Category: Mayan Civilization

The Mayan civilization originated from the Mesoamerican civilization. Mesoamerica is a historical and cultural place in North America. It extends from approximately central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. The Mayan civilization was one of the most powerful civilizations to ever exist in history in the region that is now known as Central America. The Mayans created huge stone temples and pyramids, elaborate artwork, and a complex system of Hieroglyphics. It was around 2000 BC to 250 AD that the first establishment of the Mayans was ever created. The Mayans had many small cities, all of which lived separate lives and were ruled under a separate leader. But they all shared a common culture. This made up the Mayan Civilization.

The Mayans worshipped the Nature Gods – the Gods of the sun, the moon, the rain, and corn. According to the Mayan folklore, the Popol Vuh, a book that contains the legends of the Mayas, the Gods began by creating the earth and the sky. Next, they made animals, birds, and flying creatures. But the only problem was that animals could not speak and worship Gods. So the Gods decided to make humans. The first humans were created from mud, but they crumbled back into the dirt. Then the Gods made humans out of wood, but they were very arrogant. They were strong but they did not worship the Gods. So the Gods drowned the wooden people in the flood. Finally, The Gods decided to try for the last time and made human beings out of white and yellow corn. The Mayans believed that the precious corn was the material that produced humans who would worship the Gods. Thus the humans started cultivating corn, beans, squash, and chili peppers. They would have hunted deer, monkeys, and rabbits.

After some time, these small ranches where the Mayans lived formed into perpetual settlements – towns, and towns. By 750 BC these towns formed into greater, progressively advanced urban areas, home to 1,00,000 people. The lower class lived in cottages made out of posts and vines and put with mud; however, the higher class lived in tremendous stone castles. Maya urban communities were the focal point of their way of life. As their urban communities developed, the Maya constructed expanded ventured stone pyramids, cleared streets and raised highways, wide squares with tall stone landmarks, and special stepped areas for strict penances.

Penance was significant in Maya culture. A contribution of blood was viewed as nourishment or sustenance for the divine beings. Here and there the Maya would cut themselves and offer their blood to the divine beings. On some occasions, they would forfeit creatures. Human penance was generally constrained to significant occasions, similar to the devotion of another sanctuary or then again another lord, or times of difficulty, similar to starvation, dry spell, or war.

War was very frequently held in the lands of the Maya. They were not brought together under a solitary ruler. Rather, every city and its encompassing area was governed by its own ruler, or ‘blessed master,’ who professed to be identified with the divine beings and speak with them for their kin. These little rulers battled each other for assets, for a domain, and for power. It was regular for warriors to make little strikes into their neighbor’s region, taking prisoners and what’s more, plundering their wealth. Detainees were now and again tormented and compelled to play the ballgame, after which they would be yielded.

Around 300 BC, the Maya started to write. Rather than 26 letters, similar to the English letter set, the Maya utilized in excess of 800 diverse hieroglyphs. A portion of the hieroglyphs spoke to words, while others spoke to syllables that could be consolidated to illuminate words and compose sentences. The Maya made paper books from the internal bark of trees that collapsed up like an accordion. A book of this sort is known as a codex.

In the sixteenth century, everything except a bunch of the Maya codices was signed by Spanish clerics. Luckily, the Maya left composed records in numerous different spots, cut in stone in sanctuaries, models, and landmarks, which lets us sort out a portion of their history.

The Maya have been called by some the best craftsmen in Mesoamerica. Despite the fact that they had no metal instruments, they were master carvers, making elaborate items out of bone, rock, and jade. They cut the stone of their structures – the dividers, the entryways, and the stairs. They cut their conciliatory raised areas and the markers of the ball courts. The greater part of all, they cut landmarks to their lords and their warriors, recording triumphs also, significant occasions for their history. The Maya were additionally gifted in ceramics, making stoneware of a wide range of shapes and sizes. Cups, bowls, plates, and jars were regularly extravagantly enhanced with artistic creations or carvings, in some cases even with hieroglyphic composing. The Maya likewise made nitty-gritty and sensible dolls looking like individuals and creatures. Albeit hardly any models endure the tropical atmosphere of the Maya country, they likewise made delightful works of art and paintings. The absolute most brilliant and most clear wall paintings staying utilized unique shading called Maya blue. This splendid blue shading was exceptionally solid and didn’t blur as urban areas were surpassed by wilderness. After the fall of Maya progress, the key to making this shading was lost, bewildering scientific experts, what’s more, craftsmen the same for a long time.

