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I was interested in finding out more about the crop called maize, now known commonly as corn. I found this article entitled "Corn's slow path to stardom: archeologists rewrite the history of maize - and New World civilization" , written by Janet Raloff and published by Science News in 1993. This article describes maize as "the gift of the gods". There are many variations in the maize crop. The article suggests that the emergence of the maize crop was one of the reasons for the transition from hunter-gatherer to agriculture. Maize was a crop that could be grown in plentiful amounts, enough to feed a large population, and for that reason was greatly appreciated and adored. This reminded me of Jared Diamond's article from earlier this year--people switched to farming because it could feed more people, and therefore, as it states in the reading, "villages got larger".
I was also interested in finding out what the burial urns on Marajo Island looked like. I found this article from the New York Times. If you scroll down to about the middle of the page, there's a funerary urn from the Museum at Marajo.
Lastly, I was interested in finding out a little more about the metropolis Tula. I found this short site that explains a little about the history and architectural sites in Tula
It was the largest pre-Columbian city in the Americas in the 1st millennium. It had a total area of 82km squared and located northeast of Mexico City. It influenced many other cities and such around it. In the city it is thought that there were many people who lived there including the Maya, Zapotec, Mixtec, and Nahua. The city is famous for its temple of the sun and avenue of the dead.
In the beginning of the reading it mentions that in Copan which is in northern Honduras there is a monumental stairway were records were kept of ruling dynasties. I was wondering where this was and I found this map . I also found a picture of the ruins. (Monumental stairway)
In the reading it talked about how astronomy and time keeping were really important to the Mayans. Why did other civilizations in history not seem to care as much about these 2 things? This website gives some good details about timekeeping in the Mayan Civilization.
This website has a lot of information on the Maya Astronomy, Calendar, Writings, Geography, pictures, and much more. A lot of the stuff on this website is very interesting and it goes into a lot of depth.
I was interesting in finding out more about Mayan timekeeping and the Mayan calendar. This websitegives some background about the Mayan civilization and also talks about Mayan Timekeeping. According to the article the Mayans studied time more than any other culture and had a very "deep understanding of time". Today one standard calendar is typically used, but the Mayans had many different counts each of which had their own importance. Also, it says in that article that "the word calendar is somewhat inappropriate, as the Mayan time system had less to do with sums and accounts as it did with astronomy. Picture of Mayan Calendar
After the reading I wanted to find out a little more information about Tula... I've heard about most civilizations and cities in Central America, but Tula was new to me, so I looked it up on Wikipedia...
Right away, I saw this picture of some statues in Tula that are really cool.
Apparently, Tula was the capital of the Toltec civilization around 980 CE, but it didn't last very long because it was abandoned by the twelfth century.
Next, I found the Encyclopedia Britannica article about Tula. I found out some pretty interesting stuff, like the five-stepped pyramid in the city that was dedicated to the Quetzalcoatl. The Quetzalcoatl was a feathered serpent that was really important to the inhabitants of Tula. I found a nice picture of the Quetzalcoatl.
On one last note, the article said that Tula and the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, which makes me wonder how much communication these Central American civilizations had.
I decided to look up some more about the importance of bloodletting in Mayan societies. Bloodletting was a very public event among the elite, and the rulers would often do it in places like on top of raised platforms or in public squares.Different body parts were sometimes pierced for different purposes, such as genitals being pierced sometimes represented fertility.
If most of the written records are propaganda, then how much do we really know about it? And how do we know that it is propaganda? There has to be an accurate description for people to think that the information we have is propaganda, doesn’t there?
Some interesting things I learned about bloodletting is that the Mayans most commonly used pieces of glass and serpent teeth in bloodletting instruments. The ch'awil ch'ajan, which means 'waxed string' is another thing that was used in bloodletting. It is a ball of wax with pieces of glass embedded into it. Then the ball is attached to a string and can be used for self-flagellation, and also as a punishment for other people. Here is a picture of the ch'awil ch'ajan.
