pulation lived away in small farming villages. The priests would carry out daily religious duties, particularly sacrifices, and the peasants would gather periodically for religious ceremonies and festivals. They built the ceremonial centers in a specific design for religious practices. They constructed tall pyramid temples, warren-like single story palaces, and a ball court that was surrounded by a broad central plaza. The architectural features of the Mayan pyramids include towering roofs, corbel vaults, and elaborate embellishment with stucco reliefs (Palfrey 2). It is amazing to imagine the detail that the Mayans were able to create in their architecture with only primitive tools. For the Mayans, science and religion were linked. Time was extremely important and their agriculture and religious ceremonies required a system that could record time. That need for structure is probably the reason that the Mayans developed such an amazingly accurate calendar. They also developed a complex style of hieroglyphic writing that we have not fully deciphered. Through their knowledge of astronomy and mathematics they calculated the lunar cycle, predicted eclipses, and formulated a unique calendar system was very accurate. Their calendar was only one day off every 6000 years. That makes it more accurate than our calendar today (Hooker 6). Two fundamental ideas in mathematics that were discovered by the Mayans are the position value and the concept of zero. The Hindu was the only other antiquated culture to develop this and they did it 300 years after the Mayans. They are such a simple concept that is a “distinct stroke of genius” that these people discovered them (Dumois 1). Mayan numerals were written with only three symbols. A dot represents one, a line represents five, and a glyph of a seashell represents zero. Mayan religion was obsessed with time.Mayan religion was a part of the Mayans entire life. One important...
