![[Adela_Breton_-_Ruins_at_Chichen_Itza_Yucatan_Mexico_Depicts_east_facade_of_Monjas_-_(MeisterDrucke-1020179).jpg]] Moreover, extensive surveying using recently developed lidar technology has revealed that the city-states were never that separate during the Classic Period and that the Mayan area was probably more populated than previously calculated. To support this population, the Maya farmed in raised irrigated fields, built canals, and bred fish, water plants, and algae to use as fertilizer. In mountainous areas, the Maya terraced the hillsides to provide flat areas for planting, like their cousins in South America. ![[Monolito_de_la_Piedra_del_Sol.jpg]] *The Aztec Sun-stone was modeled on the Maya Calendar* Religion was central to Maya society, and stories of gods and goddesses led to the building of temples and development of a calendar that recorded religious dates but also the best times for planting and harvest. The Maya origin story, _Popul Vuh_, is similar to that found in the Judeo-Christian Book of Genesis. Corn and the corn god were central to Maya religion and society. To run their complex society, the Maya developed a written language based on 800 hieroglyphs that represented different syllables. They also developed a base-20 number system that included “zero” centuries before the concept was introduced into Western Europe from India. The preciseness of Maya mathematics, along with the importance of the stars and planets to their religious beliefs, made the Maya more advanced than the Europeans in astronomy and allowed them to develop a more exact calendar. ![[Tikal_3.jpg]] *Plaza Mayor, Tikal, Guatemala* Mayan religious beliefs included scraping down and redecorating their temples every sixty years. One famous carved calendar used to calculate the precise time for this renovation and other key ceremonies ended on December 21, 2012, leading many to believe that the Maya had predicted the end of the world. In reality, it seems that the astronomers had simply run out of room on that particular calendar. ----- Next: [[4.4 - Olmecs and Aztecs]] Back: [[4.2 - Central America]]