Mayan Arts
Mayan Artifacts
The great artistic period of the Mayan was probably during the Classic period, which was from 250-900 A.D. Many artifacts were made, including sculpted stone, painted ceramics, and books of drawings, including the hieroglyphic writing, which was also in other civilization.
<--- This is a piece of a ballcourt floor.Almost all of the ceramic artists are high ranked members of the society. They used paints, clay and water to craft their pottery with pictures, myths, and hieroglyphs. Their products are used as bowls, for food, to store water, and other useful purposes.
The Mayans' buildings are made from stone, also known as Stone Architecture. Their pyramid, even though unmatch to those of the Egyptians, were still very complex architectured. The Mayans have many different architectural styles, including their use of sunlight on certain buildings to reflect special meanings and symbols from them. What makes the buildings/temples different is the fact that they were build according to the location relative to water and other places they consider sacred and also based on astronomic calculations.
Language - Hieroglphs
<--- Mayan Face StatueThe Mayan were one of the civilization to develop a complex form of writing. This is also a reason why they were incredibly successful as a civilization for many years in the americas. They used pictographs, which later developed into syllabic as the writing system. Indeed, it was very complex, and archaeologists thinks that only the nobles knew how to actually read and write the Hieroglphs.
The Mayans wrote mainly on paper, but since the Spanish burned most of their ancient goods, there is not much left for us to study, only those left craved into walls or stones reminds intact. There are also some writing found written on deer hides.