Name ______________________________
Date ___________________ Pd ________
Meso-American Civilization Achievements
Directions: At each station, take turns reading aloud the information on the placard. Write a one-sentence summary
and a symbol of about the contribution.
Summarizing Sentence
Mayan
Numbers
Mayan
Calendar
Mayan Ball
Game
Tenochtitlan
Chinampas
Terraced
Farming
Quipu
Inca Roads
and Bridges
Symbol
Mayan Numbers
1. On what was the Mayan number system based?
2. What symbol did the Maya use for zero? What symbols did they use for one and for five?
3. How did the Maya write the following numbers?
Mayan Calendar
1. What were the names of the three Mayan calendars?
2. What probably explains why the Maya used 20-day segments in their ritual calendar and 20-day months in their
calendar?
3. Which calendar would have been most useful in predicting the beginning of rainy seasons? Why?
Mayan Ball Game
1. How is the Mayan game similar to American sports?
2. How is the Mayan game different from American sports?
3. What does the Mayan game tell us about the Mayan civilization?
Tenochtitlan
1. Look at the diagram of Tenochtitlan, would you describe it as organized or disorganized? Why?
2. How did Cortes describe the city?
3. Do you think Cortes was impressed by the city? How do you know?
Chinampas
1. Why were chinampas necessary given the environment of the Aztec capital city?
2. How are they similar to the terraces of the Inca?
3. How do these sources demonstrate human/environment interaction?
Terraced Farming
1. Why did the environment the Inca lived in require the building of terraces for farming?
2.
What are the specific advantages of terraces?
3. How does this article demonstrate human/environment interaction?
Quipu
1. What do quipus look like?
2. How did the Inca use quipus?
3. How different is Inca record keeping from our own way of keeping records?
Inca Roads and Bridges
1. Why were roads important to the Inca?
2. Why could we consider the Inca to be master builders?
3. What subjects did the Inca need to master in order to build their roads & bridges?
Questions:
1. On what was the Mayan number system based?
2. What symbol did the Maya use for zero? What symbols did they use for one and for five?
3. How did the Maya write the following numbers? (choose 2)
a. Zero
b. 7
c. 26
d. 60
e. 401
Questions:
1. What were the names of the three Mayan calendars?
2. What probably explains why the Maya used 20-day segments in their ritual calendar and 20-day months in their
calendar?
3. Which calendar would have been most useful in predicting the beginning of rainy seasons? Why?
The Mayan Ball Game - A Deadly Sport
One of the ways that the Mayan peoples competed against each other was by playing what has been called the Ball Game.
They used a rubber ball, about 20 inches in diameter, to play the Game, which was played on a stone "court" of different sizes.
(The largest one found so far measures 459 feet by 114 feet.) The court had walls that sloped inward, and hanging high on the
walls were stone rings.
The goal of the game was to pass the ball around, without having it touch your hands, and then get the ball to pass through
one of the rings. Since the rings were so high and players were not allowed to use their hands, it was extremely difficult to get
the ball through a ring. In fact, when a player did manage to get a ball through a ring the game ended. The game ended
otherwise when the ball touched the ground.
The Mayan Ball Game was a serious experience, filled with ritual importance. Religious leaders attended, as did most
government leaders. Sacred songs were sung and played. Other religious activities took place as well.
The winners of the game were treated as heroes and given a great party. The penalty for losing a game was sometimes
unusually harsh: death. The leader of the team who lost the game was sometimes killed.
Questions:
1. How is the Mayan game similar to American sports?
2. How is the Mayan game different from American sports?
3. What does the Mayan game tell us about the Mayan civilization?
Tenochtitlan
Hernando Cortes’ description of Tenochtitlan:
"This great city of Tenochtitlán is built on the salt lake, and no matter by what road you travel there are two leagues* from the
main body of the city to the mainland. There are four artificial causeways leading to it, and each is as wide as two cavalry
lances. The city itself is as big as Seville* or Córdoba*. The main streets are very wide and very straight; some of these are on
the land, but the rest and all the smaller ones are half on land, half canals where they paddle their canoes. All the streets have
openings in places so that the water may pass from one canal to another. Over all these openings, and some of them are very
wide, there are bridges. . . . There are, in all districts of this great city, many temples or houses for their idols*.



League = 3 Miles
Seville & Cordoba are cities in Spain.
Idols = Gods
Questions:
1. Look at the diagram of Tenochtitlan, would you describe it as organized or disorganized? Why?
2. How did Cortes describe the city?
3. Do you think Cortes was impressed by the city? How do you know?
Questions:
1. Why were chinampas necessary given the environment of the Aztec capital city?
2. How are they similar to the terraces of the Inca?
3. How do these sources demonstrate human/environment interaction?
Terraced Farming
In the 1600s, Garcilaso de la Vega, the child of a conquistador father and an Incan noblewoman, described the Incan terracing
system in The Royal Commentaries of the Incas: “In this way the whole hill was gradually brought under cultivation, the
platforms being flattened out like stairs in a staircase, and all the land being put to use.” The terraces leveled the planting
area, but they also had several unexpected advantages, Kendall discovered. The stone retaining walls heat up during the day
and slowly release that heat to the soil as temperatures plunge at night, keeping sensitive plant roots warm during the
sometimes frosty nights and expanding the growing season. And the terraces are extremely efficient at conserving scarce
water from rain or irrigation canals, says Kendall. “We’ve excavated terraces, for example, six months after they’ve been
irrigated, and they’re still damp inside. So if you have drought, they’re the best possible mechanism.”
Questions:
1. Why did the environment the Inca lived in require the building of terraces for farming?
2.
What are the specific advantages of terraces?
3. How does this article demonstrate human/environment interaction?
Inca Record Keeping
A quipu is a series of knotted or colored cotton cords. The numbers, positions and colors of the cords together with the
different kinds of knots used hold an immense amount of information. Quipus were portable, rolled up in a spiral to be stored
and carried from one place to another.
Yellow referred to gold, green told things about the land, and red, the color of blood, symbolized fighting or battles.
The quipus were tools for accounting, ways of keeping track of the number of animals in a flock or the number of
people in a village.
At the very least, we do know that expert individuals who made and read quipus used their patterns to remember
key people, places, and events.
Questions:
1. What do quipus look like?
2. How did the Inca use quipus?
3. How different is Inca record keeping from our own way of keeping records?
Inca Roads & Bridges
The Inca roads were very well built. Even though the Inca never invented the wheel, they built over 14,000 miles of
road. Their roads were well paved and connected every piece of the entire civilization. Some sections of the road
were over 15 feet wide. Some sections of the road were so steep that the Inca built walls along the edges of the
road to prevent people from falling over the cliffs.
The main reason for the Inca road system was military – to allow troops to quickly move throughout the empire to
head out to take over new places/people or to keep the Inca from rebelling against the leaders. The roads were also
used to move goods and to quickly send important communications quickly.
The Inca also built many bridges over the gorges and ravines in the mountains, and those that connected
mountains.
Questions:
1. Why were roads important to the Inca?
2. Why could we consider the Inca to be master builders?
3. What subjects did the Inca need to master in order to build their roads & bridges?