Olmec and Maya Vocabulary

the region of Mexico and Central America where diverse civilizations developed in pre-Columbian times

• Mesoamerica

• Mexico

a bank made of earth, or dirt, often used as fortification; a mound

• earthwork

• sarcophagus

a person who studies the past by recovering artifacts and other things left behind by people long ago

• archaeologist

• anthropologist

a decorated coffin made of stone

• sarcophagus

• tomb

stone slabs that stand upright as monuments, usually as part of a building

• stelae

• bricks

• monolith

corn

• maize

• glyph

a picture or symbol used to represent words, symbols, or sounds

• glyph

• hieroglyph

to decode something that may be hard to understand

• decipher

• guess

in the time before Columbus came to the Americas

• pre-Columbian

• prehistory

a Spanish conqueror, especially one of the Spanish soldiers who conquered civilizations of the Americas in the 16th century

• conquistador

• candelabra