Mayans Dbq Essay

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The Maya DBQ Essay

I believe the calendars were the most remarkable based on scale, effort, genius, and significance. The other achievements the Mayans accomplished where amazing but I believe this one was the greatest because we still used the Mayan calendars up in till 2012. The Mayans achievements also included their Trade Network, their buildings, the number system and of course the calendars. The Mayan mostly lived in Mesoamerica, “Mesoamerica is that part of modern-day Central America that includes southern Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras. This region has been the Mayan home for 3,000 years.” (From the Background Essay The Maya: What Was Their Most Remarkable Achievement) Living in Mesoamerica also helped them with
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“The Maya had two main calendars. One was the sacred or ritual calendar, called Tzolkin. It was a cycle of 260 days, and marked the ceremonial life of people. They also had a civil calendar, based on the solar year. This calendar had 18 months of 20 days each adding up to 360 days in all.” ( From the Background Essay The Mayan: What Was Their Most Remarkable Achievement Document D) This accomplishment took a lot of mental strength and genius to figure out every calendar, it was the most advanced calendar of their time. In my opinion I think the Civil calendar would be the most mentally agonizing calendar to create because it was based off of the solar year and they didn't have technology nor telescopes to figure out the placement of the stars so they had to figure out where the stars are using math and precise placement. Also this would take a lot of effort especially since they had to make the number system before the calendars to have days and weeks and months. The Mayans were truly a remarkable group who affected our world in so many ways you wouldn't even think about, the significance of these calendars is huge because our modern calendar is based off of theirs

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