Mayan Indians
Mayan Indians mainly occupied areas in Mexican and Central America. Unlike
many of the Indian tribes the Mayan Indians are still around today and populating
the same regions they have for centuries. The modern Mayan Indians are obviously
more modernized but many still practice the traditions of old and many still
speak the Mayan language as their first language.
The Mayan Indians are well known for several things, some of which are included
here. The Mayan Indians had developed a form of calendar; the Mayan calendar
was very intricate and quite a bit different then our standard three hundred
and sixty five day calendar year. The Mayan calendar could include many different
disc shaped calendars that could be used in combination to create different
cycles. Another major thing to note is that the Mayan Indians calendar is
based on the 260-day cycle used in the past by many Mesoamerican tribes. The
Mayan calendar was not the same calendar as that of Mesoamerican tribes; it
was actually a more refined and sophisticated adaptation.
The Mayan Indians writing style was very similar in style to the Japanese
writing in that it used logograms enhanced by a set of syllabic glyphs, which
is very similar. Although to look at Mayan writing you would notice that it
more resembles the Egyptian hieroglyphs then Japanese script. In fact when
first discovered it was thought to be the same style and called hieroglyphic
writing, which then changed to Mayan hieroglyph due to the difference. This
form of writing was the primary form in the Mesoamerican tribes from around
the 3rd century BC to around the 16th century. The time length shows how prevalent
and widely understood this was to have lasted such a vast time frame.
Finally we come to the architecture of the Maya Indians. The most commonly
seen architecture of the Mayans is the stepped pyramids that have become quite
famous. When researching the Mayas you will generally see several photos of
these pyramids. Looking past the pyramids you can see that the Mayans were
great builders, many of their structures seem to have been built in accordance
to the land, if they had a flat surface that would build from that, if there
was a cliff they had to work with they would build taller structures using
the cliff face as a form of foundation. Many of their structures were created
using limestone which was soft enough to work with their stone tools, and
a majority of the common homes would be made of adobe, a form of baked mud
brick.
Looking for something different? Search our site.
|
