The ancient Maya were a civilization that lived in parts of Mexico and Central America. Today, we can still see the ruins of their ancient cities. Their descendents—the people born to their families over years and years—still live in this area.

In these ruins, we have found objects with pictures and designs carved into them. We now know that these pictures and designs were a form of writing. In this lesson, we will explore some of the information that we have learned about the ancient Maya from these writings they left behind.

Goals
Here are the big ideas you will learn about in this lesson:

• The ancient Maya created a complex system of writing to guide their daily lives and record their history
• The Spanish conquered the ancient Mayan civilization and destroyed most of the writings of the Maya
• Archeologists have discovered artifacts with Mayan writing that have taught them about this ancient civilization

Strategies
You will be using many reading and writing strategies to complete this lesson. The key strategies that you will focus on are:

• Constructing summaries
• Determining important information
• Making inferences
• Comparing and contrasting ideas

• civilization
• decipher
• ruins

In the early 1500s, the Spanish first arrived in Central America. By 1541, they had conquered—fought and taken control of—the people who lived there. These people—the Maya— had written thousands of books in their own language, using pictures we call hieroglyphs [hi'-ro-glifs]. Spanish priests thought these books were the work of the devil and burned nearly all of them.

Click "View" on the left to watch a video about what happened to the Mayan books and what we have begun to learn from the Mayan writings that remain.

In your own words, write two to three sentences telling what we have learned from the Mayan writings that remain.

As you saw in the video, Spanish priests burned thousands of Mayan books, called codices (KO-duh-seez). To save the books from the priests, the Maya buried some of the books in the ground. However, over time, the hot and humid climate destroyed them. Today, only four codices remain.

Luckily, archaeologists—scientists who learn about the past by studying the things people left behind—have found other artifacts on which the Maya painted or carved their writings. For example, the Maya wrote on buildings, pottery, and stone columns. Archeologists were at first unable to read the writings. It took hundreds of years before they could decipher, or decode, what the writings meant.

Today, archeologists can read much of the ancient Mayan writings. One of the things that the writings show is that the Maya were experts in math and astronomy. The writings show how the Maya created documents, which we call almanacs, that tracked the movement of stars and planets. With this knowledge, they also created accurate calendars. They used their almanacs and calendars to plan important events, such as religious activities or when to go to war.

In one to two sentences, describe what the Maya chose to write about, and why this was important to them.

In addition to writing about the movements of the Sun and planets, the Maya also recorded their history. You will now read a passage that describes more about the Mayan system of writing and the types of things the ancient Maya recorded in their writings.

Click "View" on the left to read the passage.

After you read, write three to four sentences comparing the Mayan writing system to English.

After you have finished reading the passage, show what you have learned so far by choosing the correct answer to each question. Be sure to save your answers to each of the three questions before you go to the next screen.

You will now check your understanding of the vocabulary words for this lesson by placing them in sentences. Click "View" on the left to begin the activity.

Before moving to the next screen, choose two words from the vocabulary list and write a new sentence for each word.

Vocabulary words: almanacs, artifact, astronomy, civilization, decipher, ruins

Think about what you have learned about the Mayan writing system. In this activity, you will read about how the Mayan hieroglyphs were deciphered, and why people have wanted to decipher them. Click "View" on the left to begin the activity.

After you finish the activity, explain one of the reasons that people have wanted to read the ancient Mayan writings. Write your answer in one to three sentences.

Then, before moving on to the final assignment, you may want to watch this lesson's video again or reread the passage.

The Maya Code

Video: 2m 17s

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Learning About the Maya

Document

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In this lesson, you have learned about the writings of the ancient Maya, and what they tell us about this civilization. You will now write an essay that shares what you have learned and what you think about it.

Begin by reviewing your notes. Click "review my work" above and view or print out the screen that pops up.

Final Assignment Instructions

• Click Writings of the Ancient Maya—Final Assignment (PDF).
• Choose one of the topics in the PDF and write an essay.
• Organize your response so that it includes at least three supporting details that you have learned from the reading passage, video, and other materials in this lesson.
• Use at least three vocabulary words (or a form of the words) as part of your supporting details. For example, for the word jump, you could use jumps, jumped, or jumping.