The Maya, therefore, used a base 20 or vigesimal numbering system. They used these three symbols to express numbers from 0 to 19 numbers after 19 were composed vertically in groups of 20, using place markers. It had only three symbols: 0 (shell shape), 1 (a dab) and 5 (a bar). The Maya had an extremely accurate numerical system. The families could be granted a house, goods, cattle, or land, which might leave the perpetrator’s whole family with nowhere to live as a consequence of a guilty verdict. If you were found guilty of murder, you would face execution and reparations from the victim’s family in terms of goods or land.
Murder was uncommon because the punishment was so extreme. Victims of theft were personally involved in the process of justice. If someone broke the law, they would go to court where punishments were meted out according to the crime. In the Maya Empire, laws were standardized across every state and were applicable to all levels of society. These substances affected the body in such a way that pain was not felt, and energy was increased.Ī number of these substances have subsequently been used as pain relief in modern medicine. The shamans took stimulating drugs to induce trance-like states during these rituals in order to make contact with the spiritual world. Every occasion was feted in a grand way, and people with special powers known as shamans conducted rituals for the gods. The Maya took great pride in their customs and traditions. However, sugary modern-day chocolate and chocolate drinks can be traced back to the Maya.Ĭacao beans were also used as glue by being boiled and mixed with different bases, and were even considered valuable enough to be used as currency. Sugar was rare in those days, which was a blessing considering there was no dental care to speak of.Īs a consequence, the Maya did not suffer from sugar-related conditions such as diabetes or obesity. They mixed the cacao bean with pepper and cornmeal to make a fiery chocolate drink. The ancient Maya were the first to discover the many uses of the cacao bean between 250 and 900 AD. Maya astronomers were very accurate and way ahead of their European counterparts. The Maya studied Jupiter, Mars, and Mercury and recorded celestial information like obscuration, or the path of one planet in front of the other. They also worked out the 584-day cycle of Venus with a slight difference of only two hours. This puts the length of the lunar month at 29.5308 days, astoundingly close to the modern estimation of 29.53059 days. Maya astronomers worked out that 81 lunar months constituted 2,392 days. This is more precise than the estimation of 365.2425 which is used by the Gregorian calendar, meaning that the Maya calendar was more accurate than our own. Despite the fact that there were just 365 days in the Haab year, they knew that a year was slightly longer than 365 days, calculating it to be 365.2420 days (the true approximation is 365.2422). The Maya studied the heavenly bodies and recorded information on the development of the sun, the moon, Venus, and the stars.
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