Ancient Mayan Tools – Stone Working, Farming & Domestic Use

The Maya civilization is known for its spectacular cities, massive temples and outstanding works of art. The completion of their projects are proofs to the ingenuity of the Maya, a civilization whose lack of technology did not stopped their sense of creative ambition.

According to historians, the Maya "had no wheel for pottery, no pack animals or carts for transport, and no metal tools until the last centuries before the Spanish Conquest." Mayan stone tools, therefore, were predominant in all areas of Mayan life; from building projects to farming and hunting.

Mayan Stone Working Tools

Mayan settlements, temples and palaces were made largely from shaped stone blocks. The main materials used in monumental construction were limestone, sandstone and fine-grained volcanic stone, all of which could be worked with the use of more resistant stone tools.

Stone chisels and scrapers of various sizes were used to shape and add detail to the stone work. Small chisels were used by Mayan sculptors for finer carving.

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Stone hammer heads were attached to hardwood shafts for breaking and shaping large stone blocks. Smaller hammerstones, normally made from flint or basalt, were used for rounding and smoothing softer stones used for monuments and sculptures.

The plumb-bob, or plummet, was an important tool in Mayan construction. In order to create a vertical reference point, the Maya suspended a stone weight from a string. The reference point was then used to aid the placement of finished stones within any given building project.

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Mayan Farming Tools

The Maya practiced swidden, or slash-and-burn, agriculture. Large trees were felled with axes, tools that were also used as Mayan weapons of war. The stone axe head was affixed to a hardwood shaft. Once an area had been cleared for cultivation, the Maya used primitive tools to prepare and farm their land.

According to historians, the Maya used "simple wooden digging sticks to till the soil and plant crops." A primitive hoe was also used (a flat stone head attached to a wooden shaft) but the Maya lacked tools "capable of turning over soil impregnated with deeply rooted grass."

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Mayan Tools for Domestic Use

Basic scrapers, made from flint or bone, were used domestically for butchering animal carcasses and preparing skins for use as clothing. For more precise cutting, the Maya made use of blades fashioned from various materials. Most domestic tasks at Maya sites were performed using local chert flake tools.

Flakes of chert or flint provided the Maya with adequate blades for both tools and weapons. Obsidian, a form of volcanic glass, was a particularly desirable, but less common, alternative. Obsidian blades were highly valued throughout Mesoamerica for their incredibly sharp cutting edges.

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The Maya ground their corn with implements similar to the mortar and pestle. The corn was placed upon a flat stone grinding surface known as a metate. It was then ground by hand using a cylindrical stone grinding tool known as a mano.

Ancient Maya Tools Made from Metal

The ancient Maya civilization did have access to limited metal resources. Metal tools were uncommon but they were used, particularly in the later Post-Classic period before the arrival of the Spanish. However, Mayan metal tools were not sophisticated by any means.

The use of metal was limited to basic items such as small copper blades and simple fishing hooks. As stated by most historians, more advanced metal tools such as bronze or steel hatchets were rarely used by the Maya, perhaps not at all.

Source

_{Lynn V. Foster – Handbook to Life in the Ancient Maya World}

Check our other posts about Mesoamerican civilizations for further reading.

_{The Mayan Empire
The Fall of Tenochtitlan
People of the Sun - Aztecs' Religious Consumption
People of the Sun: Life in Tenochtitlan
The People of the Sun - The Aztecs}