🏺 The Maya — Daily Life at Chichén Itzá, Part I - c. AD 1000 Daily life: Plazas ran lively markets (cacao, salt, textiles, obsidian, jade, shells, pottery). Meals: maize tortillas/tamales/atole, with beans, squash, chiles. Work: farming, portering, weaving, pottery, stonework; copal incense at shrines. Families lived in thatch-roof homes on limestone platforms with garden plots and drew water from nearby cenotes. Rituals and the ballgame were regular. Where did the Maya come from? Early farming communities by ~1500 BC in today’s southern Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize; over centuries they developed calendars, cities, and a writing system. What language did they speak? A Mayan language family (not one tongue). Inscriptions used Classic Maya (Ch’olan); spoken languages included Yucatec, K’iche’, Tzeltal. Many are still spoken. Where did they live? Across the Yucatán Peninsula (SE Mexico, between the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea), Guatemala, Belize, and parts of Honduras/El Sa...