Random Things About Life In Mayan Empire Was Way Weirder Than You Thought (13 items)

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  (#9) They Used Tobacco To Treat Asthma

  The Mayans were hygienic people who bathed often. They washed their hands and mouths after eating and often took cold water baths and sometimes steam baths before religious ceremonies. When it came to illness, though, they believed disease was an infliction of the spirit. They would often bleed different parts of the body, like cutting the forehead, to cleanse the body of the illness. They also had several herbal cures for ailments. They believed that getting drunk on balche and vomiting was a cure for upset stomach and diarrhea. They also mistakenly thought that tobacco was a cure for asthma.
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  (#4) They Ate Delicious Things Like Avocados, Chocolate, And Tamales

  The staples of the Mayan diet were maize, squash, and beans, together referred to as the "three sisters." Besides these main pillars, the Mayans enjoyed a pretty diverse diet, also cultivating chili peppers, sweet potatoes, avocados, tomatoes, papayas, onions, and garlic. For meat, the Mayans consumed turkey, venison, iguana, dog, and wild pigs known as peccary. They also fished in lakes and in oceans.

  The most basic of traditional meals was atole, a warm corn gruel usually served for breakfast. Mayans were the first civilization to make corn tortillas, and they invented tamales, which are corn husks or avocado leaves stuffed with protein and vegetables. They were also the first civilization to roast cacao seeds to make chocolate. So, you have the Mayans to thank for some of your favorite modern dishes.
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  (#11) Women Made Pottery While Men Worked The Fields

  As in most ancient civilizations, there was a straightforward division of labor. Among the commoners, women looked after the home, raised the children, prepared meals, collected honey from beehives, made pottery, and weaved clothing. Meanwhile, men worked in the fields, known as milpas, tending their crops. This was no easy task, as ancient Mayans didn’t have any beasts of burden or draft animals like horses or oxen. Since it was manpower alone that plowed the fields, they typically used slash and burn farming techniques.
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  (#8) They Had Some Elaborate Hairstyles

  The Mayans put a lot of energy into their appearance, especially their hair. Men and women both grew their thick black hair long and usually wore it up and pulled back tightly in a ponytail to emphasize the length of the forehead. The men may have shaved the hair on the sides of the head but left a long streak of hair down the middle. The men also burned the hair at the hair line to give the appearance of an even more drastic receding hairline. Women wore their hair in braids, sometimes interwoven with ribbon. The elite class wore elaborate headdresses, consisting of animal skins, jade, and other precious materials.
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  (#10) Clothes Were Sometimes Embellished With Jewelry

  Among the common Mayans (also known as the memba uinicoob), the clothes were pretty basic. Men typically wore loincloths, and sometimes they added ponchos in colder weather. Women wore blouses and long skirts, or huipil. They wore simple accessories like bracelets, necklaces, anklets, and earrings. They made the fiber for the clothing from the agave plant, from which they would extract fibers from the leaves. They also used cotton plants, spinning both sources of fabric into cloth and coloring it with dyes like indigo. These items made up the Mayans' everyday clothing. Of course, the elite had more elaborate costumes that would be embellished with shells and jade. Religious ceremonies also had more intricate apparel.
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  (#2) Ancient Mayans Put Gems In Their Teeth

  The Mayans had an advanced form of dentistry for their time, especially when it came to cosmetic dentistry. While no dentist in the western world would perform this procedure today, it was fairly common among the Mayans to have gems inserted into their teeth. This must have been a grueling procedure, because the dentist had to actually carve holes in the dental enamel. Resin from plant sap was used to glue the gems into place. There were several skulls found that exhibited this cosmetic practice, and these skulls showed that the Mayan dentists were quite skilled. For example, they knew how to drill (typically with obsidian) without hitting the nerve in the tooth. 

  Recent history shows the Mayans were actually ahead of their time; “tooth gems” were a big trend in the '90s in Sweden and America, although that trend didn’t involve a surgical procedure.

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