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Publish date: January 2007
Nomad Press
ISBN: 978-0977129461
Size: 8 x 10, Softcover
Pages: 128, one-color
Sug. Retail: $14.95
Teacher's Guide
Click these pages
to view sample
chapter activities:
Page 1, Page 2,
Page 3, Page 4,
SCHOOL VISIT INFORMATION
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Table of Contents
*Uncovering an Ancient Legacy
*Kings
*Priests & Healers
*Merchants
*Farming & Food
*Women & Weaving
*Children
*Gods & Sacrifices
*Pok-A-Tok
*Numbers
*Calendars
*Majestic Builders
*Hieroglyphs
*The Maya Codices
*Artistic Flair
*Jewelry
*Pottery
Activities
*Mexican Hot Chocolate
*Royal 'Jadeite'
Burial Mask
*Play Bul!
*Homemade Tortillas
*Cornhusk Hat
*Rain Stick
*Spindle Whorl
*Mexican Atole
*Replica of a Maya Child's Toy
*Musical Gourd
*Clay God Fetishes
*Rubber Ball
*Play Pok-A-Tok
*Maya Counting
Flash Cards
*Tzolk'in Calendar Wheel
*Sandart Picture of the Cosmos
*Ruin Map of the Maya Homeland
*Pyramid Model
*Soap Glyph Carving
*Pacal the Great
War Banner
*Make Your
Own Paper
*Codex Replica
*Royal 'Jaguar' Cape
*Replica of a Royal 'Jadeite' Necklace
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Interesting Facts:
*The Maya used cacao beans as money. Some traders tried to fool buyers with fake beans. These dishonest men filled empty bean pods with sand! Everyone soon learned to test the beans to make sure they were solid by biting them.
*If you were to visit a Maya city in a time machine, it would be easy to tell who the slaves were. They had really short haircuts, and their bodies were often painted in black and white stripes.
*The ancient Maya believed sickness was caused by demons. To make the demons happy, the Maya left food out for them. Today, the Maya still follow this practice.
*Merchant traders provided Maya kings living far from coastal areas with the shark teeth and stingray spines they used to cut themselves when offering their royal blood to the gods.
*The Maya word for pyramid is "witz," which means mountain. The ancient Maya believed mountains housed the souls of their ancestors and gods. To be close to them, the priests placed the ceremonial altars at the top of their pyramids.
*One of the most popular games the Maya played was a fast and furious ball game called Pok-A-Tok. Eventually played in every major Maya city, it is believed the game was invented around 2000 B.C. Players, without using their hands or feet, tried to get a basketball-size ball through narrow stone hoops located high up on stone court walls. The losing teams usually lost their lives as well!
*The Maya counting system is based on the number 20, and uses just three symbols when written: a shell (zero), a dot (one) and a bar (five). The Maya used "steps" to multiply numbers--into the millions. Each step represented a multiplication of 20.
Words to Know
stelae: vertical slabs of stone that the Maya used to record dates and important information about their rulers. Most are between 3 and 23 feet tall. Maya artists used stone chisels and wooden hammers
to carve symbols into the stone.
limestone: a rock that that Maya used to build roads, temples, and other important buildings. Underground it is soft, but it hardens with exposure to air.
hieroglyphs: a writing system in which pictures and symbols represent meaning
or sounds or a combination of the two. One symbol is called a glyph.
epigraphers: experts who study
ancient writings.
codices: the special books in which Maya priests recorded important information about Maya kings, sacrifices, and even celestial calculations. Only three originals remain. |
*1502: Christopher Columbus learns of the Maya when he captures a Maya trading canoe near the Gulf of Honduras. Word soon spreads about the prosperous Mesoamerica, which prompts Spanish conquistadors to travel there in search of gold. The Maya initially resist them.
*Diego de Landa Calderón (1524-1579): The Spanish priest who served as Bishop of the Yucatán. After the Maya conquest, it was his job to convert the Maya to the Roman Catholic faith. He single-handedly wiped out the written record of the Maya civilization when he ordered the burning of all Maya books because he felt they were of the devil.
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Q & A With Sheri:
Q: How did you become interested in
writing about the Maya?
When I visited Cancun several years ago, I took a day trip to the Maya ruins of Chichén Itzá, in Mexico’s northern Yucatán Peninsula. In the center of the ruins is a pyramid topped by a temple called El Castillo, the Spanish term for “the castle.” As I climbed the steep stone steps, it felt quite eerie to realize I was reenacting history, mounting the very steps that Maya priests and kings
climbed on the balls of their feet to offer human sacrifices to their many gods. I got so dizzy at the top of the towering pyramid that I had to sit down! The Maya practice of sacrificing humans gives me
the willies, but the Maya were not the savages their Spanish invaders made them out to be. It's a tragedy what happened to the once-great Maya civilization.
Q: In researching Amazing Maya Inventions
You Can Build Yourself, what information
surprised you the most?
That the Maya were so advanced in language, art, mathematics, farming, and even studying the stars. They knew so much! But that knowledge, which they carefully recorded in special bark
books called codices, was destroyed in bonfires set by the Spanish. Why? Because the Spanish priests, so determined to convert the Maya to Catholicism, considered the books to be of the devil. The world is fortunate, indeed, that three of the codices survived when they were sent back toEurope as souvenirs. They were discovered in European libraries only after John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood alerted the world to the Maya ruins by publishing their book, Incidents of Travel in the Yucatán, in 1843.
Q: What purpose do the activities serve in Amazing Maya Inventions You Can
Build Yourself?
To make history come alive for kids. We all learn more by doing than reading or listening. The activities will help kids retain information about the accomp-lishments of the ancient Maya. As they make a model of a pyramid, for example, they’ll ‘get’ how knowledgeable and exact the Maya were when building. And when they make a replica of a death mask, they’ll ‘get’ the value the ancient
Maya placed on creating first class art. Too, they’ll understand how the Maya’s religious beliefs permeated every aspect of their society. When they carve their own glyph from a bar of soap, they’ll trace a symbol used by ancient Maya
scribes. And when they make a hat from corn husks, they’ll understand how critical this crop was to the Maya. Corn was, so the Maya believe, the medium the gods used to form the first humans.
Q: What do you hope kids come away with after reading Amazing Maya Inventions You
Can Build Yourself?
I hope they’ll gain an appreciation of what these Stone Age people accomplished—without all the dazzling technology we have today. And I hope they’ll get a sense of just how dependant
civilizations are on their members, much like a clock relies on its many springs and wheels to keep perfect time. Societies must always keep an eye on the big picture in order to thrive, careful to keep things in balance. If one aspect of society gets out of whack, such as the overpopulation that most likely led to the failure of many ancient Maya cities, its strength begins to weaken. We need to keep this lesson in mind, given the demands we place on our planet today. The destruction of the world’s rainforests is a huge problem that future
generations will, regrettably,
have to deal with.
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