The Maya

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The Maya
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Classical Period A.D. 250 A.D. 900
This map shows the area in Central America where
Mayan Priest-Kings ruled over city-states. The
region is covered in tropical rainforests with
fertile soil.
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Cenote
Cenote are sinkholes that form naturally to
expose sections of a vast underground river
network covering parts of the Yucatan Peninsula.
The Maya believed cenote and caves were the
entrance to Xibalba (she - bal- ba), the
underworld.
National Geographic video on the Mayan Underworld.
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The Mayan Code
The Maya developed a highly complex system of
writing, using pictographs and phonetic or
syllabic elements. Mayan writing was highly
sophisticated. Most likely only members of the
higher classes were able to read their symbols.
Maya writing was composed of recorded
inscriptions on stone and wood and used within
architecture. Folding tree books were made from
fig tree bark and placed in royal tombs.
Unfortunately, many of these books did not
survive the humidity of the tropics or the
invasion of the Spanish, who regarded the
symbolic writing (Mayan Writing) as the work of
the devil. The Maya also carved these symbols
into stone, but the most common place for Mayan
writing was probably the highly perishable books
they made from bark paper, coated with lime to
make a fresh white surface. These 'books' were
screen-folded and bound with wood and deer hide.
They are called codices, codex is singular.
Because of their perishable nature and zealous
Spanish book burning, only four codices remain
today The Dresden CodexThe Madrid CodexThe
Paris CodexThe Grolier Codex
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Dresden Codex
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Mayan Calendars
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• The Mayan Calendar and 2012
• The date December 21st, 2012 A.D. (13.0.0.0.0
  in the Long Count), represents an extremely close
  conjunction of the Winter Solstice Sun with the
  crossing point of the Galactic Equator (Equator
  of the Milky Way) and the Ecliptic (path of the
  Sun), what that ancient Maya recognized as the
  Sacred Tree.
• The Tzolkin is a 260-day calendar based around
  the period of human gestation. It is composed of
  20 day-signs, each of which has 13 variations,
  and was (and still is) used to determine
  character traits and time harmonics, in a similar
  way to Western astrology. The Maya also used a
  365-day calendar. They measured long time periods
  by means of a Long Count, in which one 360-day
  year  (a "Tun"), consists of 18 x 20-day "months"
  ("Uinals"). Twenty of these Tuns is a Katun 20
  Katuns is a Baktun (nearly 400 years) and 13
  Baktuns adds up to a "Great Cycle" of 1,872,000
  days, ( 5200 Tuns, or about 5125 years).
• Mayan scholars have been attempting to
  correlate the Long Count with our Western
  Gregorian calendar, since the beginning of this
  century. This was finalized in 1950, and puts the
  start of the Great Cycle ( day 0.0.0.0.0)  on
  11th August 3114 BC, and the end-date (known as
  13.0.0.0.0.) as 21st December 2012. 

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Mayan Numbers and Mayan Mathematics
Maya mathematics
Instead of ten digits like we have today, the
Maya used a base number of 20. They also used a
system of bar and dot as "shorthand" for
counting. A dot stood for one and a bar stood for
five.
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Mayan Physical Beauty