Key Stage 2 history · World history

KS2 Mayan civilization around AD 900: a guide for parents

The Maya are one of three options that primary schools can choose for a study of a non-European society that contrasts with British history. Children learn about Maya city-states in Central America around AD 900, with their temples, writing, calendars and farming, and they think about what changed at that time, comparing life with Anglo-Saxon and Viking Britain in the same period.

Mayan civilization c. AD 900, explained

The curriculum asks schools to choose one non-European society that contrasts with British history: early Islamic civilization with Baghdad, the Maya around AD 900, or Benin in West Africa. Maya civilization grew up in parts of what are now southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras and El Salvador. The period historians call the Classic Maya lasted from about AD 250 to about AD 900, and AD 900 is the date the curriculum asks children to focus on. At that time Alfred the Great had recently died, his son Edward ruled the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings controlled much of northern and eastern England, which gives children a British comparison.

The Maya were never one empire. They lived in dozens of independent city-states, such as Tikal, Palenque and Copán, each ruled by a king who led ceremonies and wars. Cities had stepped pyramids topped by temples, palaces, plazas and courts for a ball game played with a rubber ball. Most people were farmers whose main crop was maize, grown alongside beans and squash. They also grew cacao, whose beans were made into a bitter, frothy drink, often flavoured with chilli, and could be used as a kind of money. It was nothing like a modern chocolate bar.

Maya writing is a remarkable achievement. Scribes carved and painted hieroglyphs on stone monuments, pottery and in books made of folded bark paper. For a long time nobody could read them; scholars made major breakthroughs mainly in the later twentieth century, and now much of the writing can be read, giving the names and deeds of kings. Only a handful of Maya books survive, because many were destroyed by Spanish colonisers in the 1500s, so historians depend heavily on monuments and buildings. The Maya also had advanced mathematics with a symbol for zero, and recorded the movements of the Sun, Moon and Venus.

The Maya used two calendars together: a sacred one of 260 days and a solar one of 365 days. Because of the way they fit together, the same pair of dates comes round only every 52 years. They also had a Long Count, which let them record dates thousands of years apart. Some teachers use a simple model of two turning wheels to show how the calendars fit together. It is a good chance to meet the idea of common multiples, though there is no need to memorise the details.

AD 900 matters because, in the southern lowlands, many cities were abandoned over the 800s and 900s, a period often called the Classic Maya collapse. Historians point to several possible causes, including long droughts, warfare between cities and pressure on farmland, and they do not agree on a single answer. Children practise weighing evidence for causes. They also learn that the Maya did not vanish: cities in the north, such as Chichen Itza, flourished after this, and millions of Maya people live in Mexico and Central America today, many of them speaking Mayan languages.

Words your child will hear

Mesoamerica: The region of Mexico and Central America where several early civilizations grew.
City-state: A city and its land, ruled separately from other cities.
Glyph: A carved or painted symbol used in Maya writing.
Maize: A cereal crop, also called corn, and the Maya’s main food. Sweetcorn is one kind of maize.
Cacao: The tree whose beans are used to make chocolate.
Codex: A book. A Maya codex was made of bark paper folded like a concertina, with painted writing and pictures.
Collapse: A serious decline, when a society stops working as before. For the southern Maya cities it happened over many decades.

What the National Curriculum says

The programme of study for Key Stage 2 says:

Pupils should be taught about a non-European society that provides contrasts with British history – one study chosen from: early Islamic civilization, including a study of Baghdad c. AD 900; Mayan civilization c. AD 900; Benin (West Africa) c. AD 900-1300
Pupils should note connections, contrasts and trends over time and develop the appropriate use of historical terms.
Pupils should regularly address and sometimes devise historically valid questions about change, cause, similarity and difference, and significance.

Objectives from the National Curriculum in England, © Crown copyright, used under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

A model answer: what happened around AD 900?

Enquiry question: Why were many Maya cities in the southern lowlands abandoned around AD 900?

Start by describing what changed. Archaeologists have found that, at many southern cities, building stopped and monuments with dates were no longer carved after the early 900s.
Collect possible causes with their evidence. Drought: measurements of rainfall from cave and lake deposits suggest dry periods. Warfare: inscriptions describe fighting between cities. Pressure on land: large populations needed food from land that could become worn out.
Explain how the causes might link together. A long drought could cause poor harvests, which could make rulers weaker and lead to more fighting, so each cause makes the others worse.
Be honest about uncertainty. Historians still disagree on how much each cause mattered, and the answer may be different in different cities.
Finish by correcting a common mistake: the Maya people did not disappear.

Many southern Maya cities were abandoned around AD 900, and there was probably no single reason. Evidence suggests that long periods of drought, warfare between the city-states and pressure on farmland all played a part, and these problems may have made each other worse. Historians do not agree on which mattered most. However, the Maya themselves did not vanish: other cities in the north continued to grow, and millions of Maya people live in Mexico and Central America today.

Common mistakes and how to help

“The Maya mysteriously disappeared.”

Films and websites love a mystery, and the abandoned cities in the jungle look dramatic.

What helps: Explain that only some cities were abandoned, and Maya people and languages continue today. Use “cities declined” instead of “the Maya vanished”.

Mixing up the Maya with the Aztecs and the Incas

They are often taught together, and all three are described as “ancient Americans”.

What helps: Show a map and a timeline. The Classic Maya were in southern Mexico and Central America and peaked long before the Aztec Empire (central Mexico) and the Inca Empire (the Andes), which both arose in the 1400s.

Thinking the Maya predicted the end of the world in 2012

The story spread widely around 2012 and some children have heard it.

What helps: The Long Count calendar simply reached the end of one long cycle and started another, as a car mileometer rolls over. The Maya did not record any prediction of the end of the world.

Picturing the Maya as peaceful astronomers

Calendars and temples dominate most of the pictures, and war is often left out.

What helps: Many inscriptions record wars between city-states, the capture of rival kings and grand ceremonies. Ask your child how the writing helps us find out more than the buildings alone.

How to help at home

Make interlocking calendar wheels. Cut two circles of card. Write the numbers 1 to 13 round the edge of one and 20 day names or pictures round the other, and mark a pointer at the top of each. Each “day”, move both wheels on one step and read off the new pair. How many days pass before 1 meets the first day name again? The answer is 13 × 20 = 260, the length of the Maya sacred year. Count a few rounds, then work out the rest together rather than turning all 260.
Count in Maya numbers. A dot is one, a bar is five, and a shell is zero. Write some numbers up to 19 with dots and bars. The Maya counted in twenties rather than tens, which shows that there are other ways to build a number system than ours.
Taste the difference. Check first for any allergies. Whisk a teaspoon of unsweetened cocoa powder into a cup of cold water until it froths, and taste a sip beside a square of milk chocolate. Talk about how bitter the drink is, and how different it is from a sweet bar. The Maya drink was frothy and bitter too, often flavoured with chilli.
Look at the map. Find southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras and El Salvador on a globe or atlas. Ask your child to compare the climate and landscape with Britain, and think how they would shape farming.

Leads on to

Key Stage 3: A significant society in world history