Mayas-ab

This is a dry region and although urban centers were built in this region, including Chichen Itza and Uxmal (oosh-mal), most scholars believe that this was a marginal area. After the abandonment of the Mayan cities, the Yucatan peninsula became the principal region of a new, synthetic culture called Toltec Mayan which was formed when Toltecs migrating from the northintegrated with indigenous Maya people.**
 * The Region**[[image:space/showimage/mayanmap2.gif width="527" height="331" align="right"]]
 * Maya culture developed in three regions in Mesoamerica. By far the most important and most complete urban developments occurred in the lowlands in the "central region" of southern Guatemala. This region is a drainage basin about 60 miles long and 20 miles wide and is covered by tropical forests. The Mayas, in fact, are only one of two people to develop an urban culture in a tropical rain forest. The principal city in this region is Tikal. The spread of urbanization extended south of Honduras. The southernmost Mayan city was Copan in northern Honduras. In in the Guatemalan highlands to the north, Mayan culture developed less fully. The highlands are more temperate and seem to have been the main suppliers of the raw materials to the central urban centers. The most complete urban center was the Yucatan peninsula making up the southern and eastern portions of modern-day Mexico.


 * History**[[image:space/showimage/ts._jpg.jpg width="118" height="144" align="left"]]
 * The Mayans enter history with the diffusion of certain architecual styles throughout the Mayan cultural area. The early diffusion of this architechture, which includes stelae and corbelled vaults. For reasons that we don’t understand, the Mayas, abandoned their cities around 900AD. There is evidence of invasion from the outside and its possible that economic difficulties led them to abandon the cities. The greatest change seems to be the disappearence of the priestly class. With this disappearence, the Mayas stopped working on their cities.**


 * Economy**
 * The Mayan population was generally very small. Very few of the Mayas permanently lived in the urban centers. The reason for this is the nature of agriculture in tropical rain forest. The Mayas were forced to cultivated tropical rain forest.

Religion Mayan religious practice included, prayer, dancing, incense offering, and individual sacrifice. The individual sacrifice was a common practice among the Mayas. In which, worshippers extracted blood from themselves, from their ears, lips, tongue, penis, and some other body parts. Such bloodletting was often done at important ceremonies such as, the end of a bundle of time, the dedication of monuments or at a crowning of a new King. The blood would be drawn and would be spilled into a bowl that was filled with wads of bark paper, then it was burned. smoke was created from the burning of the blood of Kings and their families.**