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The Maya

The Maya Empire, centered in the tropical lowlands of what is now Guatemala, reached the peak of its power and influence around the sixth century A.D. The Maya excelled at agriculture, pottery, hieroglyph writing, calendar-making and mathematics, and left behind an astonishing amount of impressive architecture and symbolic artwork. Most of the great stone cities of the Maya were abandoned by A.D. 900, however, and since the 19th century scholars have debated what might have caused this dramatic decline.

Lesson Plans

PDF Guatemala Culture Box
Booklet The Amazing Twins: Ancient Maya Tales from the Popol Wuj

CLAS Lending Library Resources

DVD Cracking the Maya Code (2008)
Book Exploring Art of the Ancient Americas
Magazine Mysteries of the Maya
Book Popol Vuh: A Sacred Book of the Maya

CLAS Workshop Presentations

PPT Ancient Symbols and Modern Cultures of the Americas
PPT Apocalypse Now?
PDF Calendar and Math
PPT Do Indigenous Groups Disappear?
PPT Maya Cosmology, Ritual and Religion
PPT Maya Hieroglyphs, Calendars, and Math
PPT Maya Math and the Calendar
DVD Rigoberta Menchú: Healing Communities Torn by Racism and Violence
PPT The Ancient Maya (Part I)
PPT The Ancient Maya (Part II)