Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Pages 302-307
Please post at least three sentences here to demonstrate that you engaged with and thought about the reading. At least part of your post should talk about the Maya, but other parts of your post can ask questions more generally about the Americas as a whole (North, South and Central America).
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When I read about how women were buried in the Moche civilization, I wondered what their view on afterlife was. It reminded me of the pyramids in Egypt where people were buried with gold, and during their life they were thinking about their life after death. Normally religion and burial are connected in some way, so I wanted to know more about their religion. This site gives more information about the religion of the Moche civilization.
I thought that the three contrasting environments in the Maya were interesting because there was the volcanic highlands of Guatemala, the dry and hilly Yucatan and the tropical lowlands in Central America that consisted of dense forests and a heavy rain season. I was wodering how these areas were discovered, colonized and populated exactly?
The Dresden Codex was mentioned in the reading as a "Maya almanac" that contains "a wealth of data on divination, agriculture, and religion." The Dresden Codex also contained the cycles of the planets Venus and Mercury, as well as eclipses. This website explained the astronomical portion of the Dresden codex really well. I was interested in finding more about Mayan codices in general, and read the Wikipedia article. Only four codices are left, and the Dresden Codex is the best preserved. Here is an image of one part of the Dresden Codex.
I was also interested by the images of the Nazca Lines, and the many theories surrounding them. The large drawings can only be identified from the air, which brings up many questions about how the Nazca knew what they would look like. Sacred Destinations had a really good history as well as pictures of the lines. A question I had- What kind of tools did the Nazca use to make these drawings?
The reading mentioned the Moche tribe, a tribe which I had never heard of. I wanted to learn more about this tribe so I went to msnu.edu and found out that the Moche resided along the northern cost line of Peru. I found out that their main record of existence is their art work. The website said that the art work of the Moche displayed everything from "sexual acts to ill humans, and even anthropomorphized warriors, deities and humans". They did a lot of ceramics and pottery for ceremonial and household purposes. On that website are some good examples of the art of the Moche.
I was wondering about the desert that the Moche used to grow foods. The reading said that they left the desert for suddenly for unknown reasons and I wanted to know what is going on in the desert now. But I couldn't find the name of the desert. When I was searching for the desert I got more interested in the Moche people. They have very interesting pottery. The pieces are very expressive of object they are depicting. For example, life-like head-shaped ceramic pots show laughter, acne and anger. Some even thing that the Moche were in contact with Chinese and South Africa because some of their pottery showed African and Asian features. This site has a lot of information on pottery and this site has a lot of pictures of pottery from the Mochicha(Moche) people.
The Mayan Civilizations had an unusual practice. Most people are familiar with binding of women’s feet in ancient china, however the Mayans did a similar thing to people’s heads. The Mayans like some other historical civilizations liked to elongate the shapes of people’s skulls . They did this by binding boards and other objects around a child’s head for the first few years of their life.
While reading about the Moche and Nazca it said a female Moche mummy was found "who had been buried not only with gold jewelry but also with weapons". This made me wonder what female's rights and duties were in the community. Did they fight in battles?
It also talked about the different King's of Maya. I found this picture of King Pacal. I also wanted to find a picture of a ceiba tree, which was sacred to the Maya. Here is a picture of a ceiba tree.
I wanted to find out how people were mummified. In the reading, it states that they found a mummified woman in Peru with jewelry and weapons buried with her. Here I found that it is a long process with many steps. First, wash the body. Then slice open the body and remove the liver, lungs, intestines, and stomach and put them in canopic jars. Leave the heart in the body. Pull the brain out through the nose. Cover the body with natron (a salty substance) and let it dehydrate the body for 40 days of the blood. Then wrap the body in gauze or bandages and decorate with a mask representing their life. (I know this seems disgusting but it is how mummification is done.)
I also wanted to find some pictures of El Ninos. Here is a picture of the conditions for an El Nino. (Sorry, the picture is small.)
This book, Evil Star by Anthony Horowitz, is where I heard about the Nazca Lines this summer. The author gives his opinion about why the people made the figures, and, although it might be far fetched, the author gives many details and facts about the lines.
I found this video about the Mayan Civilization (includes information about: calendar, end of the world, art, gods, and customs). I thought it was amazing how mathematically precise the Mayans were; their predictions about moon cycles are only off by 33 seconds for today, 1500 years later.
Also, this video talks about how the Mayan civilization ended. It ended by Europeans burning the Mayan texts, forcing the scribes to learn their languages, and arresting/ killing anyone who practiced Mayan traditions.
In the reading, it said that archaelogists "found another female Moche mummy who had been buried not only with gold jewelry but also with weapons." I found this interesting, so naturally, I decided to research it. I came up with this article. It talks about how the weapons (specifically the clubs...) that the woman was buried with not only represent combat, but also power. There's an upclose video of the Mummy's tatoos. It's really interesting. (Although, that's really the only interesting one because the others seem a little pointless) I was wondering what the social standings were, like if there was a big social difference between men and women or elders and young people, etc.
I was interested in the architecture from the Mayan culture. I found this good link about Chichen Itza, a place in Mayan civilization where there are many well preserved stone buildings in what is now Mexico. I found this video that just shows some more things with explanations from Chichen Itza. Lastly I found this webpage that talks about the types of religious structures and the construction of the buildings.
I found it weird how the Mayans bound peoples heads. I still wonder why this was necessary? Also didn't the Spanish eventually talk over most of these places? Finally I know the Mayans had big stone buildings, but what were the purposes of all of them?
While reading, I saw the name of a tribe called the Moche Tribe. This happened to be a tribe that I had never heard of, so I decided that I would research a little more about what the Moche Tribe was. While researching, I found a site moche tribe blog and here it stated that the Moche tribe worshiped a god called the Decapitator. This was a god who had wings, a knife in one hand, and a head being held by the hair in the other. I thought that this was an interesting statement, because this got me curious about how they view the afterlife of humans. There is a picture of the decapitator on the link.
The first thing that I wondered was, what motivated the moche people to draw giant figures in the ground, especially since they couldn't see them from the sky. Shouldn't they have spent their time on something more worthwhile? Was there something religious behind it?
As far as the Mayan civilization, I can't think of any questions I have about it. However, I stopped in Cozumel, Mexico on a cruise about a year ago. We visited the ruins of a Mayan building on the beach. The building was basically a warning system against bad weather for the Mayans. If the winds picked up on the beach (they hit the beach first), the wind would be funneled through a channel in the building, and then it would be blown through hundreds of conch shells. By the volume, people in the nearby cities could assume the strength of an oncoming storm.
While reading we get a little look into to city of Huari, but I wanted to find out more. When reading futher I found out that Huari had numerous large walled enclosures, streets, ceremonial areas, underground drainage systems. This told me that the city was very up to date on their technology. Also from a study they found that they experimented with conservation.If you would like more info it can be found at Huari
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