Determine the civilization you would choose to live in—Aztec, Inca, or Maya. Write a complete paragraph explaining your choice, using at least three facts from the lesson about life in that society.
Write a complete paragraph explaining why you did not choose the other two civilizations. Use at least one fact from the lesson for each civilization in your explanation.
Overview
Key distinctions between the Inca, Aztec, and Maya
These are common options on the market; let’s go through some of the key distinctions:
The Aztecs dominated much of northern Mesoamerica between around 1345 and 1521 CE, while the Incas thrived in ancient Peru from approximately 1400 and 1533 CE and spread over western South America. The Maya were indigenous to Mexico and Central America.
The Aztecs and Incas both worshipped Huitzilopochtli as their principal deity, but the Maya were polytheists but did not have a specific deity.
The Maya developed a hieroglyphic writing system, the Aztecs produced the well-known Xuihetecuhtli mask made of turquoise mosaic, and the Incas built a vast network of roads over mountains and rivers.
While the Aztecs built their capital city Tenochtitlan on an island, the Maya built imposing temples and ornate palaces, and the Inca built stone buildings without the use of mortars but with stones that fit together so tightly that a knife could not pass through them.
Two calendars were utilized by the Maya. One utilized the solar year, but the other functioned as a sort of religious almanac. A three-symbol numeral system the Maya employed allowed them to record numbers up to millions. Aztecs employed both a 365-day agricultural calendar and a holy calendar, but their writing system was based on glyphs, which are symbols that stand in for sounds or words. The Inca didn’t create a writing system; instead, they recorded records on quipus, or bundles of knotted ropes.
While metallurgy was the Aztecs’ most important trade, the Maya utilised native resources like limestone in their construction of Palenque and Tikal. The most prevalent example of turquoise use by Aztec painters is the ornate human skull that stands in for the god Tezcatlipoca. The Chimu civilization’s art and methods had an impact on the Inca.