Grade 6 Spring — The Classical World and Late Antiquity to ~500 CE: Late Rome and Byzantium, Han China, Mauryan and Gupta India, Sasanian Persia, Aksum and Early Ghana, Classical Maya and Teotihuacan — Whose 'Fall'? Whose Golden Age? Whose Living Descendants?

Analyze the Classical Maya civilization (250-900 CE) — Tikal, Palenque, Calakmul, Copán, Yaxchilán, El Perú-Waka' — divine kingship, Long Count calendar with positional zero (Mayan vigesimal independently developed), hieroglyphic writing system FULLY DECIPHERED in the modern decipherment era — per David Stuart, Simon Martin, Nikolai Grube, Michael D. Coe, and Stephen Houston scholarship

Analyze the Classical Maya political-cultural florescence — divine kingship at Tikal (Yax Nuun Ahiin I r. 379-411 CE, Siyaj K'ak' arrival 378 CE) + Palenque (K'inich Janaab Pakal I 'Pakal the Great' r. 615-683 CE, Temple of the Inscriptions) + Calakmul (the Kaan dynasty rival to Tikal) + Copán + Yaxchilán + El Perú-Waka' (Lady K'abel queen-warrior c. 672-692 CE); the Long Count calendar with vigesimal positional notation including positional zero (predating or paralleling Gupta-Indian zero — independent invention); the Maya hieroglyphic writing system (the only fully developed writing system in the pre-Columbian Americas, fully deciphered since the 1980s); the 'Classical Maya collapse' c. 850-950 CE critically examined — political-system transformation, NOT cultural extinction; modern Maya peoples and 30+ Mayan languages ARE today.

Exercise pool (3)