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.

Egyptians, Phoenicians, Babylonians (Compare & Contrast)

Religious Beliefs:

• All these societies were polytheistic, believing in many gods, who were often associated with nature and other natural phenomena that were not explainable at that period of time. People built elaborate temples, where they made offerings to their gods and priests lived and worked.
• In Egypt, it was believed that the pharaoh was at least a demi-god, which is the reason why they were mummified and buried in pyramids with luxurious items that they would need in their afterlife, or life after death.

Writing Systems:

• There was a system of writing in all societies.
• Babylonians and Phoenicians started out with pictographs, each symbolizing an object. But picture writing was ineffective to display abstaract ideas.
• Soon, Phoenicians developed a first real alphabet, based on sounds rather than things.
• Babylonians relied on cuneiform, which was carved into clay tablets, with a wedge-shaped reed.
• Egyptians used hieroglyphs, also a form of writing based half on sounds, half on objects or syllables. Egyptians wrote or carved on stone, but they developed an early form of paper, form papyrus, which was a lot more effective than writing on stone.

Geogrpahy:

• All societies were located near a source of water, which enabled trade and transport through ships, and irrigation for agriculture.
• The Phoenician society was located at the Mediterrannean Coast.
• The Egyptians made use of the Nile River, and were therefore known as "the gift of the Nile".
• The Babylonian culture was located in Mesopotamia, between the Tigris and the Euphrates, in a river valley.
• While Egyptians and Babylonians had vast empires, Phoenicia was made up of several smaller kingdoms, often not unified under one ruler.

Agricultural Advances:

• Of these three societies, Babylonians relied most on agriculture, and farming, as they had a lush valley, ideal for farming.
• Egyptians adopted farming a little later than Babylonians, but also flourished through the rich silt deposits of the Nile River's flooding.
• Phoenicians didn't rely on agriculture, as they were trading people and only their wives and children stayed home. They focused on industry, building and trade.

Social Structure:

• The basic structure of society for all went as follows: king/ruler -> nobles -> priests/scribes/merchants -> manufacturers -> farmers/other peasants -> slaves
• In Phoenicia, the controllers of trade were very important too.
• In Egypt, there was no real noble class, as the pharaoh was an all powerful ruler.
• Women played only a small role in Babylonia and Phoenicia, where they mainly were housewives and mother for children, having little rights and say about their life.
• In Egypt, however, there even was a woman ruler, Queen Hatshepsut, at one time. Woemn had a few more rights in Egypt than in Mesopotamia.

Technical Advancements and Inventions:

• Egyptians were famous for:
• pyramids, mummification, papyrus paper, medicine/surgery, nilometers
• Phoenicians were famous for:
• shipbuilding, textiles/dyes, furniture, decorative items, alphabet
• Babylonians were famous for:
• code of law, Hanging Gardens of Babylon

Trade Routes:

• Babylonians focused on trade throughout the empire, in Mesopotamia, and over lands, like the Anatolian Peninsula.
• Phoenician trade routes were extremely vast; they took control over the whole Mediterrannean Sea and sailed all the way around Africa and up to the British islands and Scandinavia.
• The Egyptians traded with their Nubian neighbors and other African states, but also Mediterrannean nations, such as the Phoenicians.

By the rivers of Babylon..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FgDles4xq8&ob=av2n

The ancient Mesopotamian city of Babylon was the capital of the Babylonian Empire (during the reign of Hammurabi) and the New Babylonian Empire (600 to 550 BCE). It is located towards the southern center of Mesopotamia, on the eastern banks of the Euphrates River.

• Art was very abundant in Babylon, especially demonstrated in the lush temples near the city center. Early mosaics and terra cotta covered the inside walls, which were sometimes even lined with gold and zinc. The Babylonians also made many relief sculputures, which were more three-dimensional than the traditional reliefs.

• Baylon had the typical social structure of other Mesopotamian city-states during both the Old Empire and the New Empire. A king or emperor was at the top of society, followed by the rest of nobility, then priests, scholars and merchants. Towards the bottom of the system were farmers and peasants. At the very bottom, were the slaves, who were mainly owned by the upper class. There was a sort of middle class, made up of the specialized workers, like potters and metalworkers.

• The political system of Babylon was simple: a king or emperor held power and enforced this power with several officials beneath him. One Babylonian king, Hammurabi, also made a code of law, to ensure that he had at least some control over his vast empire. He used the law of retaliation, which means if you killed a person, you were killed too. He also collected taxes regularly. Usually, the king was succeeded by his son or another relative, which is also known as the rule of a dynasty.

• There was no significant level of intellectuality in Babylon, although Hammurabi invented the first code of law and King Nebuchadnezzar built the famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon for his wife, who missed her home. Some scribes and priests in ancient Babylon developed their own philosophy by creating wisdom literature, consisitng of poems and dialogues. They tried to find their own reasons for natural phenomena, and influenced later Greek philosophers.

• Religion in ancient Babylon was a very seriously taken aspect of life. There were many temples and priests were a very significant part of society. In these temples, there were statues of holy gods, and the people were required to bring them offerings. The priests later consumed these offerings and cleaned the statue's robes. The priests were believed to be able to read the future, so people often payed them large amounts of money to make sure that they would only have good things happening to them alter in their lives.

• Babylonian economy was centered on trade - trade was the key to wealth. Their trading network was based on farming because this was the main form of industry. Since the Babylonian Empire was a stable one, trade routes were mostly safe from bandits, so the king could afford to promote trade and therefore tax the people to ensure the further protection of these routes. The Babylonians had an early form of currency, which was sometimes silver, and sometimes pieces of metal shaped like ducks.

Hammurabi?!?!

How can someone expect me to read all this? Plus, it's law?? Like, whaaat?
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/ancient/hamframe.asp


Alright ->
128. If a man take a woman to wife, but have no intercourse with her, this woman is no wife to him.

Did Cooking Make us Human? Response to Class Video

What really made us human? That is what some scientist are trying to figure out, and they have come to the conclusion that it was indeed our diet, or more specifically cooked food. Around four million years ago, our ancient ancestor, the australopithecus, follwed a diet of raw vegetables and fruit, rarely some nuts. As an experiment, scientists put ten people into a two-week diet camp - Back to Basics: Eat like Apes! After two weeks, all of the participants had lost up to five kilograms of weight, and suffered severe stomach and digestion problems. This way, scientists believe it was the food we ate that allowed us to develop. Another human ancestor, homo habilis, is believed to have eaten meat, and his brain was thirty percent bigger than that of australopithecus. Teeth of the australopithecus were compared to the teeth of homo habilis, to find out homo habilis was suited much better to a diet of meat than australopithecus ever was. Their teeth remains also showed carbon prints, that allowed the scientist to assume our ancestors moved from forests to grassland, because they ate grazing animals. But did they just eat raw meat? The answer is no because the next human ancestor, homo erectus, knew how to control fire, and it is believed that once upon a time, these people dropped meat into a fire by accident, but they liked the taste, so they kept cooking their food. Cooked food makes access to calories easier because the process of digestion was sped up, so homo erectus got more energy. This excess energy was given to the brain, which in turn developed in size. Over time, our stomachs shrank, and our brains grew. Today, our brain consumes over twenty percent of our total energy intake, and it works more, the more fatty food you eat. (So it is actually good that I eat chocolate while doing homework.) So all in all, I do believe that it was cooking that made us human. This theory provides a reasonable explanation for why our brains were able to develop the way they did, it's all about food!