Since maize was so important to the Mayans, they had a maize god. Here is a picture of him. This sculpture is another depiction of the maize god. Although this wasn’t in the Mayan civilization, there was a myth as to the origins of maize. This is a picture of the Mother of Maize and her five daughters. To read the myth, click here.
MR. GOLDBERG, I told you I would have an amazing blog post, and you said the "threshold was lifted" for the standards of the blog posting so I hope this can suffice!
First, I found a really cool map of the mayan civilizations.
I saw the Mayan gods mentioned, so I immediately wanted to find out who some specific Mayan gods were. I was first taken to crystal links which told me that there was a winged serpent god name Kukulcan who was said to have lived in the pyramid of the sun in Teotihuacan. I looked that up on wikipedia (which is the link I just gave you) and apparently this pyramid is a huge deal. It is the largest building in Teotihuacan and one of the largest in Mesoamerica. There is a whole "avenue of the dead" where a bunch of these sacred temples are. If you click on the link you can see a picture, its pretty impressive. Here is a map of the Avenue of the Dead with all of the temples. The name "Pyramid of the sun" was actually given by Aztecas, who visited the temple after it was no longer in use.
Other gods/goddesses included a sun god, suicide goddess, maize god, rainbow god, and virgin goddess.
I also saw some place called copan Honduras and if you click the link there is a map. There are a lot of ruins there that people still visit.
I didn’t do a whole lot about looking into astrology because I figured other people would, but I did find this Maya Calendar converter that you can put any date in and it will tell you what the Mayan date is.
I also had a question about the bloodletting rituals. I researched it but I could not find the answer to my question. The reading mentions that the mayan monarchs inhaled the smoke from their blood, did this give them any sicknesses/diseases?
The reading mentioned a stone carving at Tikal. First I wanted to know where Tikal was, so I found a map with Tikal on it (here it is spelled Tical) and a picture of the ruins now. They must have been pretty spectacular when people were still living in them of they look this good now.
Of course, I had to look into the maize, because it seemed very important to the Americas. I don’t know exactly when it was painted, but I found this painting of the Mayans planting maize. There is also this statue from India of someone holding some maize. It is labeled as (pre columbian india) and also a statue of the Mayan Maize god.
Anyway I wanted research more about the dissapearance of the Aztecs.Well I went to Wikipedia to find of course the article of the Aztecs. I found a paragraph which i sent to Mr. Goldberg that said "In 1520-1521, an outbreak of smallpox swept through the population of Tenochtitlan and was decisive in the fall of the city. It is estimated that between 10% and 50% of the population fell victim to this epidemic.
Subsequently, the Valley of Mexico was hit with two more epidemics, smallpox (1545-1548) and typhus (1576-1581). The Spaniards, to consolidate the diminishing population, merged the survivors from small towns in the Valley of Mexico into bigger ones. This broke the power of the upper classes, but did not dissolve the coherence of the indigenous society in greater Mexico.
The population before the time of the conquest is unknown and hotly contested,[6] but disease is known to have ravaged the region; thus, the indigenous population of the Valley of Mexico is estimated to have declined by more than 80% in the course of about 60 years.[7]". This is very interesting as to the "extinction" of the Aztecs. However I have found no source of the Aztecs belief of vanishing, besides the epidemics. Yet, I'm still astonished that there isn't any evidence of as to why they dissapeared.
In the reading it mentioned how important corn way but, I don't think that it stressed enough how important corn was. Some cultures(Zuni tribe and others) literally worship corn. In a Zuni myth corn maidens the maidens were separated from the Zuni by witches and the corn wouldn't grow anymore so the Zuni tribe had a famish. So the tribe set out twins who asked the witches to leave and bring back the corn maidens. So in the end the maidens came back and the famish was over and ever since they worship the corn maidens so they can have life(corn). The Mayan also had a lot of corn so much in fact that it was used in almost every dish including chocolate. They also discovered how to make Hominy by mixing corn with lime(the stone not fruit) paste.
From the reading I deduced that the religious grouping had more power than the monarchy due to the fact that the king had to cut his penis and the queen had to cut their tongue. Is this assumption right, and if not why would any person with power not fight to find a way where they wouldn't have to cut themselves in very painful places more than once.
