Maya Web Quest
Go to
Click on “Live Expedition” at the bottom of the page.
1. What is the purpose of the expedition?
Click on the tracking map for the location.
2. Where are they searching?
Click on Day 3 on the right to find the article “People on the Edge.”
3. How many indigenous groups were in Mexico before the Spanish Conquest?
4. How many remain today? How many of those are Maya?
5. How many Maya people are alive now?
6. What is forcing the Maya off their ancestral land?
7. What kinds of things are smuggled out of the jungle?
8. What are cenotes? How are they used?
Click on the “Mayan History” link at the bottom of the page to find the article “Jaguar Icon of Power.”
9. Name three accomplishments of the Maya.
10. Name three things usually required for progress that the Maya lacked.
11. What are the modern day countries where the ancient Maya lived?
12. What was their form of government?
Use the links in the box on the right to view the “Ancient Mayan History Highlights.”
13. How many Maya books (codices) remain? What cities have them?
14. In Maya math, how many symbols are used?
15. What is significant about the shell system?
16. What number was the system based on instead of 10?
17. What food item was used as an aid in counting?
18. Name five things the Maya traded.
19. What were the three classes of people in Maya society?
20. What was the most prized possession (more than gold)?
21. How were the huge buildings blocks of stone moved from the quarry to the building sites?
22. How were jaguars used as part of the costume? Why?
Click on the “Mayan History Timeline” box. Answer the following questions from the timeline. You will have to scroll down for some answers and scroll to the left to see the rest of the timeline.
23. When did the world begin according to the MAYA LONG COUNT?
24. What civilization believed they were descended from jaguars and believed in “were-jaguars”?
25. What are the dates for the Preclassic Maya? Classic Maya? Postclassic?
26. What diseases killed 90% of the Maya after the Spanish Conquest?
27. What was the last holdout capital of the Maya?
28. What explorers brought the Maya to international attention in the 1840s?
29. Who won the Nobel Prize in 1992? Where is she from?
30. What was the first great city state? What was its population in 600 A.D.?
31. What was the capital of the Zapotecs? What was its symbol?
32. What group introduced the god Quetzalcoati?
33. What were the two kinds of Aztec warriors?