Reading Comprehension

Hi Folks,

Time for some reading comprehension. This is an extract taken from BBC's h2g2 site. This is about the Mayan Civilisation that flourished in Central America. It is a fairly easy read unlike the other passages posted before. ;-)

Read the entire passage and post the summary in the comments section.



Mayan Civilisation - Classic Period, 300 - 900 AD

Rather like the Greeks, but unlike the Inca or Aztecs, the Mayans had a series of city-states that were politically independent, with similar (but not identical) cultures. Cities such as Tikal, Palenque, Yaxchilán, Copán and Quirigua traded and fought with each other, and seem to have been heavily influenced by the culture of Teotihuacan in central Mexico.

Mayan politics was hugely complex, with trading alliances, royal marriages, wars and feuds taking place between all the cities. The collapse of Teotihuacan in around 650 AD had a knock-on effect on Mayan politics, with dramatic shifts in the power relationships between the various cities. This also seems to have heralded the peak of Mayan culture in terms of arts, science and population; their cities were larger and their astronomy - particularly with regard to the movements of Venus - more accurate than anything in Europe at the time.

The Mayans had a complicated calendar, and a system of writing using distinctive rounded hieroglyphs. They shared with other Mesoamerican cultures a fondness for monumental architecture, and their ziggurat-like temples are particularly well-known. Sites such as Palenque show that some of their palaces were equally imposing, although the majority of people would have lived in wooden suburbs that have left no visible trace 2.

Mayan artworks were among the most beautiful of the Mesoamerican peoples, often using gold and jade. Painted murals, inked codexes and carvings in stone had an elaborate, stylised quality, often so dense with detail that it can be hard to make out the subject matter. There is often little distinction between art and writing, with publicly visible obelisks covered in inscriptions.

A network of raised roads (sacbes) connected the cities to each other and with the cenotes. These allowed easy travel through the forests and farmland that made up the Mayan territories, which was essential to supply food to cities of any great size.

The Mayans were noted traders. Mayan goods are found throughout ancient Mesoamerica; and Columbus encountered a boatload of Mayan traders in the Caribbean in 1502. We know from archaeological finds that Mayan jade and obsidian were widely traded, and it is likely that salt and perishables such as food (primarily maize but also honey and cocoa), wax, furs, cloth and slaves were too. Trade certainly brought Mayan civilisations into contact both with each other and neighbours such as the Teotihuacans. It is very likely that conflicts also ensued, although we have little historical evidence of this.

There is good evidence that some cities specialised in certain products - for example, agriculture in the lowlands, or various crafts. Other cities such as Tikal appear to have been 'middlemen' where traders could exchange goods from different regions - in the case of Tikal, food from the Petén lowlands for salt from the coast and stones (mostly obsidian and jade) from the highlands.

Remarkably, the Mayans achieved all this without access to metal tools. Although they used metals such as gold for decorative purposes, their tools and weapons were made of obsidian, wood or stone.