I also thought it was interesting how the book focused on maize when talking about the trade of food and other goods. You would think that they would talk about other goods such as gold instead. I suspect the reason that they did this is because maize was a very common thing that was traded during that time, probably more so than gold, and it was probably found all over the Americas. Which leads me to my second question; why did the civilizations trade maize when most of them had some already? Or did i just misunderstand the reading?
I found it interesting that it said that they extravagantly buried their dead. Why exactly did they do so? Was it for a religious cause? Did they believe in and afterlife or was it simply to honor their dead. It can be compared to the mummy's in Egypt, how the royals and nobles were extravagantly buried. In the Americas, was it just the royals who were buried this way or was everyone buried with what they had?
After what I heard from Mr Goldberg today, i wanted to know a little more about Mayan sacrifice... While going through the "Sacrifice in Maya Culture" wiki, I came across a very interesting quote that Mr. Goldberg touched on a little bit today...
"Some contend the idea of Mayans sacrificing their people came from Western historians' downplay of an advanced civilization to create the idea that the "savages" of North and South America deserved their eventual bloody downfall."
There were two types of sacrifice, autosacrifice, and human sacrifice... Obviously we know what human sacrifice is.. Autosacrifice is more along the lines of bloodletting (Mr. Goldberg kind of talked baout this today also..)
The most intriguing thing i found on the wiki was this quote..
"To the Mayan people, as is similar in all peoples indigenous to the Western hemisphere, value was not in possessions or material items; rather, the value of life was the most important aspect of their religion and beliefs. In indigenous eyes, it was the foreigners' desire for the gold and gems that drove them to the massacring of the Mayans,"
First, just for a reference point, I looked up the location of Tula. I found this map showing where it is in modern-day Mexico. I also discovered this which depicts the layout of Tula.
Because of all the weird religious stuff the Mayans did, I decided to look and see what kind of gods or goddesses they worshipped, since I don't remember it being mentioned in a reading before (I could be wrong). I found this site, which lists the different Mayan deities and shows depictions of them. For example, there's Hunab Ku, the supreme/creator god; Cizin, the god of death and violent sacrifice; and the rain god Chac, among others.
I did have one question: What kind of hallucinatory drugs did the Mayans have access to for their bloodletting ceremonies?
I definitely will not be able to match the scope and depth of Emma's post, however, I'll give it a run for its money :) (Or at least I hope)
For my post, I decided to find out more about the Maya. Now I know that the Maya were a HUGE civilization with many different parts. Clearly I will not be able to cover all this in one blog post, so I decided to focus on a couple of aspects of the Maya.
One aspect I was interested in, was when the reading mentioned that war must have served a useful purpose in their society. This completely took me by surprise. Honestly, how can war be a good thing? It generally causes death and destruction, leaves the economy and general infrastructure in a shambles and leads to a large loss of life, which can cause many problems.
So for my first question-
1) How can war be a good thing?
I went back a did a bit of research and found (to my surprise) that war was important to the Maya for a couple of reasons. The main reason was the obtaining of sacrificial victims. I certainly wouldn't want to be conquered if I was in the Mayan civilization…
Another reason for war being a good thing in the Mayan society was that they used it to set competitive rivalries among one another. I can see why this would be useful for the Mayan civilization. Without competition, there is no incentive to do better and make better technology. For example in today's world, computers wouldn't get any better if the computer companies didn't have competition that was trying to outdo them…
The final reason is the acquiring of resources and trade routes. For the former, I can see why it would be so important to the Maya. Obsidian was almost the "oil" of today. Without it, the Mayan tribe couldn't survive, just like the societies today (USA, China and the UK, to name a few) who cannot survive without oil (and more importantly low oil prices) Back to the Maya. In addition to acquiring critical resources, the Mayans also needed to conquer trade routes. Just like in today's world, the trade routes were what built the Mayan civilization.
