The Mayans were an influential ancient civilization that created many things that are still used in modern society, such as mathematics, the calendar, and pottery techniques. The traditions of the Mayans were what connected the different cities because they did not have a single city leading their civilization (Maloy 12). First of all, the Mayans did not believe in natural beauty. Instead, they fashioned their beauty by crossing their baby's eyes, adding clay to enlarge their noses, and flattening their foreheads with a board(26). Another tradition of the Mayans was that they buried the dead under their house in order to keep them close (21). If the deceased were not buried under the family home, they would probably be buried in caves. Indeed, the Mayans believed that the spirit traveled through caves to reach the underworld. Therefore, if the dead were buried in caves, their journey to the underworld would be shorter (29). In order to know the time, the Mayans used two different calendars. Their religious calendar had 260 days while their agricultural calendar had 365 days (32). In fact, the Mayan calendar was one of the most accurate in the ancient world (Mayan culture). For entertainment, the Mayans created a sport in which they used body parts other than their hands and feet to pass a ball through a hoop. It was believed that the losing team was often killed as an offering (Maloy 27). To support their society, the Mayans built reservoirs to maintain a water source and discovered a way to farm using swamps (12). In addition to swamp farming, the Mayans used the slash-and-burn method to create more space for crops. However, with this technique, they could only plant crops in this area for...... middle of paper ...... basic page on the rulers of the Mayans. This was very helpful because it gave insight into the types of people who helped perform the ceremonies that the Mayans often performed.3. Sharer, Robert J. “Mayan Glyphs.” ABC CLIO. NP, 2013. Web. November 2013. This short database entry discussed Mayan writing. This was a very useful entry as it contained a lot of good information.4. Bialo, Ellen. “Mayan Culture”. American History. ABC-CLIO, 2013. Web. December 9, 2013. This database entry was very general but contained many different topics. It was helpful to use this entry while finding the final details to tie everything together.5.Maloy, Jackie. The ancient Mayans. New York: Scholastic, 2010. Print. It was a small book with a general summary of the Mayans. It was useful because it showed many different topics of Mayan life in one source..