2. Geography
• The Mayans lived in the area of Central
America in what is now Yucatan,
Guatemala, Belize & Southern Mexico.
• The land consists of rainforests, swamps, &
savannas. The highlands, in the south, were
volcanic mountains.
• The northern climate
was hot and rainy in
the northern areas
• The Mayans occupied
125,000 square miles
of lowland and highlands.
3. Social Structure
• King: The most powerful and wealthy.
Belived to be the descendants of gods.
• Goverment Workers, Artisans, Merchants:
Respescted by farmers and slaves and
more wealthy than them.They were
significant in the mayan society because
they provided services and goods.
• Slaves and farmers: Did most of the hard
labour, farmers provided society with food
and made up a large part of the military.
4. Government
The role of leadership in the Mayan society
was passed from a father to his eldest son.
The ruler of the Mayan country was called a
“Halach Uinic”
The Mayan council consisted of the heads,
the batab, the high
priests and other
people of rank.
The Mayan country
was governed by
foreigners.
5. Goverment
• The military ruler or the “nacom” played a
huge role in the government. The nacom
had a 3 year term.
• There was also a nacom for human
sacrifices.
• The nacom would be in charge of cutting
and ripping out the hearts of the victims.
6. Military
Mayan military consisted of weapons that could be
used from a distance .
The Mayans used the forests as a weapon hiding in
bushes and trees and using their long
range weapons
to ambush enemies.
Mayans were
notorious for
taking enemy
prisoners in battle.
• Mayans used a code
of drums and whistles
to signal other members
of the armies of an attack
or perhaps a victory or defeat.
8. The Ball Game
• Rubber balls were made
in soccer and baseball
sizes
• The ball was not allowed
to hit the ground and
players were not allowed
to hit it with their hands or
feet
• The losing team was
killed
9. Calendar
The time keeping system of the Mayans was a
combination of cycles that mixed together marking the
movement of the Sun, Moon, and Venus.
Their sacred calendar called the Tzolkin is based on the
cycles of the Pleiades which was composed of 260 days.
It contained 13 months which
were named after the 13 gods
and 20 days were numbered
from 0 to 19.
• The second calendar was the
civil calendar and consisted
of 365 days.
• It was called the Haab.
• This calendar consisted of 18 months and 20 days which
were numbered from 0 to 19.
10. Writing system
Wrote in hieroglyphics, used pictures as symbols
most Mayan texts can be read, but there are still
some undeciphered glyphs.
• Modern scholars agreed that there are only three
writing systems in the ancient world and the Mayan
glyphs were one of them.
• The system has a
resemblance to
the Egyptian writing,
with a combination
of similar symbols for
different ideas or
words.
11. Math
• The Mayan number system was based on numbers
one through twenty.
• The reason for this was because
they used all their fingers and
their toes to count.
• It only has three number symbols
a line, a dot, and a symbol for zero.
• They used place values to expand
this system to allow the expression
of very large values.
• Their system has two significant
differences from the system
we use: 1) the place values are
arranged vertically, and 2)
they use a base 20 system.
12. Decline
• No one really knows what the cause of the Mayan's
decline.
• What they do know is that over population occured as
well as over use of land. Therefore less crops grew
each year. This period also consisted of warfare of the
city states. This disrupted their trade.
• There could have been a possible drout and as a result,
there was movement to a better location.
• In the late 800's, the most Mayans abandoned their
cities.
• There were very few cities left, but they managed to
servive.
• Eventually though, the Toltecs attacked the Mayans
