Interesting facts about the Mayan civilization

The Mayan civilization was one of the most important ones not just in America, for the world in general too.

It was a civilization that discovered a lot of things that maybe without them, there will not be a lot of inventions that we have now.

Because of its relevance and because of how interesting it is, in this blog we will see some of the history of this amazing empire.

What was the Mayan civilization?

The Mayan people were one of the main civilizations in Mesoamerica, a region in the south of North America and central America in countries like Mexico, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and Belize, among others.

They were one of the first ones to build cities and a modern civilization. They stopped the nomadic traditions and settled in regions where they were able to live and develop a society.

The Mayan civilization is mainly recognized because of its architecture, their economy, their religion and agriculture. For their time, all those things were very impressive and to this day studies of it remain.

What were their inventions?

Writing and math

Mayan people created a system of writing with more than 800 characters, some of them were hieroglyphic like drawings of people, animals, objects and other ones were phonetic sounds.

This kind of writing has been found mostly in stone carvings, stucco, codices and artifacts. But also, many of them have been found in monuments, sculptures and altars.

Another great invention was their math. They created a base-20 numerical system with just three symbols, a dot for the number 1, a line for the number five and a draw of a shell (that's how it looks like) for the number 0.

The Mayans were the first ones in America to introduce this number into their numerical system and for them, the meaning or what it represented was the end of one cycle and the beginning of another one, or also the balance of the universe.

Astronomy

Even if Mayan people didn't have the technology that we have today like observatories, telescopes and computers, they were experts in reading the sky and recognized the planets, stars and their movements with the past of time.

Astronomy, was so important to them because it had a stronger meaning to their lives. Mayans thought that celestial bodies were gods that were traveling in the universe and the earth with their movements.

The Mayan people were always watching and studying the planets, the moon and the sun specifically, according to their positions, they built their lives and society.

Besides their religion and beliefs, the observation of the sky also let them create their famous calendars that anticipated hundreds of years, like the one that supposedly predicted the end of the world in 2012.

Architecture

For their time, architecture was another field where the Mayan people left a big impact. Their pyramids, temples, sculptures and other structures had become beautiful archaeological zones that now receive thousands of tourists from all around the world.

They used materials like limestone, sandstone, volcanic tuff, burnt-lime cement and stone for cutting. For decoration they used to draw murals and paintings of the important moments of its society, battles and religion.

The structures were constructed so precisely according to the positions of the sun and the planets of the solar system, so they could properly use the sunlight or the moonlight and other resources of nature.

Related content: https://www.ria-aayin.com/post/mayan-ruins-in-mexico

The history of the Mayan empire is so amazing and extensive that until this day, research of it keeps going. Probably we will never be able to fully know and understand this culture, but I hope these few facts helped you to know a little bit more about them.