made war on one another. Ultimately, the system of rule that had served the Maya for centuries had failed. Faced with famine, foreign invasion, chronic warfare, and perhaps disease, an era ended what is generally called the Classic Maya collapse.Although writing in the New World did not originate among the Maya, they gave writing its greatest refinements.(Miller)What Mayan writing seems to represent is a sacred language used only by the elite, initiated, and known only by them. The language of the Mayan was identical with that of the Yucatan Indians, given the fact that writing was identical. The Maya kept records on large stone monuments called stelae. They used the Steele to record important dates and to take note of great events in the lives of their rulers.(Price 91)They also used the stelae to recount the positions of the heavenly bodies_ particularly the Moon, Venus, and Jupiter.(Miller)The men and the older boys did most of the farm work. They also did most of the hunting and fishing. The women and older girls made family clothes and prepare the meals.The Maya made small sculptures of clay and carved huge ones from stone. Some of the large sculptures stood over thirty feet high.( Voorhies 326) Early Classic stone sculpture usually features a single Maya ruler celebrating his reign.Many fine carvings on small jades, shells, and bones were warn and used by nobles. Maya artists decorated walls with brightly colored murals that featured life like figures. The Maya also built large, low buildings where chiefs and priests probably lived before important ceremonies. Maya architectural forms were derived from domestic architecture.The shrine and platform of the pyramid grew from the house form, and the Maya corbel arch, often called a false arch, preserves the hip roof in the stone. Highly skilled architects built tall pyramids of limestone, with small temples on top... The Maya produced exceptional architecture,painting, p...
