Mayans

It helped because the lower class people, such as peasants, knew that other people had priority over them and could kind of control them sorta

Relatively speaking, the conquest of the once mighty Aztec Empire in Mexico by the Spanish did not take very long. It began in early 1519 and ended in late 1521. It was not easy, however, mostly because the Spanish did not present a unified front to the Aztecs. The Spanish fought each other almost as much as they did with the Aztecs. This infighting jeopardized the expedition and almost led to its ruin. Spanish involvement in Mexico began in February of 1519 when the Spanish governor of Cuba, Diego Velasquez, authorized Hernan Cortez to led a reconnaissance force into Mexico to investigate rumors of a wealthy civilization in central Mexico. Although Velasquez changed his mind about Cortez and later ordered him to remain in Cuba, Cortez ignored these orders and departed with a small army of 400 soldiers and 100 sailors. He landed at Vera Cruz, gained control of the city, and sent a letter to the King of Spain, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, in which Cortez solicited the support of the king. At this point, Cortez burned his ships to prevent the possibility of a mutiny. Without ships, the soldiers had to conquer Mexico if they ever wanted to return home. Soon afterwards, Cortez and his army discovered the Tlaxcalan people. After two weeks of fighting, the Tlaxcalans surrendered and joined Cortez in his campaign against the Aztecs. After defeating the Aztecs at Choula, the Spanish and their Tlaxcalan allies came to Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital. They were initially greeted by the Aztec Emperor, Moctezuma II, who thought that Cortez was the Aztec god Quetzacoatl. Quetzacoatl was prophesied to arrive the same year Cortez did, and Moctezuma II thought Cortez's pale skin, armor, and advanced technology were signs of his deity. Hoping to appease Cortez, Moctezuma gave the Spaniards lavish gifts of gold and jewels. Nevertheless, Cortez and his men captured the Aztec Emperor and held him for ransom. They had believed that this would prevent any attempt at revolt among the Aztecs. Those beliefs proved unfounded, however, because the Aztecs came to view Moctezuma as a traitor. When the Spanish brought him out to talk to the people, they threw stones at him. He died of those injuries a few days later. Before the death of Moctezuma, however, Cortez had to deal with a Spanish army sent by Velasquez to arrest Cortez for his disobedience. He left 200 men in Tenochtitlan and went to meet the other Spanish army. Cortez and his men entered the other army's camp at night and captured their leader. Most of the rest of the men were more than willing to join Cortez because of the immense wealth he promised them. When Cortez returned to the Aztec capital, however, he found the city in revolt. When an attempt to get Moctezuma to appease the people failed, Cortez was forced to flee from the city. The Spanish left Tenochtitlan on the night of June 30, 1520. By the time they arrived at Tlaxcala, they had lost half of their men. Soon, however, the Spanish were able to regroup and they conquered the Aztec cities one by one until they finally regained control of Tenochtitlan on August 13, 1521. 40,000 Aztecs died during the siege of Tenochtitlan alone and many more died of disease and famine all over the country afterwards. The fall of Tenochtitlan marks the collapse of the Aztec Empire and the beginning of Spanish control in Mexico.

The modern world slowly intrudes into Mayan Villages.

The houses consist of one room. They are made of sticks. They are now covered with tarps rather than thatch.

Water is brought by hand carried buckets.

Electricity comes to the small homes as one light bulb in the center of the one room house.

A small fire for cooking constantly burns keeping the house smoky all the time. It also keeps the house free of insects making jungle living possible.

Some new houses are being built with a concrete floor. They have two rooms. The kitchen with its eternal smoky flame no longer in the sleeping area.

In many villages many of the men are gone a good part of the year working as migrant laborers and performing any other task they can find. They return home for the local harvest and to renew family ties.

The children are learning the same information as any other student in the government schools.

As you can see, the Maya are adding outside things one at a time. One lightbulb to their houses.

On the other hand, the ordinary Maya Indian does not have much money. We have no idea what they would do if they could afford it.

The Mayans have several competing creation myths but it all comes down to the gods creating the Earth, then the mountains trees and such. They then want worshippers and try several times to create them - first of mud, then wood then of corn meal. The first two species were unsuccessful and were destroyed or turned into monkeys (opinions vary). The corn meal folks work out.

The Olmec had died out long before European settlement.

they do random stuff because they feel like it

The Maya built a lot of pyramids and tall temples. They even knew how to make rubber in the 1500's! The Mayans were skilled road builders. They were able to create one of the most advanced road systems of their time.

Mayans were also one of the first civilizations to develop a writing system called codex. They used their codex to record information in books made from the bark of fig trees. They developed a mathematical system based on the number 20. They were among the first people to use the number zero.

They were able to build a solar, and religious calendar.

The made the calenders in 500 ad they were very good as astronermers.

Mayans found jade from the water flowing and they found it in the mountains in Belize

I think Mayas

well pyramids have chambers and most have Pharaohs

some people believe that pyramids were built as a burial site for Pharaohs and others believe differently

some of the passage ways are very narrow and you have to crawl to fit. the reason for this is that the ancient Egyptian were very short and thin people and obviously not very costaphbic.

The Mayan capital was destroyed about 1441

I believe the Mayans are no longer a viable society. Hence, they do not use agriculture anymore.

It was the various groups of people that settled in the Yucatan peninsula but weren't fully "civilized", meaning they were hunter-gatherers (nomadic) or built small villages of no more than 30 people - they were pre-Mayan. When those people began to consolidate in larger groups, they eventually built cities whit a distinctive culture which we recognize as the Mayan civilization.

Maybe $100,000,000+ there's only been three discovered.

There were a couple of different human-made structures and art forms found in Mayan cities. One of the art forms found was Mayan murals, paintings applied directly to walls. These paintings were commonly found on the houses of nobles. Mayan cities were known for their great, notable architecture. The structures found in each city included palaces, plazas, ball courts, and pyramids with temples at their tops. There were also commonly large stone monuments called steles that had important dates and events carved into them in the Maya's glyphic written language. Glyphs were carved on other buildings as well.

maayans believed in maayaa---real is hidden in unreal and existence of visnu--meaning that which is present everywhere--like ether concept--that supreme consciousness and symbols that represent that!SUPERIOR CULTURE!

The King

the wheel

The Mayans did not have a holy book. The religious beliefs of Mayans were conveyed by word-of-mouth, through their art and through their rituals.

The Inca people made terraces for growing their crops and farmed on the side of a mountain. They used canals which functioned like what we call an irrigation system. They sometimes used the organic nutrients from the remains of llamas and animal waste as fertilizer on the crops.