Do you think that it was hard to memorize all 26 letters in the alphabet? What do you think of when you see the number 10? Well, whatever you thought of, the ancient Maya thought differently. Mrs. Hale should use the time machine to go to the Maya time period so we can answer these questions from an ancient Mayan’s point of view. We should go to see the Maya because they had advanced science and math, interesting religious beliefs, and complex language and writing.
We should go back in time to see the Maya because they had advanced science and math. First of all, the Mayas were the first people to think about the concept of zero. Many civilizations could use zero as nothing, but they did not think to use it as the Maya did. The Maya used zero as we often do today, as a placeholder. For example, in the number 10 they could think to say that there is one ten, and then they can put in the place of the ones a zero, to represent zero ones and 1 ten. It was important they thought of this, because you can’t count above nine without this concept! Also, besides math, the Maya made an important contribution to how we keep track of the world. The Maya were the first people to come up with the calendar. They calculated the amount of time that was in one day, and how long it took the earth to make a full revolution around the sun. They calculated the exact amount of time in a day, and were pretty accurate with their year calculation too! They calculated that there were 365.2420 days in a year, while the number of days we use today is 365.2422! They were only 2 ten-thousandths off! Also, it was amazing for them to be so accurate. After all, they used the sun to navigate years and had a solar calendar. It might not seem so hard now, but it was very difficult back then when they didn’t have telescopes! All the Maya had was their bare eye, and that isn’t much help when observing the sun! Seems impossible, right? Well, They were able to do it by using the sunsets and sunrises. At different times of year, the sun sets and rises in different places. So, they could just calculate the number of days that it took for the sun to set and rise back in the exact same place as when they started counting. We may have slightly more accurate calendars now, but it was still impressive to calculate a year.
The Maya also had interesting religious beliefs. Some of the Maya’s religious beliefs may seem very strange to us now, but were important to their religion. According to the Maya legend, there were creator gods that made the Earth and all humans. The first humans could see everything and had almost as much power as the gods. The gods decided that it was too much for humans to handle, and they would abuse it. So, they took their power and sight away. Their sacred book is called the Popol Vuh, which states that because of this, human’s view of the world is unclear, and only the gods truly can make sense of it. If we went to the Maya, we might actually get to see this book! We could maybe even hear a reading from it, to see what the Maya believed. There might be one religious thing we need to stay away from, the human sacrifices. I won’t go into too much detail here, but the Maya would kill people and offer them as gifts to the gods. They would often burn them to know that it got to the gods. Also, if we went to the Maya time period, we’d get to celebrate our birthdays two times a year! We would be able to do this because the Maya had two calendars, their solar calendar, like the calendar we use today, and they had the sacred round. The sacred round was a 260 day year that was used to keep track of religious events. So, every person had two birthdays, one on the solar calendar, and one on the sacred round. Also, Maya children had many ceremonies that we do not have anymore, like a coming of age ceremony. When a young girl was born, a shell attached to a string would be tied to her waist, and when a boy got enough hair, a bead was tied onto his head. Both of these were symbols of childhood. Before the age of five, children had no responsibilities. When they became 5, they helped their parents with farming and housekeeping. Then, when they became 14, these symbols would be cut off from them. A priest would cut the bead from the boy’s hair, and the mother of the girl would cut off the string and shell. After they were cut away, they would celebrate with close friends and family. These are more of the amazing things we would get to see if we went to the Maya civilization. I still have more reasons to go there, if you are not convinced.
The Maya also had very difficult writing and language. While some civilizations had no written language, like the Incas, the Mayas had a complicated system of hieroglyphs. The Mayas had 800 symbols in their written language, and each one has a unique meaning. It took present day humans years to decode all of the symbols, but they finally figured it out. One of the main wonders of the Maya world is the hieroglyphic stairway. Now we are back to my beginning. You see the hieroglyphic stairway tower above you as you move upward, examining each symbol. Some look similar, while some look quite different. Each seem queer to our eye, but to a Maya, it would be telling of their greatest victories, and their worst downfalls. This would be a once in a lifetime opportunity!
I think that we should go to the Maya time period because they excelled at math and science, had interesting religious beliefs, and they had very difficult writing and language. If we went to this time period we would be able to better understand the Maya lives, and maybe understand our own better.
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