ANT 3340 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Maya Priesthood, Cultural Ecology, Linda Schele
22 Apr 2013
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Who built these cities what function did they serve and why we"re they abandoned. Major focus was on buildings and inscriptions themselves as well as writing systems. It was clear there was some kind of writing system. Some of it had to do with numbers they had some sort of counting system and some of it had dates for calenders. There were a few glyphs but most of them remain unknown. Early archeologist was eric thompson hebsajd they were maya priests living in temples focusing on astrology and mathematics cities were ceremonial centre"s, relatively unoccupied for part of the year. There was a problem of having a large centre and how food was going to get to those people that"s why the idea that they didn"t live there. Maya were seen as very peaceful for a long time. Archeologists then stopped focusing on things around the buildings not on the buildings themselves.
