The Maya
This ancient civilization lived in Mexico and Central America.
Who were the Maya?
Most Maya people earned their living doing this.
What is farming?
This devoted Christian woman prayed for her son Augustine for many years.
Who was Monnica?
Augustine was especially gifted in this art of speaking and writing effectively.
What is rhetoric?
The Bible is divided into these two main sections.
What are the Old and New Testaments.
The Maya built these tall, stepped structures for religious purposes.
What are pyramids?
The Maya were skilled and studying the sun, moon, stars, and planets. This science is called what?
What is astronomy? The Maya were masters at astronomy.
Augustine was born on this continent in A.D. 354.
What is Africa? Augustine was born in North Africa.
This book tells the story of Augustine's life and conversion to Christianity.
What is Confessions?
This is the number of books in the New Testament.
The Maya developed this important mathematical concept representing nothing.
What is zero?
Maya artisans decorated clothing, murals, and pottery using what kind of colors?
What are bright colors? The Mayan people used extremely bright colors to depict daily life and their religious beliefs.
This bishop of Milan helped Augustine reconsider his beliefs about Christianity.
Who was Ambrose?
Augustine was reading from the New Testament book of the Bible when he experienced his conversion.
What is Romans?
This word refers to the recognized collection of books belonging in Scripture.
What is the canon? The English word "canon" means something straight--like a rod, a reed, or a measuring stick. The canon, then, refers to a straight, standard list of the books of the Bible that Jewish leaders and church leaders agreed were divine.
The Maya used this form of picture-and-sound writing.
What are hieroglyphics?
Players used their hips, thighs, and elbows in this popular Maya activity.
What is the Maya ball game? Similar to basketball, the men had to bounce a ball and try to pass it through a raised hoop. However, unlike basketball, the ball could not touch the ground. It had to be bounced off of the players' thighs, hips, and elbows instead.
While sitting in a garden, Augustine heard words telling him to do this.
What is "Take up and read"? Augustine was meditating in a garden when he heard something like children singing "take up and read." So he did.
Augustine wrote this book explaining the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
What is the "On the Trinity"?
Jerome translated and revised the Bible into this language.
What is Latin? Latin was the common language across the Roman Empire and over most of Europe.
This period, from about A.D. 350-900, was when Maya civilization especially flourished.
Around A.D. 800-900, many Maya cities experienced this mysterious event.
What is abandonment and/or decline? It may have been a combination of economic problems, disease, and crop failure that drove the Maya away.
Augustine eventually became bishop of this North African city.
What is Hippo?
This famous Augustine book contrasts earthly cities with the eternal city of God.
What is "The City of God"?
This name was given to Jerome's Latin translation of the Bible, completed around A.D. 405.