ABOUT CULTURAL PRACTICES

Like the Aztec and Inca who came to power later, the Maya believed in a cyclical nature of time. The rituals and ceremonies were very closely associated with celestial/terrestrial cycles which they observed and inscribed as separate calendars. The Maya priest had the job of interpreting these cycles and giving a prophetic outlook on the future or past based on the number relations of all their calendars. They also had to determine if the "heavens" or celestial matters were appropriate for performing certain religious ceremonies.The Maya practiced human sacrifice. In some Maya rituals people were killed by having their arms and legs held while a priest cut the person's chest open and tore out his heart as an offering. This is depicted on ancient objects such as pictorial texts, known as codices.

It is believed that children were often offered as sacrificial victims because they were believed to be pure.Much of the Maya religious tradition is still not understood by scholars, but it is known that the Maya, like most pre-modern societies, believed that the cosmos has three major planes, the underworld, the sky, and the earth.The Maya underworld is reached through caves and ball courts. It was thought to be dominated by the aged Maya gods of death and putrefaction. The Sun and Itzamna, both aged gods, dominated the Maya idea of the sky. The night sky was considered a window showing all supernatural doings. The Maya configured constellations of gods and places, saw the unfolding of narratives in their seasonal movements, and believed that the intersection of all possible worlds was in the night sky.Maya gods were not separate entities like Greek gods. The gods had affinities and aspects that caused them to merge with one another in ways that seem unbounded. There is a massive array of supernatural characters in the Maya religious tradition, only some of which recur with regularity.

Good and evil traits are not permanent characteristics of Maya gods, nor is only "good" admirable. What is inappropriate during one season might come to pass in another since much of the Mayan religious tradition is based on cycles and not permanence.The Maya believed that the universe was flat and square, but infinite in area. They also worshiped the circle, which symbolized perfection or the balancing of forces.It is sometimes believed that the multiple "gods" represented nothing more than a mathematical explanation of what they observed. Each god was literally just a number or an explanation of the effects observed by a combination of numbers from multiple calendars. Among the many types of Maya calendars which were maintained, the most important included a 260-day cycle, a 365-day cycle which approximated the solar year, a cycle which recorded lunation periods of the Moon, and a cycle which tracked the synodic period of Venus.

KEEPING HISTORY RECORDS AND INVENTIONS

• Writing tools

Although the archaeological record does not provide examples, Maya art shows that writing was done with brushes made with animal hair and quills. Codex-style writing was usually done in black ink with red highlights, giving rise to the Aztec name for the Maya territory as the "land of red and black".

• Scribes and Literacy

Scribes held a prominent position in Maya courts. Maya art often depicts rulers with trappings indicating they were scribes or at least able to write, such as having pen bundles in their headdresses. Additionally, many rulers have been found in conjunction with writing tools such as shell or clay inkpots.Although the number of logograms and syllabic symbols required to fully write the language numbered in the hundreds, literacy was not necessarily widespread beyond the elite classes. Graffiti uncovered in various contexts, including on fired bricks, shows nonsensical attempts to imitate the writing system.

• Mathematics

Mayan numerals
In common with the other Mesoamerican civilizations, the Maya used a base 20 (vigesimal) and base 5 numbering system (see Maya numerals). Also, the preclassic Maya and their neighbors independently developed the concept of zero by 36 BC. Inscriptions show them on occasion working with sums up to the hundreds of millions and dates so large it would take several lines just to represent it. They produced extremely accurate astronomical observations; their charts of the movements of the moon and planets are equal or superior to those of any other civilization working from naked eye observation.
In common with the other Mesoamerican civilizations, the Maya had measured the length of the solar year to a high degree of accuracy, far more accurate than that used in Europe as the basis of the Gregorian Calendar.

• Astronomy

Uniquely, there is some evidence to suggest the Maya appear to be the only pre-telescopic civilization to demonstrate knowledge of the Orion Nebula as being fuzzy, i.e. not a stellar pin-point. The information which supports this theory comes from a folk tale that deals with the Orion constellation's area of the sky. Their traditional hearths include in their middle a smudge of glowing fire that corresponds with the Orion Nebula. This is a significant clue to support the idea that the Maya detected a diffuse area of the sky contrary to the pin points of stars before the telescope was invented.
Dresden Codex contains the highest concentration of astronomical phenomena observations and calculations of any of the surviving texts (it appears that the data in this codex is primarily or exclusively of an astronomical nature). Examination and analysis of this codex reveals that Venus was the most important astronomical object to the Maya, even more important to them than the sun.

BUILDING A CIVILIZATION

Ceremonial platforms were commonly limestone platforms of typically less than four meters in height where public ceremonies and religious rites were performed. Constructed in the fashion of a typical foundation platform, these were often accented by carved figures, altars and perhaps tzompantli, a stake used to display the heads of victims or defeated Mesoamerican ballgame opponents.

Palaces were large and often highly decorated, and usually sat close to the center of a city and housed the population's elite. Any exceedingly large royal palace, or one consisting of many chambers on different levels might be referred to as an acropolis.
E-Groups are specific structural configurations present at a number of centers in the Maya area. These complexes are oriented and aligned according to specific astronomical events and are thought to have been observatories. These structures are usually accompanied by iconographic reliefs that tie astronomical observation into general Maya mythology.
Temple of the Cross at Palenque. Note the intricate roof comb and corbeled arch.Pyramids and temples. Often the most important religious temples sat atop the towering Maya pyramids, presumably as the closest place to the heavens.

Observatories. The Maya were keen astronomers and had mapped out the phases of celestial objects, especially the Moon and Venus. Many temples have doorways and other features aligning to celestial events.

