Maya Cities
This famous Maya city in Guatemala may have held up to 100,000 people.
What is Tikal?
This person was seen as a divine ruler in Maya society.
What is a king (god-king)?
This was the Maya belief system involving many gods.
What is polytheism?
This crop was the main food of the Maya.
What is maize (corn)?
The Maya collapse happened mainly in this century.
What is the 9th century A.D.?
Maya cities were organized into these independent political units.
What are city-states?
Most Maya people belonged to this social class.
Who are peasant farmers?
A ritual practice where people offered blood to the gods.
What is bloodletting?
The Maya developed this mathematical concept before many other civilizations.
What is zero?
This environmental problem contributed to the collapse.
What is drought?
These were ball courts used for a sacred sport tied to religion.
What are Maya ball courts?
This group included priests and top warriors below the king.
Who are nobles?
This sacred game could result in human sacrifice.
What is the ball game?
Maya astronomers could predict these events involving the sun and moon.
What are eclipses?
Fighting between these groups weakened Maya civilization.
What are city-states?
The region where most Maya civilization developed.
What is Mesoamerica (or the Yucatán Peninsula area)?
Power was passed down through this system.
What is hereditary rule?
The Maya believed the world went through repeating cycles of creation and destruction.
What is Maya cosmology?
The Maya used this base system for math.
What is base-20?
This was caused by over-farming and led to soil damage.
What is environmental degradation?
This structure at Chichen Itza was used for rituals involving a sinkhole.
What is a cenote?
Maya society had this kind of strict ranking system.
What is a social hierarchy?
This Maya text tells the story of creation and ancestors.
What is the Popol Vuh?
These were folded books made of bark paper.
What are codices?
This shows that Maya culture still exists today.
What are modern Maya descendants?