Technology in Ancient Civilizations: the Mayans
The
Mayas [2] lived in the region of Yucatan in Mexico during the period 250 – 900
AC, stretching to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. They developed complex
mathematics and are world known for their calendar; and they also had a writing
system which described their religion and rulers. When the Holy Lords lost
their authority, the Mayans collapsed as a culture and civilization. Now the
Yucatan was not the best place to build a civilization due to it’s terrain.
Their agricultural system produced enough to provide tribute to the Holy Lord.
Swamps and settlements were built in a way to capture rain. Tikal was one of
the major mine centers. However, it lacked a natural supply of water: no
springs, rivers, or lakes in its immediate vicinity. To supply water to the
people who lived and worked there they created reservoirs. In different cities,
they built aqueducts and dams and drains and bridges to control floods caused
by streams that fed the city. Water management required a ton of labor. The
Holy Lords controlled the reservoirs and distributed water to the people during
the dry season in return for tribute in the form of food and labor. The issue
was of course betting the whole power to the ability to bring rain to the
population. Eventually, the region experienced a long period of draughts and
the civilization disappeared. Many technological advances did the Mayas leave
behind. The previously mentioned Calendar appears as the most important
innovation. The Mayas were great astronomers and mathematicians. The Mayan
Calendar represents an elegant system of cycles to measure time according to
nature’s frequencies, taking into account specific cycles for universal time,
agriculture and the human being. It was created to help human beings understand
nature’s daily frequency and to empower the individual with the energy of the
universe. In this calendar system, days are made up of 2 concepts: the tones,
and the day signs. The 13-day count is constituted by the tones or numbers 1 to
13. In parallel each day is assigned one of 20 signs (dog, monkey, jaguar, are
some examples of the signs). The calendar combines 2 wheels: one with the tones
and other with the day signs facing each other and rotating, producing unique
combinations. Example: 1-crocodile, 2-wind, 3-night, and so on. This sequence
goes on without interruption for 260 days of their calendar.
The Mayan
Long Count start date began on August 11th 3114 BC and the target end date was
on December 21st 2012 AC. According to the Mayans the completion of a Long
Count is 5.125 years, divided into 260 sections resulting in nearly 20-year
units of time. Each unit of time involves a prophecy attached to them,
foreseeing the fate of their civilization for that particular period. The final
period ending in 2012 has been analyzed extensively, many theories attached to
it. Whereas it was thought many times as “the end of the world”, it really
means a period of changes for mankind, the beginning of a new cycle. Whatever
that means can be subject to infinite interpretations, but only one
thing is clear: there will be deep and profound changes for the people
of Earth, hopefully for the better. Technology is also displayed in subtler
ways. The Mayans used specialized tools fabricated from black jadeite. This is
a tough mineral with a great resistance to breakage due to the intergrowth of
prismatic crystals in its matrix. This material is actually harder than iron or
steel. The Mayan were then elevated from the Stone Age to the Iron Age. They
built bridges, used hydraulic cement, paved roads had water reservoirs in
unique ways only Mayan engineers would do. The economy depended also on trading
partners, were large Mayan seagoing vessels sailed the open sea and ventured
across the Caribbean.
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