At the stature of their culture, the Maya populace may have topped 5 million individuals, yet around 900 AD, their human progress started to decrease. It didn’t fall at the same time – in light of the fact that it was never a realm under a united leader; the fall was moderate and slow. Individually, urban communities fell into bedlam and were surrendered to be recovered by the wilderness, yet nobody is extremely certain why. Several musings have been considered.

In the 8th and 9th centuries, alliances had started breaking down, trade declined and intense conflicts spiraled out, thus ending the Maya civilization. Maybe the population became unreasonably enormous for the land to deliver enough nourishment for everybody to eat. Indeed, even a long dry season could have made individuals surrender their urban areas. When the Spanish landed during the 1500s, most Maya was living in little cultivating towns, their antiquated stone urban areas overlooked and lost underneath a layer of living wilderness.

The Maya were one of the most suffering and longest-enduring human advancements in the history of the world. Numerous individuals have pondered, where did they go? In all actuality, the Maya are not gone. A great many Maya still lives in their hereditary country in the Yucatan, communicating in Mayan dialects furthermore, rehearsing the customs of their kin. Concerning the old Maya, we are as yet finding out about them.

Numerous Maya structures are covered up in the wildernesses of the Yucatan, congested and simply pausing for wayfarers and archaeologists to discover them. Pyramids and urban communities, just as the antiques and fortunes inside them, are continually being found. As they seem to be, archaeologists have added and tried to add more pieces to the riddle and improve our comprehension of the Maya, the ancient builders of Mesoamerica.

Sumer was an old development established in the Mesopotamia area of the Fertile Crescent arranged between the Tigris and Euphrates streams. Known for their advancements in language, administration, design and the sky is the limit from there; Sumerians are viewed as the makers of development as present-day people get it. Their control of the district went on for shy of 2,000 years before the Babylonians assumed responsibility in 2004 B.C.

Sumer was first settled by people from 4500 to 4000 B.C.; however, it is likely that a few pilgrims showed up a lot before. This early populace—known as the Ubaid individuals—was outstanding for strides in the advancement of human progress, for example, cultivating and raising steers, weaving materials, working with carpentry and stoneware, and in any event, getting a charge out of lager. The individuals known as Sumerians were in charge of the region by 3000 B.C. Their way of life has contained a gathering of towns, including Eridu, Nippur, Lagash, Kish, Ur, and the absolute first evident city, Uruk. Every city province of Sumer was encompassed by a divider, with towns settled simply outside and recognized by the love of nearby gods.

The Sumerian development of cuneiform—a Latin expression actually signifying ‘wedge-molded’— dates to at some point around 3400 B.C. In its most modern structure, it comprised of a few hundred characters that antiquated copyists used to compose words or syllables on wet mud tablets with a reed stylus. The tablets were then prepared or left in the sun to solidify. The Sumerians appear to have first created cuneiform for the unremarkable reasons for keeping records and records of business exchanges, yet after some time it bloomed into an undeniable composing framework utilized for everything from verse and history to law codes and writing. Since the content could be adjusted to various dialects, it was later utilized through the span of a few centuries by in excess of twelve unique societies. Truth be told, archaeologists have discovered proof that Near East galactic writings were all the while being written in cuneiform as of late as the principal century A.D.

Design on a fabulous scale is commonly credited to have started under the Sumerians, with strict structures going back to 3400 B.C., in spite of the fact that apparently the nuts and bolts of the structures started in the Ubaid time frame as far back as 5200 B.C. what’s more, were enhanced as the centuries progressed. Homes were produced using mud blocks or packaged swamp reeds. The structures are noted for their curved entryways and level rooftops. The model was utilized for the most part to enhance sanctuaries and offer probably the soonest instances of human craftsmen looking to accomplish some type of naturalism in their figures. Confronting a shortage of stone, Sumerians made jumps in metal-throwing for their model work, however, alleviation cutting in stone was a mainstream artistic expression.

Ziggurats started to show up around 2200 B.C. This great pyramid-like, ventured sanctuaries, which were either square or rectangular, included no inward chambers and remained around 170 feet high. Ziggurats frequently included slanting sides and porches with gardens. One of these was the Hanging garden of Babylon.

