Aztecs, and Incas Achievements of the Maya,Maya, the Aztecs, and the Incas. While you are reading, you will focus on three main areas of culture: science and technology, arts and architecture,

Achievements of the Maya,Aztecs, and IncasWhat were the significant achievements of the Maya, Aztecs, and Incas?

Introduction

The cultures of Mexico,Central, and South Americaproduced great art work,such as this gold ornamentmade by the Incas.

The three great peoples of the early Americas—the Maya, the Aztecs,and the Incas—each had unique cultures and achievements. Thehistory of these civilizations stretches from very ancient times to just afew centuries ago. Maya civilization dates back to 2000 B.C.E. andreached its height in what is called the Classic period, which lastedabout 200 to 900 C.E. The Aztecs and the Incas, on the other hand, builttheir empires in the two centuries before the Spanish arrived in the

A C H I E V E M E N T S O F T H E ...

2019 Teachers' Curriculum Institute Level: A

1500s.

Scholars have learned about these cultures in various ways. They havestudied artifacts found at the sites of old settlements and have alsoread accounts left by Spanish soldiers and priests. In addition, scholarshave observed several traditions that have been passed down forgenerations. These traditions can still be found among the descendantsof the Maya, Aztecs, and Incas.

The more we learn about these cultures, the more we can appreciatewhat was special about each of them. For example, the Maya madestriking advances in writing, astronomy, and architecture. Both theMaya and the Aztecs created highly accurate calendars. The Aztecsadapted earlier pyramid designs to build massive stone temples. Inaddition to managing their huge empire, the Inca showed great skill inengineering.

In this lesson, you will study these and other achievements of theMaya, the Aztecs, and the Incas. While you are reading, you will focuson three main areas of culture: science and technology, arts andarchitecture, and language and writing.

1. Achievements of the MayaMany of the greatest achievements of the Maya date from the Classicperiod (about 200 to 900 C.E.). Hundreds of years later, their ideas andpractices continued to influence other Mesoamerican groups, includingthe Aztecs.

Science and Technology The Maya made important breakthroughsin astronomy and mathematics. Throughout Maya lands, priests studiedthe sky from observatories, where they tracked the movements of starsand planets with great accuracy. The Maya used their observations tocalculate the solar year. The Maya figure for their year of 365.2420days is amazingly precise.

These calculations allowed the Maya to create their solar calendar of365 days. They also had a sacred 260-day calendar. Every 52 years,the first date in both calendars fell on the same day, giving the Maya alonger unit of time that they called a Calendar Round. For the ancientMaya, this 52-year period was something like what a century is to us.


Level: A 2019 Teachers' Curriculum Institute

Maya priests are still active today. This priest takes part in a Mayaceremony in Guatemala.

Maya astronomy and calendar-making depended on a deepunderstanding of mathematics, and in some ways, the Maya numbersystem was similar to ours. The Maya used place values for numbers,just as we do. However, instead of being based on the number 10, theirsystem was based on 20. So, instead of place values for 1s, 10s, and100s, the Maya had place values for 1s, 20s, 400s (20 times 20), and soon.

The Maya also recognized the need for zero—a discovery made by fewother early civilizations. In the Maya system for writing numbers, a dotstood for one, a bar for five, and a shell symbol for zero. To add andsubtract, people lined up two numbers and then combined or tookaway dots and bars.

Arts and Architecture The Maya were equally gifted in the arts. Wecan see the artistry of Maya painters in the Bonampak murals, whichwere found in Chiapas, Mexico. The murals were made with colorsmixed from minerals and plants. These murals depict nobles and



priests, battle scenes, ceremonies, and sacrifice rituals.

Huipiles, colorful blouseswoven with complexpatterns, are still worn byMaya women today. Thesehuipiles on sale in aGuatemalan market show theartistry with which theseclothes are made.

The Maya also constructed upright stone slabs called steles, whichthey often placed in front of temples. Most steles stood between 5 and12 feet tall, although some rose as high as 30 feet. Steles usually hadthree-dimensional carvings of gods and rulers. Sometimes, the Mayainscribed them with dates and hieroglyphics in honor of significantevents.

Another important art was weaving. We know from steles and paintingsthat the Maya wove colorful fabric in complex patterns. Women madeembroidered tunics called huipiles and fashioned lengths of cloth fortrade. Maya women still make their huipiles in traditional designs using



similar techniques today. People from different towns can bedistinguished by the colors and patterns of their garments.

