3a

The PreColombian era refers to the history and prehistory of the Americas prior to the arrival, presence and influence of the Europeans. This era also refers to cultures of the indigenous people of the America's and the societies they had produced prior to their being conquered or affected. Many cultures of indigenous people of the Americas are referred to in the Pre-Colombian era even if they culture was not predominant or presentat the time when the Europeans landed in the Americas. Some notable achievements were the presence of urban settlements, agriculure based economies, architecture, and complicated organized systems of rule.


Topic: Maya
Maya youtube.com video
http://www.sacredsites.com/americas/mexico/chichen_itza.html
Wikipedia as an additional website search

I chose this topic because I was fascinated by the way the Mayans developed a calender prior to present day technology. I was very much interested in the pyramid that was constructed as well as the mathematics the Mayans used in order to have a serpent crawl down the pyramid and end in the mouth of the statue.

3 interesting facts:

The Temple of Kukulkan(the Feathered Serpent God) is the largest and most important ceremonial structure at Chichen Itza. The pyramid stands at ninety-feet. The pyramid was built on top of other pyramids directly over.The pyramid displays the a calender similiar to the calender we use today. All four sides have ninety-one steps with one on top which add up to 365, the number of days in a year and is similiar to our four seasons. A difference however is that the Mayan calendar has 18 months compared to our 12.

The most fascinating part is that the pyramid demonstates the Mayan's knowledge of soltices and equinoxes. The pyramis's point of the sun represents the summer solstice and its setting point for the winter solstice. At sunset on the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, the sun's light with the edges of the stepped terraces creates a shadow of a long tail leading toward a statue at the bottom of the head of the serpent Kukulkan. Their is a doorway next to the head which leads a "very mysterious shrine."

I also found very interesting the fact that the Mayans believed in sacrifice. The concepts connecting them to the god's revolved around their ability to show that they were greatful for what the gods gave them. A few different types of sacrifice where the sports arena and the natural occurring wells that were present at this location. In the arena, two teams would play a sort of basketball with sticks except the hoop was perpindicular to the hoop in modern day basketball. The losing team was sacrificed to the gods. Also bodies of scarificed people were tossed into these large wells of water. This shows an incredible amount of belief and loyalty to the gods, which is almost opposite to the way the world works today particularly revolving around money.

http://www.sacredsites.com/americas/mexico/chichen_itza.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyvw6G9Max0
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chichen_Itza

These sources are credible because all the information presented is pretty consistent with other sites. There was no conflicting information and the information that is present is not biased because it is mainly just reporting about a pyramid that exist. Facts are not taken out of context.