Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The Maya relied on a strong middle class of skilled and semi-skilled workers and artisans which produced both commodities and specialized goods. [1] Governing this middle class was a smaller class of specially educated merchant governors who would direct regional economies based upon simple supply and demand analysis, and place mass orders for other regions.
Common cocoa seed that would be used to make hot chocolate. Chocolate: The cocoa tree is native to Maya territory, and the Maya are believed to be the first people to have cultivated the cacao plant for food. [25] For the ancient Maya, cocoa was a sacred gift from the gods. [26] The cocoa plant, theobroma, literally translates to "food of the ...
Copan, 'Reviewing Stand' with simian musicians Labna, Palace, vaulted passage. The layout of the Maya towns and cities, and more particularly of the ceremonial centers where the royal families and courtiers resided, is characterized by the rhythm of immense horizontal stucco floors of plazas often located at various levels, connected by broad and often steep stairs, and surmounted by temple ...
Journalist John Noble Wilford notes that evidence for marketplace activity demonstrates an advanced economic structure. Archeologist Richard Terry used a method of chemical analysis to compare the soil of the ruins of Chunchucmil, an ancient Maya city, to that of a modern, unpaved market in Antigua, Guatemala, revealing that it was likely once a vibrant market. [5]
Maya households interred their dead underneath the floors, with offerings appropriate to the social status of the family. There the dead could act as protective ancestors. Maya lineages were patrilineal, so the worship of a prominent male ancestor would be emphasised, often with a household shrine.
Maya ceramics are made from two main types of materials that relate to their social structure, limestone and volcanic ash. Most of the land around the Mayans was limestone, which is where calcite comes from. These were mainly made as gifts and given to make local alliances, and these vessels are found in a more localized area.
Maya architecture can be identified, depending on the region and the corresponding period, into different styles. The regional architectural styles have unique characteristics, features and elements that show diverse social and political aspects of the different regions and history periods of the Maya civilization.
Maya textiles (k’apak) are the clothing and other textile arts of the Maya peoples, indigenous peoples of the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Belize. Women have traditionally created textiles in Maya society , and textiles were a significant form of ancient Maya art and religious beliefs .