Mayan Construction:
Labor
The pre-Columbian
Mayans lacked the technology that we have today; so, they needed a lot
of manpower to raise their magnificent structures. The king-priests
would supervise the labor of the common people. These peasants would
work on theses construction projects to pay homage to the king and state(Sharer
196). This normally took place during the time that they were unable
to do their agricultural work(Hernandez 13). The laborers ahd to
carry loads of materials on their backs or roll them on logs to get them
from the source, maybe a nearby quarry, to the construction site(Stierlin
132). There would be hundreds of peasants working on this construction(Hernandez
13).
Aside
from the general laborers and priests, the Mayans like the Incas
also had specialized workers such as architects who would also oversee
the construction of these buildings(Sharer 196). The Mayans were
not however credited for first creating the initial design of the pyramid.
There were other tribes like the Olmecs who were building a variation of
the pyramid a thousand years before the Mayans. The Mayans refined
the art of pyramid building. They made them more complex and intricate.
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