Exhibits on the Plaza

With the increase in maize production, a surplus became available for trading with neighbours, an activity that led to the necessity of organizing society and the growth of urban centres. Markets were a feature of every important ceremonial centre. The Maya actively engaged in commerce with neighbouring city-states or with more distant regions.

There was a large two-way trade in raw materials between the highland and lowland Maya. The lowland Maya also developed a wide market for their artistic products, such as brocaded textiles, painted pottery, and carved jades. Highland exports included: unworked jade, which was scarce in the lowlands; feathers of the quetzal, whose habitat was the high mountain elevations; Pacific shells; and volcanic materials such as worked lava, ash (used in pottery-making), and hematite (used in red paint). Lowland exports included: knives and points of worked flint or obsidian; salt; pottery; cotton textiles; pelts of jaguars, deer and other animals; and food and other crops.

Water routes were preferred to the more direct, but more difficult, overland routes. The east coast, for example, was a trade route between the Yucatán and Honduras and Mexico. The cacao bean was used as a form of currency.

Mystery of the Maya
The Golden Age of the Classic Maya
by Nancy Ruddell
Canadian Museum of Civilization, 1995
ISBN 0-660-14036-5; $3.95
This book relates the story of the Classic Maya, a remarkable people who inhabited the ancient region known as Mesoamerica between A.D. 250 and 900. This illustrated book gives a lively account of the evolution of Maya civilization.
Nancy Ruddell is an educator at the Canadian Museum of Civilization.

Mystery of the Maya
Teacher's Guide
by Nancy Ruddell
Canadian Museum of Civilization, 1995
ISBN 0-660-15950-3; $5.95
This guide is full of classroom activities on the Classic Maya civilization. There are ideas on how to prepare your students before they view the IMAX film Mystery of the Maya, as well as follow-up activities on archaeology, the environment, the creation myth, the kings, commoners, architecture, and the sciences. The emphasis is on participatory learning: twenty-five activity sheets can be duplicated for use by your students. The teacher's guide has been designed to be used with the book Mystery of the Maya.
Nancy Ruddell is an educator at the Canadian Museum of Civilization.

Dario Domingues -- Maya
Music composed, performed, and produced by Dario Domingues, 1995.
Duration: 38 minutes
Audio compact disk, $20.00; audio cassette, $12.00

Maya T-shirts
100% cotton; medium, large or extra large; several styles
$22.95