I have until next Monday the 7th to become profecient in the

>>347099
Wasn't an empire or single nation, rather a bunch of city-states.

It took the Spanish hundreds of years to fully subjugate the Mayans.

Unlike their Aztec neighbours to the west, they did not commit human sacrifices.

Largest city was Chitchen Itza.

Mayan people and language still exist today.

Predicted the end of the world on December 21st 2012.

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There were no fresh bodies of water so the Maya channeled rain across their cities into cisterns during the rainy season. Priests were the ones who gave out the water and supposedly controlled the rains. A record drought hit and the authority of the priests dried up with the water and the civilization dissolved.

Also they had the only legit writing system in the Americas.

>>347129
>>347146
>One head only tells lies, the other only tells truth...

>>347129
Many thanks, any knowledge on their belief system and technology?

>>347099
Let's see... They lived in a series of city-states and small kingdoms, rather than any sort of single unified polity or empire, scattered around cenotes in the Yucatan Peninusla and around the Sierra Madre. The population was divided into rulers generically called "ahau" or "ajaw"; the nobility; a middle-class of priests and scribes associated with the temples; a class of merchants and artisans; peasant farmers; and slaves. Their main crop was corn, and main livestock animals were (AFAIK) dogs and turkeys -- though these were supplemented with wild game such as deer, tapir, and armadillo.

Their writing system included both logographic (representing a word or concept) and syllabic (representing a syllabe) characters. The ahau/ajaw had priestly functions, but they were not priests. Most of the priests were either the sons of priests or the lesser sons of noble families -- those who weren't eligible for political office.

Also, the priests who performed sacrifices were generally low-ranking IIRC, and the most common form of sacrifice was drowning people in the cenotes. Also also, human sacrifice was not the most common form in Maya culture, and actually didn't happen as often as is often thought. The Maya were much bigger on self-sacrifice; i.e. cutting or bleeding themselves and giving their own blood as offerings. When things were really desperate, kings and priests were known to pull barbed ropes through their tongues or penises until they passed out from pain or blood loss IIRC.

>>347202
An owl was the messenger of the gods, or something like that. That's all I got.

Thanks bros, I might just be able to pass yet.

>>347202
read popol vuh

>>347223
>drowning people in the cenotes.
That sounds unsanitary.

It took humans a very long time to figure out that drinking water full of shit is bad, but humans have always known that drinking water with dead bodies in it is a very very bad idea.

I'm skeptical of this claim.

>>347405
It wasn't done that often. Like I said, the Maya didn't commit human sacrifice as frequently as is often thought -- in fact, I'd go so far as to call it semi-uncommon -- and it was just one type. But there have been a lot of human bones found the cenotes. There have been other objects, too, and those other objects show signs of being intentionally damaged.

>>347418
You humans do the craziest shit.

>>347418
One big thing I forgot to add is that the cenotes were often believed to be entrances to the realm of the dead, which they called Xibalba (shee-Ball-ba).

>>347425
If I remember correctly the life after death was a continuous walk through 7 realms of xibalba, and some kind of purgatory like place before reaching what was supposed to be paradise. Some sources I've read claim that ritualistic sacrifice or suicide bypass all steps and carry you straight to paradise

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>>347129
>they did not commit human sacrifices

>>347425
I learned that from a cartoon.

>>347202
A lot of their gods carried over from Aztec. I'd recommend looking up the list of Mayan gods in Smite, a video game, and then using those names to actually find a general idea of how things went down like Greek mythology.

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>>347563
>carried from the Aztecs

What the fuck? Aztecs weren't a thing until the XIIIth century, already after the Classic period.