Achievements

The Maya were great astronomers. The maya observed celestial bodies and the cosmos as we know it. Using the sun, moon, and the stars, the maya created their calendar system that we still use today. (Anirudh) They were way ahead of their time, far more advanced than Europe, predicting eclipses and using their observations for farming. Their astronomical advancements helped civilization become so strong and successful and they even used their studies of the stars for religious rituals.

The Maya had a very advanced calendar system that included the use of 3 calendars. The first being what we see today, known as the haab, being a 365-day secular year. The haab consisted of 18 months each of 20 days. The next calendar was the Tzolkin, which was known as the divine or sacred calendar, reaching 260 days. The tzolkin combines a cycle of 20 named days with another cycle of 13 numbers, to produce 260 unique days. The third calendar was known as the long count calendar, designed to last over 5000 years, this calendar didn’t repeat cycle by cycle like the other two. Instead, this calendar started counting from the start of the Maya era in an endless loop.

The Maya civilization was way ahead of their time with their numerical system. Along with the Hindus of India, the Mayans were some of the first to adapt the concept of zero as a placeholder. This allowed them to represent large numbers for accurate calculations and therefore great achievement elsewhere. They were far ahead of Europe, who was still using the roman numeral system. 

One of the biggest achievements the Maya made was their highly advanced farming and success with it. The Mayan farmers produced maize, beans, squash, chilies, tomatoes, cotton, cocoa, vanilla and more. Due to the advanced mathematics, calendars, and astronomical observations, the Mayan were able to predict when to plant crops and when to harvest them to maximize their success. 

The Mayan also used various techniques in their farming. There were 3 main types of Maya farming. The raised field technique was used to farm areas of land that otherwise would have been too wet to use. Canals were dug, creating small islands that were used to grow crops while fish swam in the canals. The next technique was used in the Maya, Inca, and Aztec civilizations. It’s known as Terrace farming, where walls are built to make small flat fields and it increased the amount of farmland in the mountain areas. The last technique is the shifting cultivation technique where jungle areas are burnt and the ash was used as soil.

The Classic Period, which began around A.D. 250, was the golden age of the Maya Empire. Classic Maya civilization grew to some 40 cities, including Tikal, Uaxactún, Copán, Bonampak, Dos Pilas, Calakmul, Palenque and Río Bec; each city held a population of between 5,000 and 50,000 people. At its peak, the Maya population may have reached 2,000,000 or as many as 10,000,000. This Classic Period also saw the growth of many Maya sites, such as plazas, palaces, temples, and pyramids. One of the most famous pyramids, the Chichen Itza was a product of Mayan engineering, with exactly 365 steps equaling the number of days in one year.