Mayan Social Structure

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THE MAYANS The Mayans were a strong empire located roughly around the Yucatan Peninsula, lasting for approximately 700 years, from 900 to 200 B.C.E. They were an intelligent society, with a culture rich with great architecture, science, mathematics, and technology; paired with a bustling economy, strong religious beliefs, and a strict hierarchy, the Mayans were a powerful empire, not to be crossed.
SOCIETY-
Mayans had a rigid social structure, consisting of three main categories- the upper class, the middle class, and the lower class. To illustrate, hierachystructure.com states, “The top of the ladder was constituted by priests and kings along with royal families who lived in the palaces. Then were the wealthy nobles placed on the second
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They developed a series of complicated trade routes, both long and short. According to latinamericahistory.com, a large portion of the traded goods consisted of gold, copper, jade, and obsidian. Other, more basic, items were traded along these routes, including clay pottery, salt, stone tools, and basic agricultural foods (corn, beans, and squash). While research is still being done on Mayan economy, we have enough information to know that it was a bustling and wealthy empire. The Mayans were a powerful empire, left untouched for 700 years; rich with intelligence in science, mathematics, and astronomy; strong religious beliefs, a prosperous economy, and an organized social structure. While the Mayans reigned for 700 years, their strong empire soon fell prey to the Spaniard’s greedy clutches. Sadly, their empire fell and their people were gone. There was too much destruction to their land, too much blood shed- their once-mighty civilization could not be saved. Their civilization lives on in the hearts of their descendants, their culture and their story told generation after generation to the eager ears of the young. While the Mayan civilization fell some thousands of years ago, their culture still lives on in our