Mayan Development
By Elena
Did you know the Maya were thought to have known astronomy better than any other civilization outside of Mesoamerica? The Maya were a very well developed civilization. The Maya created a calendar and they made their own tools to help them with everyday life. The Mayans were highly advanced in astronomy, mathematics, and they made many discoveries.
The Maya believed Venus to be more important than the sun. They had an almanac that displayed the full cycle of Venus, in the Dresden Codex (see Maya gallery). They counted five sets of 584 days, that is 2,920 days, which is about eight years or five repetitions of the Venus cycle. The Mayans based many of their wars on the stationary points of Venus and Jupiter. After Superior Conjunction, a time when a planet or object in space is located on the opposite side of the sun from earth-when Venus was at its dimmest magnitude, humans were sacrificed. After Inferior Conjunction, the alignment of the earth and a planet on the same side of the sun, was known to be the most feared time, though.
The Maya watched the sun trace out a path along the ecliptic. They followed the sun's path along the horizon. During sunset at Chichen Itza, an ancient Mayan city, a sun serpent rose up the side of the stairway of the pyramid called El Castillo on the day of spring and autumn. The Maya distinguished the limitations of the sun at the solstices and equinoxes when the sun appeared to rise due east or due west. Zenial Passages-a time when the sun crossed over the Mayan latitudes-and ecliptic observations-the examination of a great circle inscribed on a terrestrial globe inclined at about 23º to the equator and representing the apparent motion of the sun in relation to the earth during a year-must have been a major portion of Maya solar observing.
The Maya made calendars by studying the sky. Mayan priests studied the changing positions of the sun and stars through openings in caraculs-high stone towers with winding stairways inside. Mayans learned that it took a little more than 365 days to make a year and for the stars to return to the same position. The Maya made a calendar with 18 months, 20 days in a month and one month with five days. The calendar was used to tell the Maya when to plant their crops, harvest them, and when to celebrate their festivals. The Maya also studied the moon, and found that it took 29 to 30 days from one full moon to another. The Maya knew how to tell when any eclipses would take place. Another name for the constellations on the ecliptic is the zodiac.
The Maya called the Milky Way the World Tree, as well as Wakah Chan. Wak meant "6" or "erect." Chan or k'an meant "4," "serpent" or "sky." During the winter, the Maya called the Milky Way the "White Boned Serpent."
Mayans not only knew how to use mortar, but they also knew how to make it. They heated limestone in a kiln, until it became a powder called lime. Then they mixed the lime with water until it became a thick paste called mortar. Mayans used mortar for their buildings, such as; temples, houses, and just simply for walls.
More than 3,000 years ago the Maya knew how to make work easier by making simple tools to help them with everyday life. The Maya made hammers and chisels of stone. These tools were used to carve and cut stone blocks and cut down trees. Over a fire, Mayans hardened long, strong sticks at the end. These sticks were used for digging holes to plant their corn, beans, squash, tomatoes and yams. The Maya used a grinding stone called a kab to pound corn.
By blowing into shells and tubes and striking things together, the Maya made musical sounds. Mayans used anything around them to make simple musical instruments. They used large turtle shells and hollowed out logs with deerskin stretched over the top as drums. Deer horns were used as drumsticks. In place of trumpets, the Maya used large seashells. In place of flutes, they shaped clay into tubes, made finger wholes, and blew into them. Their instruments were used for holidays and festivals.
Using a white liquid, (today called latex) that came out of certain trees, Mayans made and used rubber. The Maya called this tree Cau-uchu which meant "weeping wood." They collected the liquid in pots, and then dipped the end of a stick into the white liquid. They then dried the liquid over a smoky fire. The Mayans repeated this over and over until the rubber was thick enough to slide off and roll into a ball. Sometimes the Maya did this on their feet and used the rubber for shoes. The Maya were the first people to make "rubber shoes."
The Maya used 20 as their base number, instead of ten. Their number system used a dot for 1 and a bar for 5. However, this only applied to numbers 1-19. Their number system was easy to add and subtract with because it only consisted of taking away bars and dots. They wrote their numbers from bottom to top. The Maya did not use fractions, though. To do calculations Mayan merchants would lay cocoa beans on the ground.
In conclusion, the Mayans were a very well developed civilization, as sophisticated as the European and Asian cultures. They contributed to many of our discoveries today. They created many things, and had ways to entertain each other as well.