In architecture, the Maya built temple-pyramids from hand-cutlimestone bricks. An unusual feature of Maya buildings was a type ofarch called a corbel vault, which was made when builders stackedstones so that they gradually angled in toward each other to form atriangular archway. At the top of the arch, where the stones almosttouched, one stone joined the two sides. The archway always had ninestone layers, representing the nine layers of the underworld, the placewhere souls were thought to go after death.

Language and Writing The Maya developed the most complexsystem of writing in the ancient Americas, using hieroglyphics, orpicture symbols, to represent sounds, words, and ideas. Hieroglyphicinscriptions have been found on stoneware and other artifacts datingfrom possibly as early as 300 B.C.E.

Over time, the Maya created hundreds of glyphs, eventually allowingscribes to write down anything in the spoken language. They oftenwrote about rulers, history, myths and gods, and astronomy.

However, not all Maya groups shared the same language. Instead, theyspoke related dialects. Today, about four million Mesoamericans stillspeak one of thirty or so Mayan dialects.

2. Achievements of the AztecsThe Aztecs adapted many ideas from earlier groups, including theircalendars and temple-pyramids. But the Aztecs improved on theseideas and made them their own.

Science and Technology One of the Aztecs’ most remarkabletechnological achievements was the construction of their island city,Tenochtitlán. The Aztecs enlarged the area of the city by creatingartificial islands called chinampas. Today, flower farmers in Xochimilco,near Mexico City, still use chinampas. Tourists enjoy taking boat trips tosee these “floating gardens.”

Just as impressive as the chinampas were the three causeways thatconnected Tenochtitlán to the mainland. The causeways were oftencrowded with people traveling in and out of the capital. During therainy season, when the waters of the lake rose, the causeways alsoserved as dikes to hold back water.



To manage time, the Aztecs adapted the Maya solar and sacredcalendars. The 365-day solar calendar was especially useful forfarming, since it tracked the seasons. Priests used the sacred 260-daycalendar to predict events and to determine “lucky” days for suchthings as planting crops and going to war.

Adapted from the Maya calendar, the Sun Stone calendar shows theface of the Aztec sun god. It includes a 365-day agricultural calendarand a 260-day sacred calendar.

One of the most famous Aztec artifacts is a calendar called the SunStone, which depicts the face of the sun god at its center. Thisbeautifully carved stone is nearly twelve feet wide and weighs almosttwenty-five tons. Today, the Sun Stone is a well-known symbol ofMexico.



This woman performs atraditional dance in MexicoCity, where Aztec dancersperformed in ceremoniesover 600 years ago.

Arts and Architecture The Aztecs practiced a number of arts,including poetry, music, dance, and sculpture. Poets wrote verses tosing the praises of the gods, to tell stories, and to celebrate the naturalworld. Poetry was highly valued, and Aztec poets sung their poems orrecited them to music. Sometimes, actors performed them, creating adramatic show with dialogue and costumes.

Music and dance were important features of Aztec ceremonies andholidays, and people dressed up for these special occasions. Womenwore beautiful blouses over their skirts while men painted their faces,greased their hair, and wore feathered headdresses. The dancersformed large circles and moved to the beat of drums and the sound ofrattle bells. The dances had religious meaning, and the dancers had toperform every step correctly. Sometimes, thousands of people dancedat one time. Even the emperor occasionally joined in.

The Aztecs were also gifted painters and sculptors. Painters used



brilliant colors to create scenes showing gods and religious ceremonies.Sculptors fashioned stone statues and relief sculptures on temple walls.They also carved small, lifelike figures of people and animals from rockand semiprecious stones, such as jade. In technical craft and beauty,their work surpassed that of earlier Mesoamerican cultures.

In architecture, the Aztecs are best remembered today for theirmassive stone temples. The Aztecs were unique in building doublestairways, like those of the Great Temple in Tenochtitlán. Thestaircases led to two temples, one for the sun god and one for the godof rain. Smaller pyramids nearby had their own temples, wheresacrificial fires burned before huge statues of the gods.

Language and Writing Spoken language was raised to an art inAztec society. Almost any occasion called for dramatic and oftenflowery speeches. The rich vocabulary of the Aztec language, Nahuatl,allowed speakers to create new words and describe abstract concepts.