Something that also surprised me were how advanced the Mayan tactics of warfare were. For an civilization that was called "backward" by the Spanish when they landed, they certainly had better tactics than their counterparts in Europe (at the time). The Mayans defended their cities using various earthworks, which seemed incredibly advanced for the time. In Europe, yes, they had stone walls, but the Mayans developed clear ways to defend their cities in ways that didn't require walls.
One such defense mechanism was the Mayan Killing alley. The Mayans would build two walls to defend their city, and they would keep the inner wall closed but allow the enemy to rush in through the outer wall. The gates to the outer wall would then close, sealing the enemy inside, where they could be killed in great numbers.
Another thing that amazed me when I was looking at Mayan Warfare was their development of guerilla warfare. Most agree that the Revolutionary War was the first war where guerilla tactics were used for the first time against a "conventional" army, yet nearly 1200 years in the past, guerilla tactics were already being practiced!
Okay, I'll stop ranting now and move along to questions- (my first question was above)
2)The big question: Why did the Mayan civilization vanish. It seems as though (at least to me) the Mayan civilization vanished out of thing air. What caused this sudden change?
3)Could the Tula be considered an extension of the Mayan civilization? Or could it have indirectly contributed the Mayan downfall?
That's all I have for now, and I hope that I gave Emma a run for her money ;)
After the reading, I was more interested in two things- mayan art (stairway in Copan), and Tula.
I found it interesting that the "stairway had the longest single glyphic text at an Mayan site" http://www.enjoyhonduras.com/copan.htm thats a good website
I researched some of Tula's pyramid's and some sites with pictures: http://www.nativeweb.org/pages/pyramids/tula.html
http://latinamericanhistory.suite101.com/article.cfm/tula_capital_of_the_toltecs I also had a question- why was propaganda the only surviving written evidence?
When I was reading I tried to find more information about the Tula, but I couldn't find much. There was a lot of talk about astrology, so i found this Mayan calendar. I was also interested in Mayan Blue, so I found this secret to the Mayan Blue article
17 comments:
I was interested in finding out more about the crop called maize, now known commonly as corn. I found this article entitled "Corn's slow path to stardom: archeologists rewrite the history of maize - and New World civilization" , written by Janet Raloff and published by Science News in 1993. This article describes maize as "the gift of the gods". There are many variations in the maize crop. The article suggests that the emergence of the maize crop was one of the reasons for the transition from hunter-gatherer to agriculture. Maize was a crop that could be grown in plentiful amounts, enough to feed a large population, and for that reason was greatly appreciated and adored. This reminded me of Jared Diamond's article from earlier this year--people switched to farming because it could feed more people, and therefore, as it states in the reading, "villages got larger".
I was also interested in finding out what the burial urns on Marajo Island looked like. I found this
article
from the New York Times. If you scroll down to about the middle of the page, there's a funerary urn from the Museum at Marajo.
Then I found another funerary urn from Marajo Island:
Replica of Funerary Urn
Lastly, I was interested in finding out a little more about the metropolis Tula. I found this short site that explains a little about the history and architectural sites in
Tula
Teotihuacan
It was the largest pre-Columbian city in the Americas in the 1st millennium. It had a total area of 82km squared and located northeast of Mexico City. It influenced many other cities and such around it. In the city it is thought that there were many people who lived there including the Maya, Zapotec, Mixtec, and Nahua. The city is famous for its temple of the sun and avenue of the dead.
In the beginning of the reading it mentions that in Copan which is in northern Honduras there is a monumental stairway were records were kept of ruling dynasties. I was wondering where this was and I found this map . I also found a picture of the ruins. (Monumental stairway)
In the reading it talked about how astronomy and time keeping were really important to the Mayans. Why did other civilizations in history not seem to care as much about these 2 things? This website gives some good details about timekeeping in the Mayan Civilization.
This website has a lot of information on the Maya Astronomy, Calendar, Writings, Geography, pictures, and much more. A lot of the stuff on this website is very interesting and it goes into a lot of depth.
