general information

They built elaborate pyramids and observatories, all without metal tools.

The Mayas, like others who cultivated tropical rain forest, practiced cut and burn agriculture. Because growth is so rapid in tropical rain forests, the nutrients provided by dead plants and animal droppings gets used up very quickly. Rain forest soil is not fertile ground for growing crops.

In slash and burn agriculture, the Mayans would cut down a patch of forest, burn the felled trees and plants for fertilizer, and then cultivate the plot.

Because the Mayans did not replenish the land, their soil would be too poor for growing food in two to four years. It takes a lot of land to support a family. Each five people probably needed at least 70 acres to grow their food.


The indigenous tacos are of Charales, maguey worms, sweet water shrimps, ant spawn or escamoles, and even chapulines (a kind of crickets).


The molcajete is a pestle and mortar used for grinding spices. The metate is a flat version with a pestle shaped more like a rolling pin, used for grinding


their ball game:

The game appears in various myths, sometimes as a struggle between day and night deities, or the battles between the gods in the sky and the lords of the underworld. The ball symbolized the sun, moon, or stars, and the rings stood for sunrise and sunset, or equinoxes.

The losing team was usually sacrificed




Men wore an ex which is a loincloth--a cloth that covers as much as a small bathing suit. . Women wore loose sack like dresses. The clothes of the priests and nobles were made with finer materials and had many shells and beads on them. For ceremonies they wore wonderful head-dresses.


Most Mayas could read some hieroglyphs. But priests and nobles were probably the only people who knew the whole language. The Maya carved these symbols into stone, and made books from tree bark, called codexes


The Maya have been making ceramics the same way for centuries. To produce a bowl the potter sits on the ground before a wooden board. Using her hands she forms the flat base of the bowl. Then she builds up the sides by placing ropes of clay, called gusanos (worms) on the base. Once the coils are tall enough, she then smoothes out the clay. The potters hands, fingertips and palms are her main tools, though she will use a piece of rubber and/or the flat of a knife to work the piece to a smoother finish. Then the bowl is is left to dry in the sun for several days. Potters were mostly women