The most renowned of the early Sumerian rulers is Gilgamesh, lord of Uruk, who took control around 2700 B.C. Something close to 2600 B.C., a force battle ejected between the pioneers of Kish, Erech, and Ur, which set off an ‘a game of seat juggling’ situation of rulers for the area for the following 400 years. In 2500 B.C. the first lady to rule the Sumerians, Kubaba, took the royal position. She is the main female recorded on the Sumerian King List, which names all leaders of Sumer and their achievements. Kubaba’s child, Puzur-Suen, in the long run-ruled, gets the fourth line of Kish, following a short ascendency of Unzip, the first in the Akshak Dynasty. This last Kish line was administered for a century before Uruk lord Lugal-page-si controlled for a long time before Sargon took control in 2234.

Sumerian science at first grew generally as a reaction to bureaucratic needs when their human progress settled and created agribusiness. They were maybe the primary individuals to dole out images to gatherings of articles trying to make the depiction of bigger numbers simpler. They moved from utilizing separate tokens or images to speak to piles of wheat, containers of oil, and so on, to the more conceptual utilization of an image for explicit quantities of anything. Beginning as ahead of schedule as the fourth thousand years BCE, they started utilizing a little mud cone to speak to one, a mud ball for ten, and an enormous cone for sixty.

Sumerian and Babylonian science depended on base 60 numeric framework. Babylonian numbers utilized a genuine spot esteem framework, where digits written in the left section spoke to bigger qualities, much as in the cutting edge decimal framework, in spite of the fact that obviously utilizing base 60 not base 10.

The Babylonians additionally built up another progressive numerical idea, something different than the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans didn’t have, a hover character for zero, in spite of the fact that its image was truly still to a greater degree a placeholder than a number in its own right.

It is also mused that Babylonians may well have known the mystery of right-calculated triangles (that the square of the hypotenuse rises to the aggregate of the square of the other different sides) numerous hundreds of years before the Greek Pythagoras. The tablet seems to list 15 ideal Pythagorean triangles with entire number sides, albeit some case that they were simply scholastic activities, and not think signs of Pythagorean triples.

The Mayan civilization left the inhabitants of the earth a message written in stone, with seven prophecies that warn us of several coming events, while giving us a message of hope. Although the Mayan calendar culminated on December 21, 2012, these so-called “prophecies” are still to be fulfilled or are already being developed. The message of hope tells us about the changes we must make in ourselves to push humanity towards the new era. If we don’t do them, we will disappear.

The Mayans used to call these warnings predictions, since the prophecies refer to visions of a clairvoyant about the future, while the predictions are based on observation and statistics, such as a meteorological or stellar observatory. The Maya had such observatories, and there they calculated their predictions, which are loaded with high spiritual content.

From the beginning of their civilization, in 4 Ahau 8 Cumku (3113 B.C.), the Mayans told us about “the end of fear” or “time of no-time”, and warned us that on December 21, 2012, 5125 years later, our world of materialism would end, having the following 20 years, the options of both extinction and humanity, or of evolving towards the harmonic association with the universe, by understanding that we are part of a “whole” that is alive and conscious.

In these times, heaven will mix with the worst of hell. The main reason for this will be the so-called ‘industrial civilization, which in its ambition to accumulate economic powers, has deteriorated the life of Mother Earth, lowering its natural vibration. Therefore, it will be destroyed along with its material goods, and with all those who do not want to leave it and return to their spiritual nature.

Years before 2012, humanity has felt that the era of the Apocalypse is being lived, and although this word is scary, it literally means ‘revelation’, and in these times, many hidden things are being revealed. The Mayans had already predicted this, we are at that time without any doubt.

The Mayans left us their warning in the predictions, looking for humanity to meet the dawn of the galaxy, the new era in which there will be no more chaos or destruction. For the Maya, the universal processes are like the breath of the galaxy, they are cyclic and never change, what changes are the consciousness of the man who passes through them, always in a process towards perfection.

We must bear in mind that when the Mayan predictions do not sound very positive, it is because the Mayans warn us of what can happen if we do not change, but if we become aware, they can be overcome, achieving as humanity to learn what had to be learned, to move towards a better future.

The first Mayan prediction, and the most famous, although very distorted today, tell us about the “time of non-time”, a period of 20 years from December 21, 2012, called “Hun Katun”; the last 20 years of this great solar cycle. But what happened that day? The sun, whom the Mayans consider a living being and what they call ‘Kinich Ahau’, received a strong synchronizing ray (what our scientists call solar eruptions and magnetic changes) from the center of the galaxy (Hunab Ku), changing its polarity, so that mankind, from that day on, must be prepared to receive this radiation, changing the generalized state of fear, for one of more harmony, beginning the new era, the sixth cycle of the sun.

