Histroy of the Mayan Culture

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History of Mayan Culture The culture of ancient Mayans once covered a large geographic area in South and Central America. Their civilization stretched to parts of which are now Mexico, Honduras, and El Salvador, and most of Guatemala and Belize. The Mayans first settled in 1500B.C. The Mayans’ atmosphere consisted of tropical rainforests, which was one of their mainly used sources for resources, they transformed the jungles into amazing cities. The rainforest would provide them with their necessities such as clothes, food, tools, weapons and other useful thing. It rained just about everyday, although the temperature was not cold during the day. The environment was an important role in what the Mayans culture became, they needed rain and warmth to keep both the animals and the humans alive. The Mayans learned the strategies of doing things like , making clothing, jewelry, planting crops etc. The Mayans grew mostly maize (corn), squash, and beans together with manioc, yucca and sweet potatoes. Beauty was important to the Mayan people, even though beauty through the Mayan eye was very unusual from today’s definition of the word. If they wanted to make their heads longer, Mayan baby heads were squeezed in between two pieces of wood. Another thing they did was to break their noses and reform them, to make them look more hooked. Body Piercing and body painting was also one of the big parts of how Mayans looked. Most Mayans had black hair and eyes and were tanned. Both women and men had long hair, which was braided from two to four braids. Living in a hot climate both sexes wore simple cotton clothes. Men wore a loincloth. Women wore a long cotton dress called a huipil. It if turned cold both sexes wore a cloak called a manta. The Mayans wore sandals made of leather They wore small amounts of clothing, but it was very decorative, with the best piece of clothing

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