Mayans

• Modes of Trade

  • Small Maya cities had free market structure with open trade of different objects
  • Large cities had better managed marketplaces controlled and overlooked by local authorities
• Pricing

  No currency and no definite scale, prices varied significantly as traded products moved further from their region of production
• Traded goods

  • Fish
  • Squash
  • Potatoes
  • Corn
  • Honey
  • Beans
  • Fruits
  • Limestone
  • Marble
  • Jadewood
  • Copper
  • Gold
• Trade networks

  • Merchants used waterways to carry goods from different city states
  • Long distance trade networks moved obsidian, macaws, textiles, marine shell, jade and enslaved people throughout the region
• Artisan products

  • Jewelry
  • Carvings
  • Toys
  • Weapons
  • Paper
  • Books
  • Furniture
• Trade infrastructure

  Mayans built long running causeways called Sacbe to facilitate trade between cities
• Summary of Maya Economy

  • Agrarian society trading in subsistence items like maize and fruits
  • Commoners directly engaged with agricultural lands
  • Craftsmen produced precious artifacts like jade, obsidian, turquoise and gold for export
  • Traded in cocoa beans, vanilla and chili peppers
• Maya government

  • Hierarchical structure with strict caste system
  • Ruled by kings and priests
  • Each city state had a separate king passed from father to son
  • Kings had ultimate power and made laws along with priests
  • Priests were powerful as they could talk to the gods
  • Kings and priests worked with nobles and other officials to oversee city state affairs
  • Kings were military leaders and decided when and where to go to war
  • Taxes collected by nobles
  • Only upper class people made up the government
  • Ruling family lived in luxury
  • Kings had important roles at public ceremonies and could have multiple wives
• Pok-a-tok


  A game like basketball where players had to aim a ball at a stone ring using their hips, elbows or knees, forbidden to use hands
• Mayan music

  Ceremonies accompanied by percussion instruments like large wooden drums, tortoise shell, gourd rattles, conch shells, horns, wood and clay trumpets and pottery drums
• Mayan Gods

  • Itzamna: Supreme creator god
  • Kukulkan: Feathered serpent god
  • Chaac: Rain god
  • Ixchel: Moon goddess
  • Hun Hunahpu & Xbalanque: Hero twins
  • Yum Kaax: Maize god
  • Ah Puch: God of death and underworld
  • Kinich Ahau: Sun god
• Mayan Sacrifices

  • Bloodletting
  • Animal sacrifices
  • Human sacrifice
  • Food and inanimate objects
• Mayan Religion

  • Polytheistic
  • Sacredness in nature
  • Creation myths with cyclical nature
  • Ancestral spirits
  • Elaborate rites and rituals
  • Powerful priesthood
  • Beliefs about afterlife
• Slaves

  • Not treated badly, sometimes had easier lives than peasants
  • Not free to come and go, often sacrificed when masters died
  • Performed manual labor, some born into slavery, some war prisoners or punished criminals
• Peasant/Worker Functions

  • Farming crops like maize, squash, beans
  • Building pyramids and temples
  • Serving as soldiers in wars
  • Attending royal weddings and religious events
• Middle Class

  • Officers
  • Commoners including professionals, officials, bureaucrats, merchants, artisans
• Merchant Functions

  Accomplished tradesmen, travelled to trade with other city states
• Artisan Functions

  • Made a wide variety of objects, many designed to pay tribute to the gods
  • Painted books, murals, sculptures, weavings, pottery
  • Gathered taxes, supplies, labor for projects like temple construction
• Noble Functions

  • Served as officials, assisted kings in decision making
  • Carried out kings' decisions, ran the cities
  • Wore fancier clothes, performed religious ceremonies, kept calendars, studied astronomy and astrology
• Priest Functions

  • Led rituals, offered sacrifices, foretold the future
  • Consulted to determine best days for battle
  • Also mathematicians, astronomers, healers
• Social Classes

  • Upper class: Kings, priests, nobles
  • Middle class: Officers, commoners, professionals, officials, bureaucrats, merchants, artisans
  • Lower class: Workers, servants, slaves
• From around 40,000 to 20,000 BCE, people crossed over from the land bridge between modern-day Alaska and Siberia into North America
• They moved south in search of a warmer climate, better hunting grounds, and more bountiful plant life
• They settled in modern-day Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, from around 10,000 to 8,000 BCE, also inhabiting Southeast Mexico, the Yucatan, and northwest Central America
• The Mayan highlands, lowlands, and coastal areas were plentiful in natural and mineral resources, such as obsidian, jade, and fish
• Agriculture took root around 6000 BCE, leading to a massive food surplus, which in turn, led to population growth
• 1,500 BCE to 250 AD, the Mayans were the first Maya civilization to become part of the Mayan
• 50 CE was known as the pre-classic period
• Tribal villages evolved into tribal chiefdoms and then into the early Mayan states

  1. Pottery developed

  2. Trade between groups in Mexico and Central America

  3. Birth of an elite class, a ruling class that would exert control over the lower classes
• Around the 1200s BCE, the advanced Mayan villages became involved in regional trade, putting them in contact with other societies, including the Olmecs
• The Mayans then adopted aspects of Olmec society, including their gods, urbanism, rituals, and art
• As wealth and power accumulated, strong cities evolved from chiefdoms to proto-states, and with proto-states came warfare
• Mayan rulers found that they could raid other groups to gain wealth, labor, and eliminate challengers
• Around 800 BCE, the lowlands Maya expanded from riversides and lakes to the interior, and central Mayan influence then expanded to the highlands area
• The early Mayan states formed around 400 BCE, in Kim and Al-Yuhu, El-Yuhuxte, and El-Mirador, owing to their increased status to warfare and trade
• Laudanta Pyramid


  • It was the largest pyramid in early Mayan civilization, and in all of ancient Mesoamerica
  • It was the largest pyramid in the city of Mirador, and standing at 236 feet
• Warfare abounded within these states, uprisings were commonplace, and no state was immune from it
• Additionally, volcanic eruptions, overpopulation, and overuse of the soil are believed to have led to the decline of early Maya civilizations, around 150 CE
• As the prominence of the Pacific Coast Maya decreased, that of the lowlands Maya increased
• With El Mirador's fall, art, writing, and the Mayan population advanced in the lowlands, and the city of Tikal, in present-day Guatemala, rose in influence and power