The radiation received from the center of the Galaxy increased vibration, also causing physical changes in the Sun and Earth, and psychological changes in humanity, transforming social, economic and justice systems, also changing religious beliefs, facing the man to his fears to overcome them and be able to get in sync with the changes of the planet and the universe

In those years, the forms of communication and the wealth system will change, and the economy will enter into a deep crisis since it is based mostly on selfishness and on the exploitation of some people over others. It will resurface until it is a system based solely on justice.

The Maya developed land in North and Central America that we know as, “One of the most sophisticated and vibrant civilizations.” From their 365-day calendar to their advanced language, writing system, and architecture such as pyramids and burial mounds, the Maya were known for being very intelligent. They contributed many advancements to education like creating the notion of zero. They were also very religious and believed in human sacrifices. Some of the other activities that took place included rituals, aspects of nature, and astronomy. Their religious activities, structures, and more they created are still spoken about today.

The Olmec were responsible for fostering or advancing the Mayan, Aztec, and other later cultures. When the Olmecs started to weaken, the Mayans rose to eminence. The historical proof appears to demonstrate the existence of Mayan culture in present-day Mexico at any rate as far back as 1800 BCE, yet their most noteworthy impact was applied between 200 B.C. and A.D. 1000. The settlement was broad in the Yucatán Peninsula and extended southward into Central America. In contrast to the later Aztecs, the Mayans didn’t practice solid regulatory command over a realm, yet rather created as a progression to a great extent of self-governing city-states. Palenque, Tikal, and Chichén Itzá are all very good examples of self-governing city-states. Sustained neighborhoods were regularly encompassed by fastidiously developed farmlands. When the trade was developed, it was long-distance and some of the most distinguished Mayan pyramids were created. The Maya kept advancing their art, math, and science which they are still very well known for to this day.

Food production that was stable was a very important factor in their well-being. In fact, it was so important to them that they even related the agricultural cycle to astronomy and their religion. Agricultural lands that were situated near Maya cities depended on the location of that farm. In Peten and Puck regions, the soil was very fertile but it was also very restricted to small patches. One of the techniques they used was used to increase soil fertility which was also a use of raised fields. In some locations, stone-wall terraces were occasionally used to collect fertile silt deposits. Forests were cleared to make a path for agribusiness however such land immediately declined in richness and required slice and-consume methods to restore the land following two years of harvests, which at that point requires by and large a further 5-7 years to be prepared for re-planting. The Maya believed in a maize god or, Hun Hunahpu. Hun Hunahpu was an important deity to the Maya. Maize was the staple harvest in Mesoamerica. It is an adaptable grain that can be developed in the wet marshes just as in the drier mountain territories. It thrives when it’s frequently harvested and gives a rich healthful sugar staple. In contrast to current corn, old maize couldn’t just be boiled and eaten; it required a lot of work to make it consumable. The maize should have been overflowed with white lime to discharge the amino acids and nutrient B and afterward ground into the glue to create an unleavened batter. Maize frequently became together with squash and beans, a blend is known as the Three Sisters. All three plants work together to produce a nutritious combination of protein, carbohydrates, and vitamins. The maize plants grow straight up through the squash and the beans grow around and up the maize.

The Maya religion was a very interesting factor that they held. From their human sacrifices to what they believed, the Maya were very advanced. The Mayans ’ religion was polytheism. One of the religious beliefs was about caves. Caves had a very interesting role in the Maya religion. They believed that caves were an entryway to some sort of mythical entryway also known as Xibalba. In ancient sacred writing from the Mayans called the “Popol Vuh”, which translates to “Book of the Community”, claimed that there was a passageway that had “…rivers filled with scorpions, blood and pus and houses shrouded in darkness or swarming with shrieking bats, Guillermo de Anda, one of the lead investigators at the site, said on Thursday.” Within their religion, they held human sacrifices however, they were only made on special occasions. ‘Among the Maya, human sacrifice was not an everyday event but was essential to sanctify certain rituals, such as the inauguration of a new ruler, the designation of a new heir to the throne, or the dedication of an important new temple or ball court. According to the Maya, the afterlife was a course of their souls to paradise, even though there was no guarantee that they would in fact reach their final destination. The Maya’s religious beliefs are all constrained in complex cycles whether it’s the day cycle, a ritual being performed or just a game they all have cycles that go with that specific activity. In fact, they worship 165 gods. The gods were somewhat human-like and did human-like activities that they believe are acceptable.

