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 Mayan
365.242 days– about 17 numerical
seconds shorter than the figure
reached by modern system
astronomers
 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