HISTORY

REMARKABLE EVENTS

Preclassic period

While the Maya area was initially inhabited around the 10th millennium, the first clearly “Maya” settlements were established in approximately 1800 year before christ in Soconusco region of the Pacific Coast. In that moment, known as the Early Preclassic, was characterized by sedentary communities.
Argheological evidence suggests the construction of ceremonial architecture in Maya area by approximately 1000 BC. The earliest configurations of such architecture consist of simple burial mounds, which would be the precursors to the pyramids subsequently erected in the Late Preclassic. Prominent Middle and Late Preclassic settlement zones are located in the southern Maya loudlands. In the Guatemalan Highlands Kaminal Juyú emerges around 800 BC.

There is some disagreement about the boundaries which differentiate the physical and cultural extent of the early Maya and neighboring. Many of the earliest significant inscriptions and buildings appeared in this overlapping zone, and evidence suggests that these cultures and the formative Maya influenced one another.Takalik Abaj in the Pacific slopes of Guatemala, is the only site where Olmec and then Maya features, have been found.

Classic Period

The ruins of Palenque.
The Classic period witnessed the peak of large-scale construction and urbanism, the recording of monumental inscriptions, and a period of significant intellectual and artistic development, particularly in the southern lowland regions. They developed an agriculturally intensive, city-centered empire consisting of numerous independent city-states. The Early Classic settlement distribution in the northern Maya lowlands is not as clearly known as the southern zone, but does include a number of population centers.

The most notable monuments are the pyramids they built in their religious centers and the accompanying palaces of their rulers. The palace at Cancuen is the largest in the Maya area, though the site, interestingly, lacks pyramids. Other important archaeological remains include the carved stone slabs usually called stelae (the Maya called them tetun, or "tree-stones"), which depict rulers along with hieroglyphic texts describing their genealogy, military victories, and other accomplishments.

The Maya participated in long distance trade with many of the other Mesoamerican cultures, including Teotihuacan, the Zapotec and other groups in central and gulf-coast Mexico.

The Maya collapse

For reasons that are still debated, the Maya centers of the southern lowlands went into decline during the 8th and 9th centuries and were abandoned shortly thereafter. This decline was coupled with a cessation of monumental inscriptions and large-scale architectural construction. Although there is no universally accepted theory to explain this “collapse,” current theories fall into two categories: non-ecological and ecological.
Non-ecological theories of Maya decline are divided into several subcategories, such as overpopulation, foreign invasion, peasant revolt, and the collapse of key trade routes. Ecological hypotheses include environmental disaster and climate change. There is evidence that the Mayan population exceeded carrying capacity of the environment including exhaustion of agricultural potential and overhunting of megafauna.

ENGLISH CLASS ¿ARE ENOUGH?

¿Are enough the English classes for the students to learn the language do they other things?
Many students are passing the different English levels but they say that they don´t feel prepared for a big exam. That´s an enormous problem because the students fail the final exams and many of them have to go to an English institute or have to do some courses to be able to graduate.
The last years the English classes in Sabana University have been simpler than before because tree years ago many people lost the subject and in those days the English class was added by the average. Now a big percentage don´t pay attention to this requirement.
It is incredible how the students pass the English levels and after that they admit don´t know important grammatical structures and other things that it´s supposed that they should know. The principal cause of this is the little importance that the students give for it but is a problem with English classes´ intensity too.
The problem is that the people don´t take seriously these classes because this it doesn´t affect their academic performance. The people wait until final semesters for put at day the course. It is true that the English language is difficult for many people but the university should demand the English classes. Other possibility could be that the English institute put signs in the whole university like in the airports, in this way the students feeling more acquainted with the language.
In conclusion the problem is that the students’ don´t have enough contact with English language in their daily life and the university English classes aren´t enough.

Independent Work

BY ANDREA CARREÑO

Tokyo zoo gorillas get good luck bean shower
TOKYO, Feb 5 (Reuters Life!) - Piko the gorilla didn't know what hit her when crowds of humans gathered around the ape cage at Tokyo's zoo to shout incantations and throw beans. She soon figured out that while the people were loud and frightening, the roasted soya beans were very tasty.
Piko was subjected to a traditional Japanese blessing over the weekend that seeks to bring in good fortune. The ritual is usually reserved for humans but zoo authorities through the apes could do with a bit of luck. "We threw beans at the gorillas so they can live healthy and long lives and that the females and males get along better in order that they produce more gorillas," gorilla handler Ryo Imanishi told Reuters.
There are currently seven gorillas at Tokyo's zoo. Poaching, the destruction of their natural habitat in central Africa, commercial hunting and the Ebola virus are believed to have severely affected the ape population in the wild. "I really hope this helps the gorillas species increase," said 19-year old zoo visitor Akiko Ishikawa.
Throwing roasted beans is part of the traditional festival of Setsubun and it is believed to have purifying qualities. Setsubun was originally performed on what would have been the Chinese New Year eve, but since Japan now celebrates the New Year according to the western calendar, it is marked every February.
Piko the gorilla didn't understand what was happening when groups of humans assembled around her cage at Tokyo's zoo to yell chants and throw beans.

A. Complete the summary about the article using words from the list of words:

However, it didn't take her long to 1.__B_____that although the people were noisy and 2.___O____ the roasted soya beans were 3.____E___
Piko was given a traditional Japanese blessing for good 4. ___F_____
The ceremony is normally only for humans but zoo officials decided the apes could do with a bit of luck so they can live healthy, long lives and 5.__J_____the zoo's gorilla population.
There are now seven gorillas at Tokyo's zoo. Poaching, the widespread damage of their natural 6.___G____in central Africa, commercial hunting and the Ebola virus have had a huge impact on wild ape numbers.