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The Maya Civilization PDF

The Maya civilization developed in southeastern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras and El Salvador, known for its hieroglyphic writing system and advanced art, architecture, mathematics and astronomy. The Maya organized around divine kings who mediated between mortals and gods, with power passing to eldest sons. They practiced human sacrifice and developed cities with palaces, temples and ballcourts linked by causeways. The literate Maya elite recorded history and knowledge in books, on ceramics and stelae using their complex calendrical and mathematical systems, including the concept of zero.

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257 views2 pages

The Maya Civilization PDF

The Maya civilization developed in southeastern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras and El Salvador, known for its hieroglyphic writing system and advanced art, architecture, mathematics and astronomy. The Maya organized around divine kings who mediated between mortals and gods, with power passing to eldest sons. They practiced human sacrifice and developed cities with palaces, temples and ballcourts linked by causeways. The literate Maya elite recorded history and knowledge in books, on ceramics and stelae using their complex calendrical and mathematical systems, including the concept of zero.

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AbiGael Garcia
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© © All Rights Reserved
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3/24/2020 The Maya Civilization

READING
Reading Comprehension - The Maya Civilization

Develop your reading skills. Read the following text and do the
comprehension questions

The Maya civilization was a Mesoamerican civilization


developed by the Maya peoples in an area that
encompasses southeastern Mexico, all of Guatemala
and Belize, and the western portions of Honduras and El
Salvador. The Maya civilization is known for the Maya
hieroglyphic script, the only known fully developed
writing system of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well
as for its art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems.

Politics and religion


The Maya civilization developed from the the Archaic period, prior to 2000 BC, to the fall of the
last Maya city in 1697 by the Spanish Empire. Classic period rule was centered around the
concept of the "divine king", who acted as a mediator between mortals and the supernatural
realm. Kingship was patrilineal, and power would normally pass to the eldest son. A prospective
king was also expected to be a successful war leader. Maya politics was dominated by a closed
system of patronage, although the exact political make-up of a kingdom varied from city-state
to city-state. By the Late Classic, the aristocracy had greatly increased, resulting in the
corresponding reduction in the exclusive power of the divine king. As a part of their religion, the
Maya practiced human sacrifice.

Art
The Maya civilization developed highly sophisticated artforms, and the Maya created art using
both perishable and non-perishable materials, including wood, jade, obsidian, ceramics, sculpted
stone monuments, stucco, and finely painted murals.

Maya cities

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3/24/2020 The Maya Civilization

Maya cities tended to expand haphazardly, and the city center would be occupied by
commercial and administrative complexes, surrounded by an irregular sprawl of residential
districts. Different parts of a city would often be linked by causeways, a sort of paved roads. The
principal architecture of the city consisted of palaces, pyramid-temples, ceremonial ballcourts,
and structures aligned for astronomical observation.

Literate elite
The Maya elite were literate, and developed a complex system of hieroglyphic writing that was
the most advanced in the pre-Columbian Americas. The Maya recorded their history and ritual
knowledge in screenfold books, of which only three uncontested examples remain, the rest
having been destroyed by the Spanish. There are also a great many examples of Maya text
found on ceramics and stelae, a kind of monuments that consist of tall sculpted stone shafts.
The Maya developed a highly complex series of interlocking ritual calendars, and employed
mathematics that included one of the earliest instances of the explicit zero in the world.

Source: Wikipedia

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