Compare And Contrast Egyptian And Mayan Civilization

The civilizations of ancient Egypt and Maya, while separated by thousands of miles and hundreds of years, shared a number of recognizable features. Egypt civilization appears to have begun about 4,000 to 3,500 B.C. in northern Africa, while the Mayan civilization appears to have arisen around 3300 B.C. in the Yucatan peninsula of North America, now modern Guatemala. Both of these cultures occupied large areas of land and expanded their domains through military conquest and exploration -- but were ultimately conquered by others.

Both Egyptian and Mayan cultures were polytheistic with rulers that represented gods on earth. The myths of ancient Egypt revolved around earth and sun gods that were seen as controlling the vital flooding of the Nile. Egyptian rulers or pharaohs were revered as gods who interceded with the gods for the benefit of the people. The populace gave offerings of goods to the gods
The Egyptian agricultural system revolved around the regular flooding of the Nile River, which brought rich silt to the Nile Valley. The cycles of flooding prompted the creation of complex calendar systems. During their Classic period, the Maya developed a sophisticated calendar system of overlapping annual cycles that included a 260-day sacred year and a 365-day secular year. The cycles restarted every 52 years.Both Egyptian and Mayan cultures used hieroglyphs consisting of pictographs or drawings representing words or concepts. Egyptian hieroglyphs included phonograms, placed at the beginning of words, to represent sounds and ideograms to represent objects or ideas. Egyptians used hieroglyphs to record history, prayers and administrative information, and to track the depth of the Nile River from season to season. Mayan hieroglyphs were combination pictographs formed in neat blocks that included phonograms and ideograms. Mayan scribes recorded calendar information, administrative data and