The Maya also created a number of objects. One of their most famous creations is their calendar. They created a calendar that was supposed to anticipate the ending of the world in 2012. It was a refined and modest calendar because similarly to present calendars, it recorded the receptive cycles of time. The calendar they created was a three-in-one timekeeping system that included the following, the long count, the Tzolkin/Divine calendar, and the Haab/ Civil calendar. Time was documented with the usage of special glyphs that are repeated in a certain amount of days that have to take place before a new cycle begins. They used their knowledge of mathematics and astronomy to create the most systematic calendar in human history. They had an interest in cycles of time which is why they used the Haab and the Tzolkin calendars. Besides these, the Maya additionally created the Long Count schedule to sequentially date important occasions. Using the Haab calendar, it tracked and approximated the solar year and was a 365-day calendar. Farmers used this calendar to keep track of the days that their annual ceremonies were on and made sure they had them on the same day each month. The Tzolkin calendar was comprised of 260 days and it wasn’t separated into months. The Ajq’ijab’ hosts ceremonies every 260 days to celebrate the new year which is called Wajxaqib’ B’atz’.

The Maya had an advanced language and writing system which made them appear very intelligent. Their writing system was inherited from an earlier Mesoamerican civilization such as the Olmecs. The Olmecs used pictographs or it was created by itself. Progressively certain is the point at which the Maya started their composing framework: the second 50% of the Middle Preclassic period, c. 300 BCE. Notwithstanding, the more refined composing arrangement of this time very likely would have had before, less mind-boggling points of reference present in the first hundreds of years of Mayan culture. From the Early Classic time frame onwards there was a noteworthy increment in stone landmarks bearing engravings and the language arrived at full development and prospered all through the Classic time frame. The Maya system of writing would proceed to impact that other extraordinary Mesoamerican development the Aztecs who might expand upon the advancement made by the Maya by consolidating considerably increasingly phonetic components into their composition. The Maya composing framework kept on being utilized something like the Spanish Conquest yet then this ‘agnostic’ content was denied. Notwithstanding the conscious annihilation of Maya writings and the forbiddance of the language the Maya did, however, keep on utilizing it in mystery well into the eighteenth century CE. The Maya hieroglyphic writing is seemingly one of the most outwardly striking writing systems of the world. It is additionally mind-boggling, with several novel signs or glyphs as people, creatures, supernaturals, articles, and dynamic plans. These signs are either logograms (to express significance) or syllabograms (to indicate sound qualities) and are utilized to compose words, expressions, and sentences. Indeed, the Maya can compose whatever they can say.

The Mayan civilization was one of the greatest in Mesoamerica by far! They’ve had amazing achievements and hundreds of thousands of people living in their city-states. The Mayans even had advanced structures built of stone that the hands of laborers assembled. They created a number system that almost dictated their whole community and a calendar that we base ours on. But, all great things begin somewhere right? So, where or more so how did all of these accomplishments begin? They all began with trading. Without trading, they’d never know how many items they needed to bring to know if they’d have for an equal trade. They developed math with trading, and math is a building block for other Mayan achievements. Or the countless amount people they could have influenced to start their own civilization or come to the Mayans. They wouldn’t have met at least half of the people in their empire without going out of their civilization and talking/trading with them. The trading network of the Mayans caused them to grow their civilization as a whole, started the domino effect of different Mayan achievements, and let the different people focus on one item while still obtaining other objects of theirs wants or needs.

Furthermore, the trade network of the Mayan civilization was by far one of the greatest achievements. To start with, the trade network allowed the Mayans to discover more places with more people who might’ve lived a different lifestyle than their own. It allowed for them to talk about their trade, and they could exchange different notions or lifestyle choices. Also, while trading if the Mayans could talk them into it, they could most likely be able to convince those they trade with to join the Mayan empire. This civilization also caused a ripple effect that had set off the many ideas for some of their greatest achievements.

