Mayan Culture When the Spaniards Term Paper

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A date carved in stone throughout Mayan lands is 9-9-2-4-8 (July 29, 615 AD) when Lord Pakal, the great King of Palenque, ascended to his throne. The numbers are read from the bottom up (as the corn grows from the earth up to the sky). 9-9-2-4-8 would thus be understood as: 9 baktuns -- 3600 years; 9 katuns -- 180 years; 2 tuns -- 730 days; 4 uinals -- 80 days; and 8 kin -- 8 days. These numbers, if we begin at August 13, 3114 B.C. will bring us to the day in the 7th century when Pakal took the throne in Palenque (Mayan History web site).

Mayan mathematics has been used in American schools to teach children math concepts. Mayan math is particularly appropriate as a tool for teaching children because it is semi-concrete.

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The number one, for example, is a seed or kernel of corn (written as a dot). Five dots equal a stick (written as a bar). Zero is an empty shell. Unlike our system which has a base number of 10, the Mayan base number is 20. According to Otto Neugebauer, a science historian, the Mayan numeration system with positionality and place value was "one of the most fertile inventions of humanity, comparable in a way with the invention of the alphabet" (Coe, 1966, p. 156, cited in Rafael, Beverly and Morales-Aldana, 1998).

Rafael et al. points out that Mayan mathematics and science were closely related to the workings of Mayan society. Their knowledge of astronomy, for example, was applied to cycles for planting corn. Archeological evidence shows they burned the fields in preparation for planting corn.....

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