8. Technology that is Sustainable
Tikal was one of the significant Mayan cities and it was found in a region whereby there would be no rain for one-third of the year, with not a drop of rain to be found in the skies. Even though they went these four months each year without rainfall, the city prospered for many hundreds of years.
In the year AD 700, there were more than 80,000 people who lived in this city. The question was then posed by historians, how exactly did these people manage to survive for so many years despite these significant droughts?
It has not been uncovered in recent years by archaeologists that the people in Tikal had an extremely sustainable water delivery system in place. This meant that they would have to have stores of water that was gathered during the eight months of the year when it actually rained. Therefore, they made a network of reservoirs that had been paved. Most of the reservoirs were able to contain many thousands of gallons of water. Some of the bigger ones could even hold up to 74 million litres of rainwater.
While looking from the outside, this may seem like straightforward technology, it was a system that was extremely sustainable and it was able to serve the population of this city for the four-month-long droughts that occurred each and every year.
One of the most important parts of Mayan life was that of trading. This is why they placed a particular focus on having efficient methods of transport. As the Mayan civilisation was based on areas of thick forests and jungles, it was hard to get around without getting lost or being severely slowed down. This is why the Mayans cut through the forests and created roads through them that were paved with concrete. This was revolutionary as now traders and other people could travel between cities with ease and this is believed to have been the first civilisation of that built roads from place to place in Mesoamerica.
They also relied on their ships to trade in a variety of places from Antigua to Cuba. It is even believed that on the 4th voyage of Christophe Columbus, they encountered a Mayan vessel. These ships were long and there were a significant number of paddlers utilised in order to move the ship.