Middle America

NO USE FOR WHEELS

All the pre-Columbian civilizations of Middle America set up  brilliantly organized states and trade systems without two developments considered vital in the Old World; they made no use of the wheel and had no draft animals, such as horses or oxen. However, they did have their own form of currency- cacao beans. The absence  of practical wheels is all the more remarkable because the principle of the wheel was known in Middle America. Wheeled clay models of animals-possibly toys or religious offerings- have been found in Mexican tombs dating from around the time of Christ. But although several Middle American peoples, in particular the Mayas,built flat, broad roads between their cities, the wheel was never used for transportation or in making pottery.

CLAY TOY

The wheel was not put to work in the Americas until the Spanish conquest. But the principle was known; this clay model was made in Mexico before A.D.100.

STAR STRUCK

Sky-gazing Mayan priests accurately calculated the 365-day solar year more than 1,500 years ago. They broke the year up into 18 months of 20 days each, plus 5 odd days. Superimposed on the Mayan solar year was a sacred 260-day calendar  used to indicate days of  religious ritual. The Mayas had no clocks or telescopes, but  they could predict  solar and lunar eclipses and calculated the time Venus took to make a complete circuit of the sky to within 2 hours of the actual figure, 583.92 days.

OLMEC CERAMIC

Naked and hollow “babies” were a favorite subject of Olmec craftsmen, who fashioned them from the whitish clay called kaolin. This one dates from 1200-1000 B.C.