The Aztec system of writing used both glyphs and pictographs. Apictograph is a drawing that depicts a word, phrase, or name, ratherthan symbolizes it. For example, the Aztec pictograph for war was asymbol of a shield and a club. However, the Aztecs did not have enoughpictographs and glyphs to express everything that could be spoken intheir language, so scribes instead used writing to list data or to outlineevents. Priests used these writings to spark their memories whenrelating stories from the past.

3. Achievements of the IncasLike the Aztecs, the Incas often borrowed and improved upon ideasfrom other cultures. However, the Incas faced a unique challenge inmanaging the largest empire in the Americas. Maintaining tight controlover such a vast, enormous area was certainly one of their mostimpressive accomplishments.



Terraces anchored withstones can still be seen in theruins of the Incan city ofMachu Picchu.

Science and Technology The Incas’ greatest technological skill wasengineering. The best example is their amazing system of roads. TheIncas built roads across the length and width of their empire. To createroutes through steep mountain ranges, they carved staircases andgouged tunnels out of rock. They also built suspension bridges overrivers made from thick rope cables anchored at stone towers on eitherside of the river. Two cables served as rails, while three others held awalkway.

In agriculture, the Incas showed their technological skill by vastlyenlarging the system of terraces already in use by earlier Andeanfarmers. The Incas anchored their step-like terraces with stones andimproved the drainage systems in the fields. On some terraces, theyplanted different crops at elevations where they knew that the plantswould grow best.

To irrigate the crops, the Incas built canals that brought water to thetop of a hillside of terraces. From there, the water ran down, level bylevel. Today, people in South America still grow crops on Incanterraces.



The Incas also made remarkable advances in medicine. Incan priests,who were in charge of healing, practiced a type of surgery calledtrephination. Priests operated on the patient—usually an injuredwarrior—by cutting into the skull to remove bone fragments that werepressing against the brain. As drastic as this sounds, many peoplesurvived the operation and recovered full health.

Arts and Architecture Making textiles for clothing was one of themost important Incan arts. The quality and design of a person’s clotheswere a sign of status. The delicate cloth worn by Incan nobles oftenfeatured bright colors and bold geometric patterns. Incan women alsomade feather tunics, or long shirts, weaving feathers from jungle birdsright into the cloth.

The Incas fashioned valuable objects out of prized gold, which theycalled the “sweat of the sun.” Gold covered almost every inch inside theTemple of the Sun in the Incan capital city of Cuzco. Incan goldsmithsalso fashioned masks, sculptures, knives, and jewelry.

Music was a major part of Incan life, and the Incas played manyinstruments, including flutes, seashell horns, rattles, drums, andpanpipes. Scholars believe that the modern music of the Andes regionpreserves elements of Incan music.

In architecture, the Incas are known for their huge, durable stonebuildings. The massive stones of Incan structures fit together so tightlythat a knife blade could not be slipped between them. Incan buildings



were sturdy, too—many remain standing today.

Language and Writing The Incas made their language, Quechua,the official language of the empire, and as a result, Quechua spread farand wide. About ten million people in South America still speak it.

Because the Incas did not have a written language, they developed aningenious substitute: the knotted sets of strings called quipus. TheIncas used quipus as memory aids when sending messages andrecording information.

SummaryIn this chapter, you explored the cultural achievements of the Maya,Aztecs, and Incas. All three peoples accomplished advances in scienceand technology, arts and architecture, and language and writing.

Cultural Interaction The cultural achievements of the MayanClassical period had a lasting impact on later Mesoamerican cultures.The Maya were able to develop a very accurate solar calendar withtheir knowledge of astronomy and math. The Aztecs later adopted acalendar based on the Maya system and created the famous Sun Stonecalendar. The Maya and Aztecs both painted elaborate, colorful murals.The Aztecs also followed the Maya example in constructing large stonetemple-pyramids. The Incas constructed huge stone buildings as well.The Maya and Incas were both known for weaving elaborate, colorfulfabrics.

Human-Environment Interaction The Maya, Aztecs, and Incasengineered their environment to best suit their needs. In Tenochtitlánthe Aztecs constructed artificial islands to enlarge the area of their city.They also constructed causeways connecting the island city ofTenochtitlán to the mainland that served as bridges and dikes. TheIncas adapted to their mountainous terrain by creating terraced farms.They also created an elaborate system of roads throughout their largeempire.



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Aztecs, and Incas Achievements of the Maya,Maya, the Aztecs, and the Incas. While you are reading, you will focus on three main areas of culture: science and technology, arts and architecture,