What?
Compared to other civilizations, these guys were smart. They were so far ahead of their time- with special calendars, games with rules, and an alphabet so complex that only the highest kings and priests knew every symbol. O.K., so that wasn't the "ahead of their time" that you were thinking of. Maybe time traveling, living on Pluto, and or having a robot do your homework is advanced. But in that time period, things like robots weren't even imagined. Things like calendars and writing systems were cool, advanced, "wow".
Priests created three main types of calendars. The civil calendar was based on the solar cycles or the cycles of the sun. Mayans only had 365 days on this calendar, no leap year days. The Long Count had a special system that kept track of long spans of time such as centuries or decades. At religious and ceremonial events, the Sacred Calendar was used. It was based on the lunar or the moon cycles.
"Take me out to the ball game..." has been a pretty popular song in America. Do you think that the Maya Indians sang that song? Probably! They had a game that was close to basketball. It was played basically like this.
*The object of the game is to get the most points
*You hit the ball through a hanging stone ring to score
*You can only touch the ball with your forearms, knees, hips, and shoulders
*The ball cannot touch the ground
*There are two teams playing
*Both teams wear heavy padding
The number system was pretty simple. Each dot = 1 and every bar = 5, so two bars and three dots = 13 or - - . . .
The writing system was another story. It was considered the most advanced language of any of the Native American groups. They used hieroglyphics represent sounds, letters, or whole words. Every letter and symbol had at least 2 ways to pronounce them! There were so many symbols and different ways to pronounce them that only the highest priests and kings knew them all. WOW!!!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|