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...