https://padlet.com/silacogur/jgsm0pjs13nye1zm . en-us 2023-05-25 13:48:21 UTC 2026-01-04 18:23:55 UTC hello@padlet.com silacogur https://padlet.com/silacogur/jgsm0pjs13nye1zm/wish/2604922747 - majority began to collapse during ninth and tenth centuries A.D.
- Intercity relations soured
- Warfare increased
- Trade declined
- Death rate rose
-real reason is unknown
- hypothesis:
- climate simulations (drought) combined with slash-and-burn farming techniques -> destroyed forests
- wealth city centres became deserted wastelands (some died some scattered to other more fertile land)
- constant warfare among competing city-states
- European colonisation-> Indigenous people were forced to convert to Christianity


]]> 2023-05-25 14:10:30 UTC https://padlet.com/silacogur/jgsm0pjs13nye1zm/wish/2604922747 silacogur https://padlet.com/silacogur/jgsm0pjs13nye1zm/wish/2623348128 - more than six million descendants live in Central America (Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, parts of Mexico)
- roughly 40% of Guatemalans are of Mayan descent 
- keep traditions alive e.g. clothing style
- more than 30 languages are still spoken today which originated from the Mayan language 
- live in communities -> farm homesteads

]]> 2023-06-14 11:17:13 UTC https://padlet.com/silacogur/jgsm0pjs13nye1zm/wish/2623348128 silacogur https://padlet.com/silacogur/jgsm0pjs13nye1zm/wish/2623349375 ~Today:
- nominal Roman Catholics
- late 20th Century started to convert to Evangelical Protestantism
- Religion is mixed with traditional beliefs 
~Back in the day: 
- deeply religious 
- worshipped gods related to nature (eg. god of sun, rain or corn) 
- had at least 166 named gods 
- believed that even inanimate objects had a soul
- Mayan people underwent ritual bloodletting and self-torture for gods 
- losers of a game (forerunner of soccer) were sacrificed to gods
- sacrifices were thought to guarantee fertility, demonstrate piety and make peace with the gods 
-drawing of blood was thought to nourish gods and achieve contact with them

]]> 2023-06-14 11:19:01 UTC https://padlet.com/silacogur/jgsm0pjs13nye1zm/wish/2623349375 silacogur https://padlet.com/silacogur/jgsm0pjs13nye1zm/wish/2624578172 - lived in three separate sub-areas:
   -northern Maya lowlands: on the Yucatán Peninsula 
   -southern lowlands: in the Peter district of northern Guatemala & parts of Mexico, Belize & western Honduras 
   -southern Maya highlands: in the mountainous region of southern Guatemala 
- each community ja their own language & culture
- majority of population consisted of farmers
- only started to settle down around 1800 BC.
- learned to build a civilisation in a tropical forest climate 
- the Maya took advantage of the areas natural resources 
  - limestone (construction)
  - volcanic rock obsidian (tools & weapons)
  - salt
  - jade
  - quetzal feathers (decorate costumes of Maya nobility)
- marine shells (trumpets in ceremonies and warfare]]> 2023-06-15 13:38:59 UTC https://padlet.com/silacogur/jgsm0pjs13nye1zm/wish/2624578172 silacogur https://padlet.com/silacogur/jgsm0pjs13nye1zm/wish/2624611790 - various combinations of around 1000 signs
- made up of logograms (represent words e.g. @) & syllabograms (represent single syllables)
- Maya writing is phonetic 
- developed in the 3rd centuries B.C.
- fell out of use in 17th century
- can be found on different mediums e.g. vases or wood
- Maya books made from bark-paper (Codices)
- screen fold books bound with jaguar skin -> we only know about four that survived 
- glyph-blocks -> group of signs that form a word
- largest sign -> main sign
- attached smaller ones-> affixes
- read from left to right and top to bottom in double-columns
- texts usually begin with a date
- sentence structure: Date-Verb-Suject
- dates take up to 80% of the text 
- verbs are often just one or two glyph blocks 
- 3rd person singular pronoun is the most common 
- most ancient texts we know come from public monuments 
- nearly 85% of the known hieroglyphs have been decoded 
- only a small group of people could write and read]]> 2023-06-15 14:17:42 UTC https://padlet.com/silacogur/jgsm0pjs13nye1zm/wish/2624611790