Museum Entrance

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Museum Entrance
Welcome to the Mayan Museum
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Room 2
Mayan Religion
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Room 3
Mayan Food
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Room 4
Mayan Writing
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Artifact 1 Chichen Itza

• Chichen Itza is perhaps the most famous of all
  the Mayan cities. It served as the capital of the
  second great Mayan empire (1,000 to 1,450 A.D.).
  Chichen Itza means at the mouth of the well of
  the Itza. The city got its water from two large
  sink holes called cenotes. They were extremely
  important because there are no rivers that run
  through the northern Yucatan where Chichen Itza
  is. The Temple of Kukulcan is a four sided, step
  pyramid with stairways going up all four sides.
  Each stairway has 91 steps totaling 364 when all
  four sides are counted. The top of the pyramid is
  the final step making 365, the number of days in
  a year.

Image acquired at http//www.creighton.edu/langla
b/classes/spn202fs05/mexico2/chichenitza.jpg
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Artifact 2 Copan

• Settlement in the area of Copan may have begun as
  early as 2,000 B.C. As the city developed Mayan
  art and astronomy flourished. While the buildings
  at Copan were not as large the buildings in other
  Mayan cities, the detail and elegant carvings on
  the buildings are astounding. Some of the stone
  carvings even give the names of former rulers of
  Copan Smoke Jaguar, 18 Rabbit, Squirrel, Leaf
  Jaguar, Dawn, and Smoke Monkey. Yax-Kuk-Mo began
  the first of the ruling dynasties in Copan at
  about 160 A.D. From 465 A.D. to 800 A.D. Copan
  was at its height of science, art, and culture.

Image acquired at http//www.latinamericanstudies
.org/maya/old-copan.gif
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Artifact 3 Tikal

• Tikal was occupied between 800 B.C. and 900 A.D.
  At its height, about 700 A.D., it was home to
  more than 60,000

people. The city once covered an area of 23
square miles and was made up of more than 10,000
structures from grand temples to huts. The
central part of this city was the Great Plaza.
This plaza was surrounded by five grand temples,
seventy stelae (stone monuments covered with
carved glyphs), and rows of alters. This place is
so amazing it was used as the set for a rebel
base in the film Star Wars.
Image acquired at http//www.authenticmaya.com/im
ages/ancient-tikal.gif
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Artifact 4 Tulum

• Tulum, which means wall in Maya, once was
  called Zama, which means the place of the
  dawning sun. The city is unique because it is
  enclosed by walls on three sides, with 40 foot
  cliffs dropping to the Caribbean Sea on the forth
  side. This city reached its height between 1,000
  A.D. and 1,600 A.D. During this time it served as
  a central port for Mayan trade. The city has one
  main building called El Castillo and other
  smaller structures adorned with interesting
  carvings of faces on the corners. Tulum was the
  only Mayan city that was thriving when the
  Spanish Conquistadors arrived in Mexico.

Image acquired at http//www.ecotravelmexico.com/
imagenes/tulum.jpg
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Artifact 5 Itzamna

• Itzamna is the Mayan god of creation and the
  founder of the Mayan religion. He ruled the
  heavens and was thought to be the one who began
  the Mayan culture. He was believed to have
  invented the Mayan math and writing systems, and
  taught the Mayans the use of the calendar. He was
  depicted as a large jaw, toothless, cross-eyed
  old man and was considered to be the chief of the
  Mayan gods. He was the lord of all the heavens
  during both day and night.

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Image acquired at http//sanghavedanta.com/macanc
he/index.php?optioncom_contenttaskviewid15It
emid39
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Artifact 6 Chac

• Chac was the Mayan god of fertility, rain, and
  lighting. He is one of the oldest Mayan gods. The
  Mayan people believed when time began, Chac
  struck a sacred stone with his axe, and the first
  ear of maize sprung out. Worshipping him was done
  primarily at sources of fresh water and sacred
  wells. The Mayan depicted him with his body
  covered with the scales of a reptile. The Mayan
  city of Chichen Itza was a center of worship for
  his followers. Frogs were associated with Chac,
  because they croak when rain is coming.

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Image acquired at http//www.windows.ucar.edu/tou
r/link/mythology/images/chac_maya_jpg_image.html
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Artifact 7 Yum Kax

• Yum Kax was the god of Mayan agriculture and
  Maize. He was usually depicted as a young man
  with a very sloped forehead, holding a pot of
  maize and looking very unhappy. While he was
  powerful, his power was limited by the powers of
  the other gods who controlled rain, drought, and
  famine. In Mayan myths he is constantly getting
  into fights with these other gods.

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Image acquired at http//www.polapa.com/tienda/im
agenes/60-62verdes.jpg
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Artifact 8 Ek Chuah

• Ek Chuah was the Mayan scorpion god, the god of
  war, the god of traveling merchants, and the god
  of cacao planters. Cacao seeds were a form of
  currency in the Mayan empire this is why he was
  the god of both cacao planters (those who grew
  the valuable crop) and traveling merchants (those
  who had goods to sell in exchange for the seeds).
  Mayan travelers and merchants use to carry
  incense that they would burn each night they were
  traveling and pray to Ek Chuah to bring them
  home safe. Chuah means "black" in Maya. Ek Chuah
  usually had some black on his face. His name
  hieroglyph is an eye with a black ring around it.

