Living Worlds
The plastered market plaza of Tikal with painted temple platforms, women selling maize drink and woven cloth.

100–700 CE · Tikal, about 700 CE

The Plaza

Whatever is made is traded in the plaza.

The law of The Plaza

Whatever is made is traded in the plaza.

Tikal, about 700 CE: a Maya city of tens of thousands in the rainforest, with reservoirs, causeways, ball courts and painted temples around wide plastered plazas.

A Maya woman serving maize drink from a clay pot in the Tikal market plaza.

A life in The Plaza · composite, based on the record

A trader, thirty

She sells maize drink from a clay pot on market day. She knows every family that comes in along the causeway.

Meanwhile, in the same age

Classical worlds

A Roman street about 100 CE: apartment blocks above shops, a fountain fed by an aqueduct, people of many origins in tunics, donkeys and porters.

The Greek and Roman World

Rome, about 100 CE

A rooftop in Pataliputra at dusk where a young astronomer and students mark the rising stars, the Ganges below.

Place Value

Pataliputra, 499 CE

A double-hulled voyaging canoe with pandanus sails on the open Pacific at dusk.

Which world will you live in?

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