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Mayan Civilization

Sonia Canela

Mayan Civilization

The ancient Maya lived in the area that today covers the

Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico and almost all of Guatemala, western

Honduras, and Belize also western El Salvador. The Mayan Civilization

reached its peak between 300 and 900 AD in the golden age of

architecture, sculpture, painting and intellectual activity that has

earned them the title of ‘’Greeks of the New world.’’

Some people believe that the Mayans were immigrants

form the highlands of Mexico or the area around Veracruz sometime

between 900 and 800 BC. Before 1982 there were no archeological

evidence to determine were the Mayans actually originated from.

The Mayans Built sculptures and figures using wood making

figures of people and their children I’m guessing because they would

make a figure emphasizing a man or women and smaller little figures

emphasizing son or daughter. The region in which the Mayans lived was

rich in limestone and hardwood.

Between the 4th and 10th centuries the Mayan culture reached an

intellectual and artistic beginning, neither nor the new or old world cultures

of that time could match. The classical sites of Uaxactun, Tikal, Palenque, Uxmal

and the Copan dominated the trade routes by which jade, salt, cacao, and pottery

passed from one center to another . The individual centers developed distinctive

characters, but they all shared the same complex calendars and hieroglyphic

writing, astrology concepts and artistic styles. Most of these sites contained a series

of step platforms, palaces, ball courts, and a lot of pyramids.   The largest classical

site had six pyramids, including one Temple, which reaches the height of 229 feet.

The city stored water for its population in ten reservoirs. In Palenque, a palace

measuring 300 by 240 feet and fascinating structure called the temple of Inscriptions

and its known as its best feature. The...