The Mayan civilization was one of the greatest in Mesoamerica by far! They’ve had amazing achievements and hundreds of thousands of people living in their city-states. The Mayans even had advanced structures built of stone that the hands of laborers assembled. They created a number system that almost dictated their whole community and a calendar that we base ours on. But, all great things begin somewhere right? So, where or more so how did all of these accomplishments begin? They all began with trading. Without trading, they’d never know how many items they needed to bring to know if they’d have for an equal trade. They developed math with trading, and math is a building block for other Mayan achievements. Or the countless amount people they could have influenced to start their own civilization or come to the Mayans. They wouldn’t have met at least half of the people in their empire without going out of their civilization and talking / trading with them. The trading network of the Mayans caused them to grow their civilization as a whole, started the domino effect of different Mayan achievements, and let the different people focus on one item while still obtaining other objects of theirs wants or needs.

Furthermore, the trade network of the Mayan civilization was by far one of the greatest achievements. To start with, the trade network allowed the Mayans to discover more places with more people who might’ve lived a different lifestyle than their own. It allowed for them to talk about their trade, and they could exchange different notions or lifestyle choices. Also, while trading if the Mayans could talk them into it, they could most likely be able to convince those they trade with to join the Mayan empire. This civilization also caused a ripple effect that had set off the many ideas for some of their greatest achievements.

Many ancient civilizations have influenced the people and their traditions today. Two of the most influential past civilizations are the Mayans and Incas. Without these groups of people, the world would not be as advanced, or even organized as it is today. Ancient civilizations are the mold to our everyday lives, jobs, and even homes. Advancements such as technology, language, and holidays are derived from these civilizations and their accomplishments. The start of what we use today began in 250 AD, with the Mayan and the 1400s, with the Inca. One widely known job in today’s world is farming and the Mayans are recognized as corn farmers who worked the land to farm large amounts of food for their growing population (Atwood, Roger). These Mayans used a farming method known as slash and burn, which was done by cutting down trees and burning the remaining stumps. After burning the stumps, the ashes mixed with the soil, making the soil more fertile and able to grow crops. With fertile soil and the ability to grow more crops, the Mayan farmers were able to supply more people and receive goods as a trade for their crops (Atwood 18). Today, farming provides the main source of money and food for many families and farmers still use the same crops and farming ideas as the ancient Mayan civilization. In addition, the Mayans made advancements with their calendars.

Although the Mayans did not invent the calendar, their contributions lead us to the yearly cycle that we use today. The Mayan calendar was made up of three corresponding calendars: The Tzolkin, the Long Count, and the Haab (Brink 493). With these calendars, the Mayans kept track of dates, events, and Gods. They followed their calendar every day of each year, much as society does in modern-day life. In contrast, the Inca even developed a bundle of colored knots, known as the quipu. They used this invention as a record system and a way to send messages through their empire. Over the years, we have advanced record systems and now have ways of organizing records with the use of processing computer programs. The Maya, however, came up with their own number system by using dots and lines that acted as numbers. Following the Babylonians, the Mayans were the first civilization to invent a symbol for zero. This symbol resembled an eye and can be found on a Stela in Uaxactun, Guatemala (Brink 493). These inventions by the Mayans and Incas led us to the number system we use today and our problem-solving techniques. Despite the many government spots to be filled, the Inca had one main ruler known as the Sapa Inca, or “supreme ruler” that led the Inca society. (Childress 14). Only the son of the Coya, the Inca’s principal wife, had the ability to become Sapa Inca. Honorary Incas made up important parts of the government and held many of the same privileges as the Inca nobility (Childress 14). These individuals lead us to the government and presidential system that we have today. There still remain different classes throughout the world that perform different jobs and have different duties. By having assigned tasks and systems, jobs can be done more quickly and efficiently. In the same manner, the Mayans were ruled by kings and queens who had complete authority over their people. The rulers were considered to be descendants of the gods and the people’s link to the divine, because of this, historians believe that the rulers doubled as religious leaders that were head of sacred ceremonies. Priests served as healers and were trained in order to learn the spiritual and scientific aspects of healing for their town (Joel 59). There were three lower tiers under the upper classes, with the lowest class being made up of enslaved people and servants. This class labored in the fields and built cities throughout the civilization. Today, we use similar government systems that help us get jobs done and remain in order.

