Maya

1. Maya ______zhihengXu GD 2012-1-30

2. BackgROund • The Mayais a mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-colombia Americas, as well as for its art, architecture and mathematical and astronomical systems. Initially established during the Pre-Classic period (c. 2000 BC to 250 AD), according to the Mesoamerican chronology, many Maya cities reached their highest state of development during the Classic period (c. 250 to 900 AD), and continued throughout the Post-Classic period until the arrival of Spanish.

3. History The Maya civilization formed in about 2000 BC, 400 BC to establish the early state of slavery, from A.D. 3 to ninth Century as the prosperous period, the decline in fifteenth Century, finally the Spanish colonists destroyed.

5. Mayan government • One noble family controlled each city. When the ruling noble died, his job passed to his son. No one else got a shot at it. The noble families’ right to rule originated with the Hero Twins. Each noble family was supposedly a direct descendant of one of the Hero Twins. That gave them the justification they needed to keep their job. They were directly related to the gods. • The ruling noble did not do his job alone. Part of his job was to select a council of elders and warriors to help him rule. Other people were additionally selected to help run the government. Some people were chosen to enforce laws. Others were chosen to act as judges. So the Mayas ruled themselves via a system of city-states.

6. Maya art The distinct style of Maya art that developed during the Preclassic period (1500 B.C. to 250 A.D.) has influences from the Olmec civilization. Other Mesoamerican civilizations, including Teotihuacan and the Toltecs, affected Maya art, which reached its zenith during the civilization's Classic period (c. 200 to 900 AD). The Maya are well known for their use of jade, obsidian and stucco

8. Maya astronomy • The Maya were extraordinarily good astronomers, making observations and recording the motion of the Sun, the Moon, and the stars. That is why it was easy for me to conceive the idea of a young Mayan woman who was drawn to the stars. • Prior to 36 B.C., this civilization in southern Mexico and northern Central America had begun to use multiples of a 360-day year to produce a very accurate calendar and measuring long intervals of time. The ancient Maya are also known for having had the only known fully developed written language of pre-Columbian America, and the most advanced mathematics and astronomy.

10. It is a detailed account of the astronomical observations of the Mayas. The Maya sought to understand the repetitive cycles of motions of the moon and planets, and thus to be able to predict when these bodies would be in certain places on the sky in the future. To allow such predictions, the Maya also developed a sophisticated number system, of base 20 (compared with our base 10 system). Their observations were used by their priests to indicate to the meso-American rulers propitious times for various actions. Indeed, their whole calendar played a critical role in identifying important occasions, tied to many-year cycles of the base 20 numbering. The Dresden Codex contains:An eclipse table that predicts times when eclipses may occur. • A Venus table that predicts the times when Venus appears as morning star and the other apparitions of the planet. • A Mars table that records the times when Mars goes into retrograde motion. A second Mars table that tracks the planet's motion along the ecliptic has recently been identified.

12. 2012 prophecy • According to the Mayan calendar, the "Great Cycle" equates with 5,125.36 years, which began on August 11, 3114 B.C. and ends in 2012. • Their Long Count calendar begins in 3,114 B.C., marking time in roughly 394-year periods known as Baktuns. Thirteen was a significant, sacred number for the Mayas, and they wrote that the 13th Baktun ends on Dec. 21, 2012

13. Maya glyphs The Maya script, also known as Maya hieroglyphs, was the writing system of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization of Mesoamerica, presently the only deciphered Mesoamerican writing system. The earliest inscriptions which are identifiably Maya date to the 3rd century BCE and writing was in continuous use until shortly after the arrival of the Spanish conquistadores in the 16th century CE.

15. Mayan Maths The Mayans devised a counting system that was able to represent very large numbers by using only 3 symbols, a dot, a bar, and a symbol for zero, or completion, usually a shell. The chart above shows the first complete cycle of numbers.

17. Their system has two significant differences from the system we use: 1) the place values are arranged vertically, and 2) they use a base 20.This means that, instead of the number in the second postion having a value 10 times that of the numeral (as in 11 - 1 × 10 + 1 × 1), in the Mayan system, the number in the second place has a value 20 times the value of the numeral. The number in the third place has a value of (20)2, or 400, times the value of the numeral. This principle is illustrated in the chart below.

19. Architecture The basic Maya structure was the hay huts which housed most of the Mayan population. The walls were made of mud or stone and were covered with wooden poles. These poles were no taller that 2. 20 meters. On the top of these sticks, the structure rests and it has another 3.5 to 4.5 meters of height on top. These sticks hold together the strongly tilted, two sided hay form.

20. As for the stone huts, they were of course, made of stone, lime stone to be exact. The reason for the use of lime were that they were very abundant and the shape of the very easy form. The many deposits of these stones helped build these higher class homes. There was, however, similarities between them and the hay huts. Of course, the main difference was the material used to make the two buildings. But, the similarities would suggest that the roofs' slope gave place in the beginning to the idea that the sticking-out stones dome roof.

22. Source • http://www.mayancountdown.net/mayan_maps.html • http://library.thinkquest.org/10098/mayan.htm