Katherine Kob
PERSIAN
9/19/10
POLITICAL
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Leaders, Elites
State Structure
War
Diplomacy, Treaties
Courts, Laws
ECONOMIC
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Type of System
Technology, Industry
Trade, Commerce
Capital/Money
Types of Businesses
RELIGIOUS
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Holy Books
Beliefs, Teachings
Conversion
Sin/Salvation
Deities
SOCIAL
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Family
Gender Relations
Social Classes
Inequalities
Life Styles
INTELLECTUAL , ARTS
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Art, Music
Writing, Literature
Philosophy
Math & Science
Education
NEAR: GEOGRAPHY
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Location
Physical
Movement
Human/Environment
Region
Leaders – powerful kings, local lords, absolute monarchy
State Structure – highly fragmented political system of city-states, local
lords, and regional kingdoms with no central authority, larger political
units ruled by powerful kings
War – frequent warfare, extensive capture and sacrifice of prisoners
Laws – crimes were punished with death
Drained swamps, terraced hillsides, flattened ridge tops, constructed an
elaborate water management system
Flourishing agriculture society, artisans produced pottery, tools, and
cotton textiles
Trade – maintained commercial relationships with other city states,
conducted seaborne commerce using canoes
Traded luxury goods such as cotton clothing, precious jewels, and
feathers
Holy Books – Popul Vuh – Sacred Creation Book of the Maya
Beliefs – believed in human sacrifice, cyclical nature of time,
polytheistic, calendars, configured constellations of gods and places
Deities – The Sun god was the most important
Social Classes – distinct class system, the ruling class and the
farmer/laborer was an educated nobility who were scribes, artists and
architects
Life Styles – elite classes sought luxury goods from far away,
agriculture sustained substantial elite classes of nobles, priests,
merchants, architects, and sculptors
Family – children were subject to their parents until the age of 20
nobility were highly educated, under the care of the priests, in writing,
music, history, war, and religion, daughters of nobles were forcefully
secluded, the older boys lived and slept apart in a public building.
Art/Architecture – carvings made of stucco, funerary pottery, stepped
pyramids, temples, pyramids, palaces, and public plazas abounded with
painted murals and endless stone carvings
Math – developed a mathematical system that included the concept of
zero and place notation was capable of complex calculations, combined
this with careful observation of the night skies to plot the cycles of
planets, to predict eclipses of the sun and moon, to construct elaborate
calendars, and to calculate accurately the length of the solar year
Location – extended throughout the Northern Central American region,
occupied the eastern third of Mesoamerica
Physical – volcanoes, limestone shelf, rainforest
Movement – Lowlands and Highlands, Lowlands produced the primary
crops, highlands had fertile soil and a pleasant climate full of precious
metals
NOTES: Collapsed mysteriously in about 909 CE, foreign invasion nor internal
rebellion does not seem to be the case