Trade in Maya civilization
Activity consisted mainly of foods like fish, squash, yams, corn, honey, beans, turkey, vegetables, salt, chocolate drinks; raw materials such as limestone, marble, jade, wood, copper, and gold; and manufactured goods such as paper, books, furniture, jewelry, clothing, carvings, toys, weapons, and luxury goods.
The Maya also had an important services sector, through which mathematicians, farming consultants, artisans, architects, astronomers, scribes and artists would work.
The Maya relied on a strong middle class of skilled and semi-skilled workers and artisans which produced both commodities and specialized goods.
[4] In Polanyi's model of Maya economy there existed highly centralized control of exchange by the elite members of society who maintained their status and a system of civic-ceremonial infrastructure through taxation of tribute goods followed by redistribution down the social ladder to secure loyalty and fealty from others.
[5] However, as more research has been conducted on Maya trade and exchange systems there have been multiple models put forth that recognize higher levels of complexity, various degrees of participation, and fluctuating economic scales related to political organization and collapse.
[7] It is now believed that Classic Maya cities were highly integrated and urbanized, featuring marketplaces and market economies to exchange many goods including obsidian.
[10] At Late Classic Coba, marketplaces were determined to have existed in two large plazas that featured multiple causeway entrances, linear/parallel market stall architecture, and geochemical signatures of high Phosphorus levels in arranged patterns which indicate the presence of traded organic goods.
[11] The Maya used several different mediums of exchange and in the trading of food commodities, the barter system was typically used for large orders.
Despite the fact that the area was rich in resources, even the most self-sufficient farm families, which were the vast majority of the population, still had to participate in exchanges in order to obtain the necessities (the necessities would generally include some pottery, bronze or copper tools, salt, and imported fish for inland areas).
The goods, which were moved and traded around the empire at long distance, include: salt, cotton mantels, slaves, quetzal feathers, flint, chert, obsidian, jade, colored shells, Honey, cacao, copper tools, and ornaments.
[14] Because the Maya were so skilled at producing and distributing a wide variety of goods, they built a lifestyle based on trade throughout all of Mesoamerica, which spread to many different groups of people.
For example, the exchange between the Maya and Teotihuacan civilizations in Mesoamerica resulted in the fusion of architectural styles, religious practices, and artistic motifs.
Many of these were produced in large specialized factory-like workshops around the empire, and then transported elsewhere mostly by sea due to poor roads and heavy cargo.
[16] Some of these commodities included, fine ceramics, stone tools, paper, jade, pyrite, quetzal feathers, cocoa beans, obsidian, copper, bronze and salt.
[17] Mostly the main population used the more basic commodities, such as stone tools, salt, cacao beans, fish and manufactured goods such as books and ceramics and wood items.
But some of the other commodities like gold, jade, copper, obsidian and other raw materials were goods that upper class and rulers used to show off their power.
A midwife would offer salt to both parents at birth and a saline solution was sprinkled throughout the house following the death of a family member.
[20] Art goods such as jade carvings, paintings, ornate furniture and metal ornaments were also circulated through kingdoms, and local areas amongst the elite classes.
The fact that Cancuén appears to have prospered for hundreds of years without warfare and that commerce appeared to play a far more important role in everyday life than religion contradicts the widespread view among scholars that religion and warfare were the sources of power for Maya rulers, particularly toward the end of their dominance, after about 600 A.D.