Image acquired at http//library.thinkquest.org/C
004577/religion6.php3
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Artifact 9 Mayan Diet

• The Maya ate wild animals they caught like fish,
  turtles, ducks, deer, dogs, turkeys, parrots,
  eagles, foxes, rabbits, armadillo, monkey,
  iguana, wild boar, and alligators. They also ate
  fruit like banana, pineapple, guava, watermelon,
  and mangos. In addition to corn, the Maya grew
  beans, squash, pumpkin, chili peppers, tomatoes,
  and sweet potatoes. This variety of food gave the
  Maya a good balanced diet.

Image acquired at http//www.civilization.ca/civi
l/maya/mmj01eng.html
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Artifact 10 Cacao

• The Maya would harvest the pineapple size fruit
  of the cacao tree. Inside this fruit is 20 to 60
  seeds or beans. The seeds are what the Mayas
  used to make The Drink of the Gods. They used
  these coco beans to make many chocolate drinks.
  They even had a cacao god, Ek Chuah. The cacao
  bean were sometimes considered more valuable than
  gold to the Maya.

Image acquired at http//recipes.howstuffworks.co
m/chocolate.htm
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Artifact 11 Bug Tacos

• The ancient Maya filled their tacos with
  caterpillars, worms, ants, and even crickets.
  Because the Maya had so few domesticated animals,
  insects, which are high in protein, were a big
  part of the Maya diet. They also ate flies,
  beetles, ant eggs, wasps, and grasshoppers.

Image acquired at http//www.mayankids.com/mmkpeo
ple/mkbugtaco.htm
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Artifact 12 Maize

• Maize was the single most important crop produced
  by the Maya. It has been estimated that ¾ of the
  food eaten by the Maya was maize in some form or
  another. Maize was commonly dried, processed, and
  ground then it was used to make tortillas. For
  the Maya, the tortilla proved to be a way to wrap
  and hold other types of food while eating. It
  also was a great way to take their food out with
  them when working in the fields or on some
  community project all day. The Maya even had a
  god of maize, Yum Kaax, who they prayed and offer
  sacrifices to.

Image acquired at http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Im
ageZea_mays.jpg
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Artifact 13 Mayan Writing

• The Maya developed an original form of
  hieroglyphic writing. Each picture or symbol
  represented a different word or idea.
  Hieroglyphics are found on many of the Mayan
  buildings, on Codices (Mayan books), and on large
  stone monuments called stela. Stela are stone
  carvings the Maya used to record important events
  on. The Maya were the only culture to have
  developed a writing system in the Ancient
  Americas.

Image acquired at http//www.civilization.ca/civi
l/maya/images/maycrv3b.gif
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Artifact 14 Mayan Numbers

• The Maya developed an original numeric system
  that allowed them to study the stars, develop a
  very accurate calendar, and to build their large
  and complex buildings. Our number system uses 10
  as a base the Mayan number system uses 20. Their
  system is also unique because it only uses three
  symbols (a dot, a bar, and a shell). The dot
  represents 1, the bar 5, and the shell 0. By
  arranging these symbols in the correct order, the
  Maya could represent any number.

Image acquired at http//concise.britannica.com/e
bc/art-441/The-Mayan-number-system-which-is-base-2
0-with-simple
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Artifact 15 Mayan Codices

• The Maya had books called Codices. These books
  were made out of long strips of the inner bark of
  fig trees. This bark was folded into sections to
  make the pages of the book. The Maya would write
  in these codices with turkey feather quills,
  thorns from cactus, chips of bone, and animal
  hair brushes. Each hieroglyph was outlined in a
  black ink made from coal and then colored in. All
  but four codices were burned by the Spanish when
  they conquered the Maya.

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Image acquired at http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma
ya_codices
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Artifact 16 Mayan Calendar

• The Mayan Calendar was very accurate. It is made
  up of three rings that have interlocking points
  that are used to tell the Mayan date. The Mayan
  tracked a 365 day solar year and a 260 day Sacred
  Count Calendar. The Sacred Count Calendar
  involved a new day name for every set of 13 days
  that passed. The 365 day Solar Calendar involved
  a new month name for every set of 19 days that
  passed. It also included the Long Count Calendar
  that ends on Sunday, December 23, 2012.

Image acquired at http//www.calendariomaya.com/i
mages/Tzolkin.gif
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Artifact 17 Title

• Add text here

Image acquired at Place URL here
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John Yoder

• John Yoder is a 4th grade teacher at Paradise
  PDS. He has a B.A. in Communications and a M.A.
  in Curriculum and Instruction. He has been
  teaching for 3 years.
• Contact John Yoder

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