Maya Society

Maya -- Society

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The Maya were a large ​

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in Mesoamerica.

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civilization

tribe

language

gathering

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The Maya Civilization existed ​

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Mesopotamia (Sumer).

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after

during

before

Multiple Choice

_ is a region made up of North and South America

• Middle America

• Mesoamerica

• Mesopotamia

Multiple Choice

A gulf is:

• A small pond surrounded by land.
• A mountain range near the coast.
• A type of fish found in the ocean.
• A large inlet of the ocean surrounded by land.

Multiple Choice

Where did the Maya live?

• Sahara Desert
• Andes Mountains
• Great Plains
• Yucatan Penninsula

Multiple Choice

Prehistory is the time before:

• writing

• hunting

Multiple Choice

The Ancient Maya were:

• polytheistic

• monotheistic

Multiple Choice

The Maya used telescopes to look at the stars.

• true

• false

Multiple Choice

The Maya believed the gods controlled their world.

• true

• false

Multiple Choice

The Maya calendar was like ours because both:

• are 365 days

• shaped like a circle

Multiple Choice

Irrigation is:

• using of fertilizers

• planting seeds in rows.

• Bringing water to an area for growing crops.

• rainfall on crops.

Multiple Choice

Writing that uses pictures as symbols

• pictograms
• rituals
• hieroglyphics
• considerable

Multiple Choice

The climate of the Yucatan Peninsula is:

• Tropical and wet

• Freezing and dry

• Hot Desert

Multiple Choice

The Ancient Maya were:

• Polytheistic:

  they believed in many gods

• Monotheistic: they believed in one god

• Not religious

Multiple Choice

The Mayan Civilization was made up of:

• no one

• one giant country

• many city-states

• unorganized groups

Multiple Choice

What type of government did the Maya civilization have?

• Theocracy

• Monarchy

• Democracy

• Oligarchy

Multiple Choice

Maize is:

• farming

• tomatos

• corn

• torillas

Multiple Choice

What type of technique did Maya farmers use to prepare soil?

• Crop rotation
• Hydroponics
• Terracing
• Slash-and-burn farming

Multiple Choice

Who were the first to realize that cocoa beans could be made into a drink?

• Mayans

• Aztecs

• Incas

• Egyptians

Maya society was divided into classes with kings in the highest class and farmers in the lowest class.

​Class Society

In Maya society, each city had its own monarch or king who were unlimited in power. The Maya believed that their kings were chosen by the gods.

Maya kings lived in grand palaces and wore beautiful clothes made of jade and feathers.

The kings also played a big role in Maya warfare. They would lead their armies into battle to capture enemies. Being a king meant both being a strong warrior and a wise ruler.

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Kings

Multiple Choice

What type of government did the Maya civilization have?

• Theocracy

• Monarchy

• Democracy

• Oligarchy

Well educated priests were also among the noble, or highest, classes. Both kings and priests lived in palaces close to city centers.
Priests were very important in Maya society as it was believed that they could communicate directly with the gods. The priests were responsible for leading rituals of worship and sacrifices, and telling the people what the gods want them to do. They would tell the people when to plant crops, who to marry and what sacrifices they should make. The people did all these things because they believed that the priest was speaking the wishes of the gods.

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​Priests

Multiple Choice

The Maya believed that their priests could talk to the gods.

• true

• false

Open Ended

Why were the priests important to Maya Civilization?

The middle class was made up of the craftsmen, traders, and warriors.

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​Middle Class

Finally, at the bottom, came the common workers.  They enjoyed few luxuries in life.

They lived in simple houses and worked hard all day.

The men were either planting and harvesting crops, or building pyramids and roadways.

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​Lower Class

​Daily Life of the Maya

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​Daily Life

​The daily life for the Maya revolved around family, farming, and service to the gods. No person or group took any important action without consulting the gods.

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Priests decided which days were best for planting a field, starting a war, or building a hut. The Maya believed the gods were much wiser than humans.

Open Ended

Expand this sentence by telling when and for who.

Religion was important.

​Farming

​Most Maya people made their living as farmers. Their main crop was corn. One of their main foods was something you may have eaten—a flat bread called a tortilla (/tor*tee*uh/). Farmers also grew beans, squash, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, and pumpkins.

Multiple Choice

The Maya Farmers were very important to keeping the Maya civilization running.  

• True

• False

​Daily Life

​Maya farmers lived in one-room huts made out of mud and grass. Families lived in walled areas that had several huts.

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Men and boys did the farming. Women and girls took care of the house, cooked, and made clothing and pottery.

Poll

Everyone thinks the same things are beautiful.

• Agree

• Disagree

Poll

What is beautiful now has always been what is beautiful.

• Agree

• Disagree

​Every culture has practices that seem odd to other people. The Maya did two things that may seem a little strange to you. They considered crossed eyes to be beautiful. So mothers would hang something in front of a baby’s nose to help the baby develop crossed eyes.

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​The Maya also viewed a flat head as a symbol of beauty. They would strap a long board to the backs of newborn babies. As the babies’ heads rested against the board, the board gradually flattened the back of the babies’ soft skulls.

Multiple Select

What two things did the ancient Maya believe were beautiful?

• Crossed Eyes

• Big Feet

• Flat Heads

• Short hair

• Straight Noses

Open Ended

What two things did the Mayans believe were beautiful for humans?

