then they thought it was on floor of lizard house.
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What did the Mayas believe the earth rode on the back of?
Crocodile
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According to the Mayan religion, what were humans made from?
Corn
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How many underworlds did the Mayans believe there were below the surface of the earth?
9
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Briefly describe one method of human sacrifice
they would throw the victim into a sacred well
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What would happen if sacrificial human was thrown into a well and didn't die?
They were pulled back up and asked if they received any messages from the gods and received a special treatment
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From whom do experts believe Mayans borrowed their writing?
Olmecs
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What type of writing did the Mayans use?
Pictures and Symbols
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What are Mayan pictures called?
Glyphs
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How did Mayans make paper?
They use fibers from the bark of the Ficus tree, pound the fibers into the pulp, and then glued the fibers together with tree sap
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How did they make their paper white?
When paper dried they coated it with white lime
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What were Mayan books called?
Codex
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What did Mayas use for book covers?
Decorative boards
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Why did the Spanish destroy Mayan books?
Their beliefs said the Mayan books were evil
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How many Mayan books are still in existence today?
3
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Where are the surviving Mayan books?
Located in museums in Europe.
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What did a drawing of a shell represent?
Zero
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We use a decimal system using the base of ten, what base did Mayan mathematics use?
20
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Write the numbers eight and twelve the way Mayans would have written them
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What did priests study?
Movements of the sun, moon, planets, and stars
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Describe the use of the important Mayan buildings still standing in Chicehenitza?
An observatory used to study the heavans
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Describe 2 Mayan Calenders
- Sacred Calendar
- Calendar for planning regular events
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How did 2 Mayan Calendars differ from each other?
Sacred calendar had 260 days and 365 on the regular calendar
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How were astronomy and mathematics useful to Mayan priests?
They use their knowledge of the subjects to develop accurate calendars
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What did Mayas consider the 5 extra days at the end of the regular calendar
Unlucky
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Who based their calendars on the Mayan calendar?
Aztecs
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What was the most common used for Mayan cloth?
Cotton
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List some colors and what those colors represented in Mayan weaving?
- black- war
- yellow- food
- red- blood
- blue- sacrifice
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How did Mayas decorate their clothing?
by using feather weaving from colorful bird feathers
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What did Mayas make baskets from?
reeds, vines, rushes, and split cane
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How did Mayas make their pottery?
From clay coils smoothed together, cut-out molds pressed onto pots to make designs
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How tall were some pieces of Mayan pottery?
as tall as an adult human
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What was the material used most often for Mayan sculpture?
limestone
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What are the tall stones called that Mayan carving appears on?
Stela
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What types of mural paintings did Mayas do?
frescoes
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What did the murals portray?
everyday scenes and religous ceremonies
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How did early Mayas get food?
fishing and hunting
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Why did they start farming?
hunting and gathering wasn't enough food as the population increased
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What is one of the oldest methods of farming?
slash and burn
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How was the slash and burn method done?
Men cut forests down with stone axes, then let the trees dry thoroughly, then burned the dried trees, the ashes then provided fertilizer for the soil
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In what way was the method bad?
It wore out soil quickly, the fields then had to be at rest for 2-3 years before replanting
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What did the Mayas grow in addition to field crops?
fruit orchards and vegetable gardens
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Did Mayas grow anything that was inedible? If so, name any and tell how they were used
Yes, they grew hemp to make rope and cotton for cloth
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What caused Mayan farmers difficulty
droughts that often destroyed the crops
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How did the Mayas farm swampy regions?
they dug soil into mounds, then planted and harvested crops there
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Why did Mayas worship chac?
he was the god of rain, they believed he would send the needed rain if celebrations pleased him
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What did Mayas called merchants?
ppolm
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Who was the merchant's god?
Ek chaub
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How far south did Mayan merchants travel?
Guatemala and Belize
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How far east did the Mayan merchants travel?
Caribbean Islands
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How did merchants transport goods over there?
they didn't use animals or wheeled vehicles, they used slaves
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Descrive a typical Mayan over land road system?
small pathways cross the land, they did not build roads and used canoes for river travel
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Describe a Mayan canoe?
50 ft long x 8ft wide with a cabin structure that could hold 12 men
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Where was the most famous Mayan marketplace and what was it called?
In the court of 1,000 columns- this was a plaza by the temple of warriors in Chichen itza
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Did Mayas buy or trade their goods? and what was their system called?
the barter system is the exchange of certain goods for others
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What did Mayas sometimes use in place of money?
cacao beans
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What was the name of the new Mayan capital?
Mayapan
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When was the new capital destroyed?
1441
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What 4 things continued to weaken the Mayan civilization?
- civil wars
- epidimics
- droughts
- hurricanes
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What did white men come in search of?
gold and slaves
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What did white men bring with them to the Indians?
diseases- small pox was the worst
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How many Indians died of small pox?
hundreds of thousands
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Who was one leader of the Spanish Conquest of the Mayas?
Hernando Cortes
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What was the Spanish capital city name?
Merida
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When did the Spanish conquer the last Mayan kingdom?
1697
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What was that Kingdom's name?
Tayasal
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glyph?
the mayan pictures
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observatory?
the Mayas built them in their cities to aid in their studies of Astronomy
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Astronomy?
the movement of the sun, moon, planets, and stars
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stela?
the tall stones that Mayan carvings appeared on
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mural?
brightly colored paintings
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planting stick?
a stick used for planting
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barter?
the exchange of certain goods for others
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