Rene Martinez Period 2 The Maya

Political The Maya Kings timed their accession rituals in tune with the stars and the Milky Way..They celebrated k'atun endings approximately every twenty years. At the end of the 20-year k'atun period, Maya rulers regularly erected a stela, called a stone tree, to commemorate the event.

Economic The Maya based their economy mainly on agriculture and trade. Other important activities the mayans did were hunting wild animals and collecting forest products. Maya agriculture was based on the harvest of corn.

Religion The Mayans worshiped everything in nature. The Mayans believed that the world was made up of heavens and underworlds. They believed that they were linked by a giant tree.

Social The lowest level of Mayan society were slaves. These people were the most common victims of human sacrifice. The next level was made up of the peasants. They also became human sacrifices occasionally. The next level was the nobility. The highest level in Mayan society was made up of priests.

Intellectual When Mayan leaders protested the celebration of the Quincentenary of the "discovery" of America and joined with other indigenous groups in the Americas to proclaim an alternate celebration of 500 years of resistance, they rose to national prominence in Guatemala.

Arts The art of the Maya, is a reflection of their lifestyle and culture.

Calender The ancient Mayas invented a calendar of remarkable accuracy and complexity. The Mayan calendar was adopted by the other Mesoamerican nations, such as the Aztecs and the Toltec, which adopted the mechanics of the calendar unaltered but changed the names of the days of the week and the months.

Calendar The Maya calendar uses three different dating systems in parallel, the Long Count, the Tzolkin, and the Haab. Of these, only the Haab has a direct relationship to the length of the year.