The Mayas often went to their dentists, but not for fillings or to get a new crown put on. They went to have their teeth beautified with gemstones. 

The process was undeniably painful. A dentist would have likely used a makeshift drill made from obsidian (volcanic glass) to punch a hole in the front of a tooth. 

They would then use a natural adhesive to place the gemstone in the hole.

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Fashion

Headgear varied from city-state to city-state, but one rule always seemed to hold true: the bigger the hat, the more important the head underneath it.

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Fashion

Everyday clothes included a loincloth or short skirt for men and a long skirt for women. 

These outfits would often be accessorized with jewelry such as bracelets and anklets, necklaces, and ear jewelry. 

Jewelry was made from shark and crocodile and wood.

Hairstyles were given much attention, and would be tied up (almost never left loose) and decorated with bands of fabric and long feathers. 

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Fashion

​Maya Children

​Before age five, Maya children were cared for by parents and other relatives. At age five, they took on new responsibilities, such as helping with farming and household chores. A boy had a white bead braided to his hair. A girl had a string tied to her waist with a red shell attached.

​Initiation Ceremony

​These symbols remained in place until the children reached the age of fourteen. At this point, an initiation ceremony was performed to mark their passage to adulthood.

Multiple Choice

What is an initiation ceremony?

• a ceremony at the entrance or acceptance into a group or society.

• A party to celebrate extra food from the harvest

• A ritual to honor the god

Multiple Select

What are two examples of initiation ceremonies?

• graduation from school

• bar or bat mitzvah

• voting for a president

• A soccer tournament

• MCAS

​A priest would pick a day when the stars were favorable. Then the priest would cut the bead from the boy’s hair. A girl’s mother would cut the string from her daughter’s waist. Then the parents would have a celebration with family members and neighbors.

​Adult life

​After these ceremonies, boys moved into a house for unmarried men. There they would remain until they got married. Marriages were arranged. In the hard life of Maya farmers, marriages were not romantic affairs. They were more like business deals between families.

​Marriage

​As with the initiation ceremonies, priests picked marriage dates. They checked with the stars and the gods to find a day that would bring good fortune. However, no Maya couple expected married life to bring only good fortune. The Maya believed that every aspect of life was controlled by the gods. Because some gods were good and some were bad, they expected life to include both joy and sorrow.

Multiple Choice

Maya couples could choose who they married.

• True

• False

Open Ended

How were Maya marriages different from marriages today?

​What happened?

​The ancient Maya were amazing people who built a great civilization. That fact alone is a reason to find them interesting. But one of the most fascinating questions about ancient Maya civilization (200–900 CE) is what happened to cause it to end.

​Archaeologists believe that the Maya left their cities sometime between 800 and 900. It’s possible this event happened over just a few decades.

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Until the 900s, the Maya kept careful historical records. They used their hieroglyphs to carve names and dates on pyramids and temples.

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Then in the 900s, the writing mysteriously stopped. The temples and pyramids began to fall into disrepair.

Multiple Choice

How did archaeologists know that Maya civilization ended around 900?

• It was documented in their codex

• All writing stopped around 900

• There was a great war

• The calendar ended in the year 900

War???

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​One theory holds that farmers rose up against the priests and nobles. But this raises another question: what happened to the farmers? There is no evidence of a new group of people replacing the old ones in power.

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​Disease?

​Some have guessed that disease wiped out the Maya population. But no mass burial grounds have been found.

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Archaeologists have found signs that some people in this area did die from diseases. Almost all of these deaths, however, seemed to have occurred after 1500, when the Spanish brought new diseases to the Americas. The Maya had been gone for years before that.

​It is still a mystery

• ​Did disaster strike the Maya?

• Did drought or heavy rainfall bring famine?

• Was there an earthquake?

• Did shifting trade routes affect the lowland Maya rulers and their settlements?

• Could invaders have toppled the civilization?

Most Likely....

Several severe — multi-year — droughts struck between [C.E.] 800 and 930 in the southern Mesoamerica region. This meant crops failed and kings lost their power.

Multiple Choice

Droughts are:

• Periods of high humidity
• Short bursts of heavy rainfall
• Seasonal changes in temperature
• Low rainfall

​No one knows for sure. We only know that the once-great Maya cities were abandoned and swallowed up by the rain forest. The Maya scattered. But the people themselves did not disappear. Today, millions still speak languages related to ancient Mayan. These ancestors of the pyramid-builders have lived in villages, towns, and cities in southern Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras for centuries. They have a rich heritage, one that we are learning more about with each passing year.

Though their grand cities have been abandoned, the Maya people have not disappeared.

Today, around 10 million Maya and perhaps more, live in the same regions of Mexico as their ancestors.

​Maya Today

Maya scattered and their great civilization dwindled. Today, their descendants live in the ancestral homelands of modern-day Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. With the exception of Belize, where English is spoken, Spanish is the official language of the region.

​Maya Today

However, more than 21 Maya dialects are still spoken in Guatemala alone. If you visit Mesoamerica, your guide through the muggy rainforests to ancient ruins may be a descendant of the Maya.

​Maya Today

Multiple Choice

The ancestors of the Mayas still live in Mesoamerica today.

• true

• false

Open Ended

What do you think happened to end the Maya Civilization?

I think the Maya Civilization ended because _____)