Maya Vs. Olmec

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During the pre-Columbian era, the Maya and Olmec were two predominant civilizations that occupied the Mesoamerican region. They accomplished great achievements and made significant discoveries. However, the Mayas and Olmec had their differences, both in the time period in which they existed, and in their religious belief system. Religion played a key role in the way these two nations functioned. Animals were strong symbols in the Olmec religion. They practiced the animistic religion of shamanism, the belief that all things, whether animate or imamate, had an animal spirit. Mayas believed that every aspect of nature was controlled by a separate god. They even believed that each day had its own god. 1 Because of this, Mayas strived to live a life that would follow the cycles of the universe, in conjunction with the cycles of time. 2 In this way, they hoped to please the "daily" gods. The Olmec civilization flourished before the Maya, as the former provided the foundation for the structures and beliefs of many Mesoamerican nations. One of these structures was the calendar system which the Olmec developed. Their "calendar year" consisted of fifty-two years. However, the Olmec had three hundred and sixty days in their year, as opposed to the modern-day calendar of three hundred and sixty-five days. Because they had no writing system and much later, they used a few symbols to represent numbers. The belief system which practically all Mesoamerican nations would follow was the Olmec's polytheistic religion. Of the many gods that the Olmec worshiped, the principle god was the Earth god, who took form as a half-jaguar, half-serpent being. Because the jaguar appeared so often in their art, it is assumed that the Olmec worshipped the jaguar. This was part of their animistic religion, as they believed that the jaguar represented the Earth and the serpent represented water, which

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