I was interesting in finding out more about Mayan timekeeping and the Mayan calendar. This websitegives some background about the Mayan civilization and also talks about Mayan Timekeeping. According to the article the Mayans studied time more than any other culture and had a very "deep understanding of time". Today one standard calendar is typically used, but the Mayans had many different counts each of which had their own importance. Also, it says in that article that "the word calendar is somewhat inappropriate, as the Mayan time system had less to do with sums and accounts as it did with astronomy.
Picture of Mayan Calendar
After the reading I wanted to find out a little more information about Tula... I've heard about most civilizations and cities in Central America, but Tula was new to me, so I looked it up on Wikipedia...
Right away, I saw this picture of some statues in Tula that are really cool.
Apparently, Tula was the capital of the Toltec civilization around 980 CE, but it didn't last very long because it was abandoned by the twelfth century.
Next, I found the Encyclopedia Britannica article about Tula. I found out some pretty interesting stuff, like the five-stepped pyramid in the city that was dedicated to the Quetzalcoatl. The Quetzalcoatl was a feathered serpent that was really important to the inhabitants of Tula. I found a nice picture of the Quetzalcoatl.
On one last note, the article said that Tula and the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, which makes me wonder how much communication these Central American civilizations had.
I decided to look up some more about the importance of bloodletting in Mayan societies. Bloodletting was a very public event among the elite, and the rulers would often do it in places like on top of raised platforms or in public squares.Different body parts were sometimes pierced for different purposes, such as genitals being pierced sometimes represented fertility.
If most of the written records are propaganda, then how much do we really know about it? And how do we know that it is propaganda? There has to be an accurate description for people to think that the information we have is propaganda, doesn’t there?
Here is a picture of the Mayan serpents.
Some interesting things I learned about bloodletting is that the Mayans most commonly used pieces of glass and serpent teeth in bloodletting instruments. The ch'awil ch'ajan, which means 'waxed string' is another thing that was used in bloodletting. It is a ball of wax with pieces of glass embedded into it. Then the ball is attached to a string and can be used for self-flagellation, and also as a punishment for other people. Here is a picture of the ch'awil ch'ajan.
Since maize was so important to the Mayans, they had a maize god. Here is a picture of him. This sculpture is another depiction of the maize god.
Although this wasn’t in the Mayan civilization, there was a myth as to the origins of maize. This is a picture of the Mother of Maize and her five daughters. To read the myth,
click here.
MR. GOLDBERG, I told you I would have an amazing blog post, and you said the "threshold was lifted" for the standards of the blog posting so I hope this can suffice!
First, I found a really cool map of the mayan civilizations.
I saw the Mayan gods mentioned, so I immediately wanted to find out who some specific Mayan gods were. I was first taken to crystal links which told me that there was a winged serpent god name Kukulcan who was said to have lived in the pyramid of the sun in Teotihuacan. I looked that up on wikipedia (which is the link I just gave you) and apparently this pyramid is a huge deal. It is the largest building in Teotihuacan and one of the largest in Mesoamerica. There is a whole "avenue of the dead" where a bunch of these sacred temples are. If you click on the link you can see a picture, its pretty impressive. Here is a map of the Avenue of the Dead with all of the temples.
The name "Pyramid of the sun" was actually given by Aztecas, who visited the temple after it was no longer in use.
Other gods/goddesses included a sun god, suicide goddess, maize god, rainbow god, and virgin goddess.
I also saw some place called copan Honduras and if you click the link there is a map. There are a lot of
ruins there that people still visit.
I didn’t do a whole lot about looking into astrology because I figured other people would, but I did find this Maya Calendar converter that you can put any date in and it will tell you what the Mayan date is.
I also had a question about the bloodletting rituals. I researched it but I could not find the answer to my question. The reading mentions that the mayan monarchs inhaled the smoke from their blood, did this give them any sicknesses/diseases?
The reading mentioned a stone carving at Tikal. First I wanted to know where Tikal was, so I found a map with Tikal on it (here it is spelled Tical) and a picture of the ruins now. They must have been pretty spectacular when people were still living in them of they look this good now.
