Inca Maya and Aztec Empire Achievments

In the history of the Americas many achievements have been made. Most of these achievements had come from the Maya, Inca, and Aztec Empires. Each civilization was greatly advanced in the topics agriculture, writing, and engineering and astronomy.

Astronomy was one of the greatest achievements of the Mayan Empire. The Mayan Empire knew how many days were in a year and showed that they knew fall spring equinox. They demonstrated their knowledge of astronomy on their Pyramid of Kukulkan which they built their city around. The Mayan had 365 steps leading up the pyramid of Kukulkan one for each day of the year. They also demonstrated their knowledge of astronomy through the autumn and spring equinox. Every spring and fall equinox a snake shadow would slither down the pyramid leading to their sacred water source.

The Mayan also developed a calendar according to their knowledge of astronomy. Another great achievement of the Mayan Empire is their system of writing. The Mayan Empire had a system of writing based on nearly 800 signs in which each sign represent a full syllable. This style of writing is called glyphs and is still unknown today. But from these glyphs we are able to assume that they can read and write and therefore have written records.

One of the greatest achievements for the Incan Empire was their agriculture. The Incan Empire used a farming technique called terrace. This is when they cut into the mountain creating what looks like huge steps. These steps are now flat and not pointing downhill so they are able to farm on them. The Inca were also very advanced in their engineering skills. The Incas had a complex system of roads uniting its Empire through the Andes Mountains. The Inca Empire had to build their road through the Andes Mountains so they had to go up and down the hills/mountains which made it much harder.

Another civilization advanced in engineering was the Aztec Empire. They used their engineering techniques to build tall building, roads, canoes, canals, artificial causeways, bridges, temples, and houses. The Aztec Empire was built on and island and on this island they expanded it using some of their engineering techniques. Another topic in which they were advanced was agriculture. They used artificial islands to grow their crops. This was called floating gardens or chinampas. The islands were usually 15 to 30 feet big. With this technique their crops would get plenty of water so they would not have to water them as often.

The Maya, Inca and Aztec were all successful in many different ways. Through their advanced knowledge of engineering, agriculture astronomy and writing they have created many achievements. These civilizations can be considered great for their achievements.