maya and olmec

Part 1: Mayans Part 2: Incas

Lsn 6

Part 1: Mayans

Theme: The connection between

agriculture, religion, and society

Lsn 6

Olmecs and Mayans

Characteristics of Olmec Civilization

• Intensive agricultural techniques– Area received abundant rainfall so extensive irrigation systems

were unnecessary– Still the Olmecs built elaborate drainage systems to divert waters

that might otherwise have caused floods

• Specialization of labor– Jade craftsmen

• Cities– Built around ceremonial centers at San Lorenzo, La Venta, and

Tres Zapotes

• A social hierarchy– Society was probably authoritarian– Common subjects provided labor and tribute to the elite

Characteristics of Olmec Civilization

• Organized religion and education– Ceremonial centers, priests, temples, altars, and human

sacrifice• Development of complex forms of economic exchange

– Imported jade and obsidian and exported small jade, basalt, and ceramic works of art

• Development of new technologies– Excellent astronomers and mathematicians who

developed a calendar• Advanced development of the arts. (This can include

writing.) – Created colossal human heads sculpted from basalt rock

Mayans

• Began to develop around 300 A.D. in what is now southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, and El Salvador

• Known as “The People of the Jaguar”

Olmec Influence on the Mayans

• Maize

• Ceremonial centers with temple pyramids

• Calendar based on the Olmec one

• Ball games

• Rituals involving human sacrifice

Cities

Cities: Tikal

• From about 300 to 900, the Maya built more than eight large ceremonial centers– All had pyramids, palaces, and temples

• Some of the larger ones attracted dense populations and evolved into genuine cities– The most important was Tikal– Small city-kingdoms served as the means of

Mayan political organization

Cities: Tikal

• Tikal was the most important Mayan political center between the 4th and 9th Centuries– Reached its peak between 600 and 800 with a

population of nearly 40,000

• The Temple of the Jaguar dominated the skyline and represented Tikal’s control over the surrounding region which had a population of about 500,000

Tikal: Temple of the Jaguar

• 154 feet high• Served as

funerary pyramid for Lord Cacao, Maya ruler of the late 6th and early 7th centuries

Social Hierarchy• King and ruling family

– Ruled from the city-kingdoms such as Tikal

– Ruled by semi-divine right and believed their connection with the gods was maintained by ritual human sacrifice

– Often had names associated with the jaguar

• Priests– Maintained an elaborate

calendar and transmitted knowledge of writing, astronomy, and mathematics A Mayan King

Religion and Education

Human Sacrifice and Bloodletting Ritual

Religion: Importance of Agriculture

• Mayan religion reflected the fundamental role of agriculture in their society

• Popol Vuh, was the Mayan creation myth that taught that the gods had created human beings out of maize and water

• Gods kept the world in order and maintained the agricultural cycle in exchange for honors and sacrifices

Religion: Bloodletting Rituals

• Mayans believed the shedding of human blood would prompt the gods to send rain to water the maize

• Bloodletting involved both war captives and Mayan royals

Mayan queen holds a bowl filled with strips of paper used to collect blood.

Religion: Bloodletting

• A popular bloodletting ritual was for a Mayan to pierce his own tongue and thread a thin rope through the hole, thus letting the blood run down the rope

Religion: The Ball Game

• Mayans inherited a ball game from the Olmecs that was an important part of Mayan political and religious festivals

• High-ranking captives were forced to play the game for their very lives– The losers became sacrificial victims and faced

torture and execution immediately following the match

• Object of the game was to propel an 8 inch ball of solid baked rubber through a ring or onto a marker without using your hands

Mayan Ball Court

Economic Exchange

• Traveling merchants served not just as traders but also as ambassadors to neighboring lands and allied people

• Traded mainly in exotic and luxury goods such as rare animal skins, cacao beans, and finely crafted works of art which rulers coveted as signs of special status

• Cacao used as money

New Technologies

Mayan Calendar Observatory at El Caracol

New Technologies• Excelled in astronomy and

mathematics– Could plot planetary cycles and

predict eclipses of the sun and moon

– Invented the concept of zero and used a symbol to represent zero mathematically, which facilitated the manipulation of large numbers

– By combining astronomy and mathematics, calculated the length of the solar year at 365.242 days– about 17 seconds shorter than the figure reached by modern astronomers

Mayan numerical

system

New Technologies: Calendar

• Mayan priests developed the most elaborate calendar of the ancient Americas

• Interwove two kinds of year– A solar year of 365 days governed the agricultural

cycle– A ritual year of 260 days governed daily affairs by

organizing time into twenty “months” of thirteen days each

• Believed each day derived certain characteristics from its position on both the solar and ritual calendars and carefully studied the combinations– Lucky and unlucky days

Writing

• Expanded on Olmec tradition to create the most flexible and sophisticated of all early American systems of writing

• Contained both ideographic elements and symbols for syllables

• Used to write works of history, poetry, and myth and keep genealogical, administrative, and astronomical records

Mayan Decline

• By about 800, most Mayan populations had begun to desert their cities– Full scale decline followed everywhere but in the

northern Yucatan

• Possible causes include foreign invasion, internal dissension and civil war, failure of the water control system leading to agricultural disaster, ecological problems caused by destruction of the forests, epidemic diseases, and natural disasters