Of course, I had to look into the maize, because it seemed very important to the Americas. I don’t know exactly when it was painted, but I found this
painting of the Mayans planting maize. There is also this statue from India of someone holding some maize. It is labeled as (pre columbian india) and also a
statue of the Mayan Maize god.
Haha Emma that was an amazing blog post.
Anyway I wanted research more about the dissapearance of the Aztecs.Well I went to Wikipedia to find of course the article of the Aztecs. I found a paragraph which i sent to Mr. Goldberg that said "In 1520-1521, an outbreak of smallpox swept through the population of Tenochtitlan and was decisive in the fall of the city. It is estimated that between 10% and 50% of the population fell victim to this epidemic.
Subsequently, the Valley of Mexico was hit with two more epidemics, smallpox (1545-1548) and typhus (1576-1581). The Spaniards, to consolidate the diminishing population, merged the survivors from small towns in the Valley of Mexico into bigger ones. This broke the power of the upper classes, but did not dissolve the coherence of the indigenous society in greater Mexico.
The population before the time of the conquest is unknown and hotly contested,[6] but disease is known to have ravaged the region; thus, the indigenous population of the Valley of Mexico is estimated to have declined by more than 80% in the course of about 60 years.[7]". This is very interesting as to the "extinction" of the Aztecs. However I have found no source of the Aztecs belief of vanishing, besides the epidemics. Yet, I'm still astonished that there isn't any evidence of as to why they dissapeared.
In the reading it mentioned how important corn way but, I don't think that it stressed enough how important corn was. Some cultures(Zuni tribe and others) literally worship corn. In a Zuni myth corn maidens the maidens were separated from the Zuni by witches and the corn wouldn't grow anymore so the Zuni tribe had a famish. So the tribe set out twins who asked the witches to leave and bring back the corn maidens. So in the end the maidens came back and the famish was over and ever since they worship the corn maidens so they can have life(corn).
The Mayan also had a lot of corn so much in fact that it was used in almost every dish including chocolate. They also discovered how to make Hominy by mixing corn with lime(the stone not fruit) paste.
From the reading I deduced that the religious grouping had more power than the monarchy due to the fact that the king had to cut his penis and the queen had to cut their tongue. Is this assumption right, and if not why would any person with power not fight to find a way where they wouldn't have to cut themselves in very painful places more than once.
I also thought it was interesting how the book focused on maize when talking about the trade of food and other goods. You would think that they would talk about other goods such as gold instead. I suspect the reason that they did this is because maize was a very common thing that was traded during that time, probably more so than gold, and it was probably found all over the Americas. Which leads me to my second question; why did the civilizations trade maize when most of them had some already? Or did i just misunderstand the reading?
I found it interesting that it said that they extravagantly buried their dead. Why exactly did they do so? Was it for a religious cause? Did they believe in and afterlife or was it simply to honor their dead. It can be compared to the mummy's in Egypt, how the royals and nobles were extravagantly buried. In the Americas, was it just the royals who were buried this way or was everyone buried with what they had?
After what I heard from Mr Goldberg today, i wanted to know a little more about Mayan sacrifice... While going through the "Sacrifice in Maya Culture" wiki, I came across a very interesting quote that Mr. Goldberg touched on a little bit today...
"Some contend the idea of Mayans sacrificing their people came from Western historians' downplay of an advanced civilization to create the idea that the "savages" of North and South America deserved their eventual bloody downfall."
There were two types of sacrifice, autosacrifice, and human sacrifice... Obviously we know what human sacrifice is.. Autosacrifice is more along the lines of bloodletting (Mr. Goldberg kind of talked baout this today also..)
The most intriguing thing i found on the wiki was this quote..
"To the Mayan people, as is similar in all peoples indigenous to the Western hemisphere, value was not in possessions or material items; rather, the value of life was the most important aspect of their religion and beliefs. In indigenous eyes, it was the foreigners' desire for the gold and gems that drove them to the massacring of the Mayans,"
First, just for a reference point, I looked up the location of Tula. I found this map showing where it is in modern-day Mexico. I also discovered this which depicts the layout of Tula.
