While most of the goods produced by Maya artisans were for the noble class and royalty, artisans could also sell their goods at market with the profit going to the family. Those who made jewelry or pottery probably worked at a home studio or in a common building dedicated to their craft. Feather workers might go to the market to see if hunters or rare bird breeders had any feathers to sell. Carvers might go to a new temple complex to begin work on a stele, a great stone column that celebrated the king’s life and deeds or important events in the life of the community. Women carried goods in baskets on their heads from the fields and to market, and they helped in the fields when necessary. Īfter breakfast, work began. Wives and daughters cooked, cleaned, and sewed. The use of stone axes helped a little and when a sharp edge was needed they fashioned cutting tools from obsidian or flint. The Maya did not have metal tools or pack animals such as horses or oxen to help with the plowing, so fathers and sons worked their land mostly by hand. Whether on the farm, at a construction site, or at one of their other occupations, life for commoners involved a lot of hard labor. Once crops were harvested, farmers often went to work building the pyramids and temples found in their beautiful cities. While some commoners might also work as servants to the noble class, as porters, or in the limestone quarries cutting stone for the numerous Maya building projects, most commoners were farmers who passed down their life of hard labor from one generation to the next. Because the Maya depended on agriculture for food and for trade, most commoners were farmers during the growing season. Most Maya lived in the lower classes and most of the lower class was made up of commoners.
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