Both ancient civilizations worshiped Gods of their own with their own ways of worship. To worship their gods, the civilizations had special locations and ceremonies. The Inca worship spot is known as Machu Picchu and Schuna states that Alta said that the Incas must have felt close to Pachamama, or their “Mother Earth.” The river that lies at the base of Machu Picchu is called Willcamayo, which means “sacred river” (Schuna 8). Over time, we have evolved into more familiar and monotheistic religions such as Catholicism, Christianity, and more. These religions allow people to worship their beliefs and keep their traditions throughout generations. Machu Picchu was built by the Incas in an isolated village near Cusco. All of the buildings were constructed using stone pieces that fit perfectly together. Although the village holding Machu Picchu is difficult to reach and is located in the Andes, it is considered one of the seven wonders of the world. There are trails that the Inca had used in order to get back and forth from the city of Cusco that allowed the people to bring the materials they needed to build this structure. Because of this, Schuna writes that it may have taken 100 years to complete the city (8). To this day, nobody is sure why Machu Picchu was built and what its purpose was. Scholars believe that it was used as a place of worship and ceremonies, but there is no exact proof. Alta, a native of Cusco, works as a hiking guide for Machu Picchu. He says that Machu Picchu is a place of his people (Schuna 8). Today, the city attracts tourists and even ancestors of the Incas because of this, it is considered an important piece of their ancestors and history. The trails or roads built by the Incas that allowed them to reach Machu Picchu lead to even greater roads. The Inca civilization constructed the greatest and longest road that there is in the world. Gard stated that the Royal Road went through the highlands for a distance of 3,250 miles, while the Coastal Road followed the seacoast for 2,520 miles (12).

The Incas used these roads to send messages among the empire, as a way to keep the people together. These roads were also used as trade routes and a way for armies to get to war spots quickly. Having roads allowed the Inca to become more powerful than the other empires (Gard 12). Today, we use roads internationally to get products from other places, just like the Incas. Our main use of roads is transportation, without the idea of roads, we would not be able to travel easily as we can today. Similarly, the Mayans worshiped their gods with sacred ceremonies that often consisted of sacrifices and bloodletting. They did this in order to “feed” their gods and keep them happy because they believed the gods controlled the forces of their world and they wanted to maintain the natural order of the universe. The Mayans also believed that the world existed on three levels. These levels were known as the heavens, the terrestrial life, and the underworld.

The civilization was polytheistic and had over one hundred gods in all, unlike today where many religions worship only one god. In addition to worshiping their gods, the Mayans came up with a ball game that was a sport of life and death, however, in the end, only the leaders of the winning or losing team were killed. The sacrifices of the players were done to entreat the gods to produce rain. The six players on each team used a rubber ball and often wore clothing to protect against the impact of the ball, some players would wear other apparel, such as headdresses, for ritual reasons. The players were able to score by moving the ball through the cement target rings. This sport is still played today in parts of Mexico with smaller teams of two to four people and can be compared to many popular sports played today. Two sports that are common with the Mayan ball game are basketball and tennis. In basketball, each team is small and the basket is used as a target, and tennis has nobody contact between players. One thing that is most common among all three sports is the entertainment factor. While Each sport can be considered a type of entertainment because of the crowds that gather around while the game is being played. Entertainment in the Inca civilization consisted of poetry and hymns, which were a well-known component of Inca culture. These songs were used daily, during religious festivals and ceremonies. Theatre dramas were performed on special occasions and included special pieces of poetry. There were a variety of sacred hymns that were written by priests. Curl states that the Inca priests greeted each sunrise and sunset singing hailikuna, usually accompanied by music, imploring the Creator, the sun, thunder-lightning, the Earth Mother, the moon, and all the spirits of places to grant health, prosperity, and happiness to the people, the Inca, and the empire (109). Over the years, churches and religions have developed hymns of their own. These hymns have deep meaning and are sung in the church or at any time of worship. Similar to the Inca’s powerful poetry, the Mayan engineers and architects were full of skill and artistry. They made paintings on walls and carved designs into their buildings.

Today these pieces of art give us a broader idea of the Mayan culture and their beliefs. The Mayan art indicated power, wealth and demonstrated goodwill. Some art was used during sacred rituals to honor and celebrate the gods. This art can be seen today in museums all over the world and can serve as a way for people to learn more about ancient civilizations and their ways of life. It can also be used to connect people of the Mayan culture to their creators and their past life. In short, people all over the world have studied these ancient civilizations and the simplicity of their lives. Over time, people have added more and more to these ancient ideas, which has led us to where we are today. These inventions and customs of the Mayans and Incas help us in our everyday lives, jobs, and homes. Today’s world will continue to advance these ideas and mold them to better fit our current society and its needs.