Because of all the weird religious stuff the Mayans did, I decided to look and see what kind of gods or goddesses they worshipped, since I don't remember it being mentioned in a reading before (I could be wrong). I found this site, which lists the different Mayan deities and shows depictions of them. For example, there's Hunab Ku, the supreme/creator god; Cizin, the god of death and violent sacrifice; and the rain god Chac, among others.
I did have one question: What kind of hallucinatory drugs did the Mayans have access to for their bloodletting ceremonies?
I definitely will not be able to match the scope and depth of Emma's post, however, I'll give it a run for its money :) (Or at least I hope)
For my post, I decided to find out more about the Maya. Now I know that the Maya were a HUGE civilization with many different parts. Clearly I will not be able to cover all this in one blog post, so I decided to focus on a couple of aspects of the Maya.
One aspect I was interested in, was when the reading mentioned that war must have served a useful purpose in their society. This completely took me by surprise. Honestly, how can war be a good thing? It generally causes death and destruction, leaves the economy and general infrastructure in a shambles and leads to a large loss of life, which can cause many problems.
So for my first question-
1) How can war be a good thing?
I went back a did a bit of research and
found (to my surprise) that war was important to the Maya for a couple of reasons. The main reason was the obtaining of sacrificial victims. I certainly wouldn't want to be conquered if I was in the Mayan civilization…
Another reason for war being a good thing in the Mayan society was that they used it to set competitive rivalries among one another. I can see why this would be useful for the Mayan civilization. Without competition, there is no incentive to do better and make better technology. For example in today's world, computers wouldn't get any better if the computer companies didn't have competition that was trying to outdo them…
The final reason is the acquiring of resources and trade routes. For the former, I can see why it would be so important to the Maya. Obsidian was almost the "oil" of today. Without it, the Mayan tribe couldn't survive, just like the societies today (USA, China and the UK, to name a few) who cannot survive without oil (and more importantly low oil prices) Back to the Maya. In addition to acquiring critical resources, the Mayans also needed to conquer trade routes. Just like in today's world, the trade routes were what built the Mayan civilization.
Something that also surprised me were how advanced the Mayan tactics of warfare were. For an civilization that was called "backward" by the Spanish when they landed, they certainly had better tactics than their counterparts in Europe (at the time). The Mayans defended their cities using various earthworks, which seemed incredibly advanced for the time. In Europe, yes, they had stone walls, but the Mayans developed clear ways to defend their cities in ways that didn't require walls.
One such defense mechanism was the Mayan Killing alley. The Mayans would build two walls to defend their city, and they would keep the inner wall closed but allow the enemy to rush in through the outer wall. The gates to the outer wall would then close, sealing the enemy inside, where they could be killed in great numbers.
Another thing that amazed me when I was looking at Mayan Warfare was their development of guerilla warfare. Most agree that the Revolutionary War was the first war where guerilla tactics were used for the first time against a "conventional" army, yet nearly 1200 years in the past, guerilla tactics were already being practiced!
Okay, I'll stop ranting now and move along to questions-
(my first question was above)
2)The big question: Why did the Mayan civilization vanish. It seems as though (at least to me) the Mayan civilization vanished out of thing air. What caused this sudden change?
3)Could the Tula be considered an extension of the Mayan civilization? Or could it have indirectly contributed the Mayan downfall?
That's all I have for now, and I hope that I gave Emma a run for her money ;)
After the reading, I was more interested in two things- mayan art (stairway in Copan), and Tula.
I found it interesting that the "stairway had the longest single glyphic text at an Mayan site" http://www.enjoyhonduras.com/copan.htm
thats a good website
I researched some of Tula's pyramid's and some sites with pictures:
http://www.nativeweb.org/pages/pyramids/tula.html
http://latinamericanhistory.suite101.com/article.cfm/tula_capital_of_the_toltecs
I also had a question- why was propaganda the only surviving written evidence?
When I was reading I tried to find more information about the Tula, but I couldn't find much. There was a lot of talk about astrology, so i found this
Mayan calendar. I was also interested in Mayan Blue, so I found this secret to the Mayan Blue article
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