What made the Maya so distinctive?
I can describe the similarities between the Maya and other early civilisations alongside the things that made them so distinctive.
What made the Maya so distinctive?
I can describe the similarities between the Maya and other early civilisations alongside the things that made them so distinctive.
These resources will be removed by end of Summer Term 2025.
Lesson details
Key learning points
- The Maya have a lot in common with other early civilisations from around the world.
- They farmed, built great cities and temples, had rulers, worshipped gods and wrote things down.
- However, they were also distinctive compared with other early civilisations e.g. they were a stone age society.
- The Maya's advanced understanding of maths and astronomy and bloodletting was very important in their religion.
- A good description of what made the Maya both similar and different will use knowledge from across this unit
Keywords
Distinctive - distinctive means something that is special, unique or different from everything else around it
Astronomy - astronomy is the science that studies everything in space, such as stars, planets, moons, comets, and galaxies
Common misconception
The Maya were a single, unified empire.
They were organised into independent city-states with their own rulers, languages, and alliances. While they shared cultural traits and religious beliefs, they were politically fragmented entities that sometimes engaged in conflicts with each other.
Licence
This content is © Oak National Academy Limited (2024), licensed on Open Government Licence version 3.0 except where otherwise stated. See Oak's terms & conditions (Collection 2).
Lesson video
Loading...
Starter quiz
6 Questions
an ancient civilisation that lived in Central America
modern-day Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, and El Salvador
an ancient city complex in Honduras
a chart that's used to keep track of days, weeks, months and years
an object in space, like a star, planet, moon, or comet
the seeds from which cocoa and chocolate products are made
Exit quiz
6 Questions
they primarily used tools and objects made from stone
they created precise calendars and predicted astronomical events
a religious act that connected them to the divine world