The Maya And The Mayan Civilization - 1439 Words

The Maya were a people from Middle America, which includes modern Guatemala, Southern Mexico, and Northern Belize (Editors). The Maya civilization was considered to be â€Å"one of the most dominant indigenous societies of Mesoamerica,† (Maya). â€Å"The Maya excelled at agriculture, pottery, hieroglyph writing, calendar-making, and mathematics, and left behind an astonishing amount of impressive architecture and symbolic artwork,† (Maya). They also gave mankind the modern calendar (Jarus, Maya). The Mayans were a very advanced people, but one of the most important things in the Mayan culture was their religion/god worshipping rituals. The Mayans were an architectural type of people who based some of their masterpieces off of their religion. The†¦show more content†¦These were said to have been very big, joyous celebrations with lots of drinking and merrymaking between neighboring friends and family. The Mayans ate a lot of things at these parties, including vegetable stews, roasted meats, maize cakes and the desirable cocoa. As their guests left their extravagant party, the Mayans would give their guests a gift, almost like a goody bag, but the host would give their attendees a vase and a pedestal. This is like when your grandmother gives you some food take home after visiting her. Every Mayan person would have to these feasts, even the poor. In return for going to someone’s party, one had to throw their own party and invite them; the only people who did not have to exactly return the favor would have been poor. As mentioned before, every person had to throw the feast. If the person died before the y could throw their extravagant party, their heir would have to throw that party; there was no getting past that (McManus). Though this had a role in the lives of the Mayans, this was still little of what the Mayans did. One very interesting thing about the Mayans was that they had a very different view of creation than most common belief systems. The Mayans believed that the earth was just a plain old watery void to start out. Then, animals and plants came into the earth’s wide picture (Jarus). It was just animals and plants on the planet--no humans. But the gods needed humans, something or someone to worship them. The godsShow MoreRelatedThe Mayan Civilization And The Maya Empire1677 Words   |  7 Pages The Mayan civilization or the Maya Empire, centered in the tropical lowlands of what is now Guatemala, reached the peak of its power and influence around the sixth century A.D. The Maya excelled at agriculture, pottery, hieroglyph writing, calendar-making and mathematics, and left behind an astonishing amount of impressive architecture and symbolic artwork. Most of the great stone cities of the Maya were abandoned by A.D. 900. 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