SSWH8 The student will demonstrate an understanding of the development of societies in Central and South America. Explain the rise and fall of the Olmec, Maya, Aztec, and Inca empires. Compare the culture of the Americas; include government, economy, religion, and the arts of the Maya, Aztecs, and Incas.

Cult of the Jaguar continued Maya Civilization Cult of the Jaguar continued

Political Systems City states united in a loose confederacy Nobles own most of the land and are the important merchants Priests Maintained an elaborate calendar transmitted knowledge of writing, astronomy, and mathematics Population largely rural used cities for primarily relgious centers Tikal

War Maya kingdoms fought constantly with each other warriors won tremendous prestige by capturing high- ranking enemies Captives were usually made slaves, humiliated, tortured, and ritually sacrificed

Temple of Jaguar Tikal was the most important Maya political center from the 4th-9th Centuries Meeting place for all Maya city states on important astronomical/religious dates 40,000 people lived here

Economic Systems Agricultural society Terrace farming Shifting cultivation Maize, cacao Architects, sculptors, Potters Cacao used as money Merchants traded in luxury goods like jade, fancy textiles and animal pelts

Religion Polytheistic; gods made people out of maize and water Human Blood Sacrifice and ceremony keep the gods happy That kept the world going and agriculture good

Human Sacrifice and Bloodletting Rituals Bloodletting involved: war captives Maya royals piercing the tongue and/or genitals dripping the blood down a rope into a bowl before offering it to the gods

Religious Ritual Who got sacrificed: When: Animals Slaves Children prisoners of war (were important parts of their culture) When: on important dates when priests demanded it as punishment for crimes. Burned copal resin along with the sacrifice, creating more smoke and a sweet smell. Offerings to the spirits were to insure agricultural success.

Priests responsible for keeping calendar, holding ceremonies to the gods Human sacrifice Two special priestly functions involved in human sacrifice: the chacs, who were elderly men that held down the victim, the nacon, who cut the living heart from the victim.

After life The Maya believed in an elaborate afterlife heaven was reserved for those who had been hanged, sacrificed, or died in childbirth. Everyone else went to xibal, or hell, which was ruled over by the Lords of Death.

Maya beauty prized a long, backward sloping forehead infants would have their skulls bound with boards. Crossed-eyes favored infants would have objects dangled in front of their eyes in order to permanently cross their eyes (this is still practiced today).

Intellectual Developments astronomy, calendrical systems, hieroglyphic writing, ceremonial architecture, and masonry without metal tools Could plot planetary cycles and predict eclipses of the sun and moon calculated the length of the solar year at 365.242 days– about 17 seconds shorter than the figure reached by modern astronomers Chichin Itza

The Calendar Round Two gears that inter-mesh, one smaller than the other. One of the ‘gears’ is called the tzolkin (“count of days”), or Sacred Round. The other is the haab, or Calendar Round. The smaller wheels together represent the 260-day Sacred Round the inner wheel, with the numbers one to thirteen (think of this like our ‘week’), meshes with the glyphs for the 20 day names on the outer wheel. Day of the month weekday

The Calendar Round The expanded count was called haab (or a civic calendar) A section of a large wheel represents part of the 365-day year The haab consisted of 18 named months with 20 days each Not ideal for hundreds of years. To do this they used a vigesimal (i.e. based on 20) place-value number system, analogous to our decimal place-value number system. weekday Day of the month

The Long Count one month of 5 days called Uayeb and were considered evil/bad. If all wheels turn for approximately 52 years then it will take a total of 18,980 days (52*365) before the same date reoccurs this is called a calendar round. The Maya invented the long count which starts at zero 0.0.0.0.0.: these five positions in the date refer to five smaller cycles the: baktun . katun . tun . uinal . kin respectively on the date 4 Ahau 8 Cumku. This correlates to 13 August 3114 BC in the Gregorian calendar this great cycle due to end 23 De cember AD 2012

October 11, 1970 12.17.17.3.8 11 Manik- year bearer (solar year, or 1970) 12 Baktun 17 Katun 17 Tun 3 Winal 8 Kin 10, Lamat (my name) 1, Yax 5 Lord of the Night (5th of 6th lunar cycles in a year. The time between 2 new moons.)

Writing ideographic elements and symbols for syllables Used to write works of history, poetry, and myth and keep genealogical, administrative, and astronomical records

Maya Decline By about 800, most Maya populations had begun to desert their cities 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

SSWH8 The student will demonstrate an understanding of the development of societies in Central and South America. Explain the rise and fall of the Olmec, Maya, Aztec, and Inca empires. Compare the culture of the Americas; include government, economy, religion, and the arts of the Maya, Aztecs, and Incas. List five facts which will help you remember this lesson: