MAYA

Amazing!

The Maya were probably one of the most dominent and influential cultures of Mesoamerica, more precisely Mexico and Guatemala. Their culture flourished (about 1800 BCE) after the decline of the Olmecs, and that the Olmecs had a vast influence on them was evident. The Mayans didn't really have a central government, like most Mesopotamian Empires we have studied, but they had several small, organized states, that were centers of trade and communication. The Mayans used their own hieroglyphic writing, consisting of pictographs, but also of "letters" that represented sounds. They were very advanced in the fields of astronomy and math, having calculated that an

 The Mayans making their special cacao drink

astronomical year would take exactly 365 days; they were only seconds off the modern calculations. What we remember most about the Mayans, are their cruel religious practices and ceremonies, often performed to the public. They included human sacrifice and blood-letting to please the gods. As time passed, the Mayans turned from a rather peaceful society, to a more violent one, as city-states started to become rivals. They fought each other constantly, and it is still debated today, if that was the reason for their downfall around 900 CE. Another factor leading to their disappearance might have been the depletion of their fields, and the loss of fertility of the soil. Maybe a natural disaster caused them to leave. We don't know.

For me, the Mayans major accomplishments might be different than what some other people consider as their major accomplishments... Please excuse my horrible judgement :)

1. The Discovery of Cacao (CHOCOLATE): The Mayans collected Cacao beans from tropical trees, dried them, ground them into a powder, and mixed this powder with water to create a chocolate drink, which was reserved most exclusively for the elite class. Now, it makes me feel special every single time I eat chocolate (so like, once a day) because I know where it originally came from.
2. Their Ancient Ball Game: Since we don't know exactly how they played this game, but we know that involved a court, a "hoop", and a hard ball, I assume it was very similar to Basketball. I love (to watch) Basketball, and I find it amazing that even the ancient societies had nothing to do with their free time, so that they invented one of the first sports ever.
3. Their Calendar: Wow. That is all I can say. The Mayans had their very own calendar, not only did they calculate exactly the right amount of days, but they also found out what kind of activitites to do on each day, as the stars, moons, and other planets rotations, apparently influenced how events would turn out. They even predicted the end of the world, and that every 52 years or so, the cycle of the planets would start the same way over again. With their calendar, they knew when to plant crops, making them some of the most successful agricultural people ever. They could even have several growing seasons.

An ancient Mayan Ball Court.

An ancient Mayan Calendar.

The Social System of the Aryans

• The caste systme originated as the Aryans developed their settlements in India. At first, people were "classified" by their varna, or the color of their skin. This racism later evolved into classification by job. There were thousands of subcastes and jati, each one for another specialized job. At the top of the caste system were priests, warriors and aristocrats, while the bottom classes were taken up by landless peasants and slaves.
• Varna means "color" in the language Sanskrit, which is ancient Indian.
• The four main varnas were brahmins or priests, kshatriyas were warriors and aristocrats, vaishyas were artisants, farmers and merchants, and shudras were landless peasants or serfs.
• The later fifth varna was that of the "Untouchables", who were viewed as the "dirt" of society. They did all the jobs that no one else wanted to do, including hard labor and other dirty work. They were believed to be so full of germs, that you could get infected just by touching them, so nobody would ever want to come near them.
• Jati was another word for a subcaste, so a separate group within one of the varnas.
• General rules of jati included that when you were born, you belonged to the same jati as your parents, and you couldn't do much to change that. You usually married people and only spent time with the people that belonged to the same jati as you. Some people became more loyal to their yati than to the government or their religion. You had to treat the people of a higher jati with great respect.
• If rules were violated, you were "expelled" from your jati, meaning, you belonged nowhere. And it is very hard to function all alone because everyone looked down on you if you were an outcaste.
• Aryans believed that the caste system made it easier to govern society, as each jati had specific rules. With the caste system, everybody had a task, nobody was "jobless", so it was a great system to get people to do their work. Everybody worked to their full potentional, in the hope of improving their position and moving up one jati in society, which rarely happened to individuals, but more likely to a whole jati from group effort.
• The Upanishads were literary and oral works concerning religion, moral issues, meditation and philosophy. Often, they were delivered by a sage with disciples listening to discuss the issues.
• Brahman is the universal soul, or the Earth system as a whole. It is a foundation of all things existing, and it is stable and unchanging.
• Samsara is a belief that when someone dies, they temporarily go to a heaven-like place, and are then reborn into a new existence.
• Karma is the specific existence that someone was reborn into. If you lived a pure life, you were reborn into a better life, for example into a higher jati. But if you lived in sin, you were reborn into a worse life.
• Moksha breaks the cycle of rebirth and lets your soul rest in a state of "dreamless sleep". To attain moksha, you had to lead an extremely simple, pleasure-free life, and meditate until you reached "enlightement".
• The Upanishads were often used to justify the inequality created by the caste system. They stated why one was born into a caste - because of the way one had lived their previous life.