Podcast of The Maya Decline

Mayan Contributions

Even though the Mayan Empire declined over a millennium ago, they still contributed greatly to modern society. The Mayans made contributions in areas such as art, agriculture, architecture, astronomy, mathematics, and writing. For writing, the Mayans came up with a new alphabet. Like the Mayan language, the Mayan alphabet was derived from many different languages and other alphabets. For art, the Mayans were very creative and came up with many different art styles and made many dynamic paintings and sculptures. For architecture, the Mayans built many advanced buildings. An example of the architectural abilities of the Mayans are the pyramids in the ruins of Chichen Itza. The Mayans literally lived off of their agriculture. In fact, because of environmental destruction and overpopulation, the agriculture of the Mayans collapse, which greatly contributed to the Mayan decline. In the department of astronomy, the Mayans came up with new calenders and used the stars for navigation. Also, the Mayans made predictions of eclipses and other events. For mathematics, the Mayans came up with new number systems that used the concept of zero.