Category Social Sciences

          The Maya made magnificent sculptures and paintings. Though the Maya art is unique, it has the influence of Olmec culture.

          The Maya are most famous for their great sculptures, made out of stone. They built tall pyramids and big palaces.

          The Maya were highly skilled in making excellent steles. A stele is an upright stone slab bearing a commemorative inscription. Huge steles weighing around 50 tonnes were excavated from Maya sites. Besides stones, the sculptors used wood and jade. They created excellent wood carvings. Maya ornaments made of jade were exported to other cultures too.

          The Maya also excelled in mural paintings. They painted murals on the walls of temples, palaces and houses. They produced fine pottery. They decorated their pottery with paintings and carvings. The Maya had a variety of dance and music.

           Historians believe that the Maya city of Palenque was the centre of their art and craft. 

          As we know, trade is vital for the success of any civilization. Trade was a key component of Maya society too, and also in the development of the Maya Civilization. They had an advanced trading system consisting of short, medium, and long trade routes.

          Trade routes went as far south as Guatemala and Belize, and also extended to the Caribbean Islands. Trade routes not only supplied physical goods, but they facilitated the movement of people and ideas throughout Mesoamerica. Shifts in trade routes occurred with the rise and fall of important cities in the Maya region.

          Even though, the Maya city states were continuously at war with each other, they traded with one another. Wars were fought for the control of trade too.

          The commodities were generally classified into two categories- luxury and utilitarian goods. Luxury items included things like gold, copper, highly decorated pottery while the utilitarian items were clothing, tools, salts etc. Long distance trades of both items were controlled directly by the rulers.

          The Maya Civilization of Central America was without doubt, one of the most dominant ancient civilizations of Mesoamerica. The Maya civilization was the longest lived, and the most widely spread of all the great cultures of Ancient America.

          The Maya lived in Mexico before 2000 BC. But, they became powerful from AD 200 to 900. They remained powerful until they were conquered by the Spanish in around AD 1500. The Maya created wonderful cities. Some Maya cities were huge, holding up to 50,000 people. The houses were built by mud bricks. The great Maya cities were Palenque, Tikal, Copan, and Chichen Itza. At the centre of each city there was a pyramid shaped temple.

           The great Maya civilization survived for hundreds of years. The Maya invented their own system of writing. They were good in mathematics and astronomy. Their solar calendar, with 365 days in a year is a wonder to the modern world. 

               The Olmecs were good traders too. They had set up trade routes with other Mesoamerican cultures. From around 1200 BC, the Olmec city of San Lorenzo arose as a major trading centre. The city developed long distance trade networks with other regions.

               The Olmecs mainly traded pottery, ornaments, statues and figurines for basalt, serpentine, salt, feathers and seashells. By 900 BC, the city of La Venta replaced San Lorenzo, as the biggest trading centre.

               A major trading partner of the Olmec was their neighbour the Mokaya. The Tlatilcos of central Mexico was another culture that had trade relations with the Olmecs. There was a great expansion in the inter regional trade routes in the Olmec period. Exotic green stones and seashells were traded between distant places.

               The archeologists believe that La Venta exported more goods than it imported, since it was a centre of skilled craftsmen.

          Artistically, the Olmecs were far ahead of their contemporary civilizations.

          The most identified symbol of the Olmec Civilization is the colossal head. Archeologists have found huge stone heads at almost all Olmec sites. Most of them were carved in basalt. The heads could be nearly three metres high, and five tonnes in weight. They were probably portrais of Olmec rulers. There were twenty heads found from the southern Mexican cities, each showing unique facial expressions.

          Monumental stone art and cave paintings make up a significant portion of Olmec artistic tradition. They were also gifted woodworkers, though only a few survived.

          Jade and ceramic were the popular materials for sculpture. One of the gods most commonly rendered in small sculpture was the Rain Baby, who is a toothless baby with an open-mouth.

          As Olmec artists were so advanced, their works had a profound impact on later Mexican cultures. 

          The Great Wall of China is a man-made marvel. The Great Wall took centuries to build. The history of the Great Wall begins during the period of Qin dynasty.

          The Great Wall was built across the northern border to keep out the hostile Huns, and other invaders. The emperor Qin Shih Huang Di, ordered his builders to join up many existing walls along the Chinese northern frontier. The wall extends through mountain ridges, rivers, and plains of China like a giant dragon.

          Built of fired bricks and mortar, the wall is about 6700 kilometres long. It is equipped with shooting platforms and weapon stores. It is between five and eight metres in width, wide enough for the troops and carts to move along it.

          Another project of Qin Shih Huang Di was the terracotta army, which was intended to protect the emperor after his death.