Informative Speech On Mayan Civilization

The Mayan, Aztec, and Inca civilizations brought major accomplishments to the world today. These accomplishments established them as advanced societies during their time without the influence of Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Some of these accomplishments ranged from agriculture to architecture and on to writing and trade. Such as, the Mayans with their agriculture system of chinampas and there monumental temple/pyramids, the Aztecs with their trading in the city of Tenochtitlan, and the Incas with their road and bridge system connecting the whole empire.

The Aztecs, a once great civilization from 1519 to 1521. Their city was Tenochtitlan, which was built on a lake and adjusted to hold the growing population. At that time, Tenochtitlan was the largest city in the world with over 15 million people. In 1519, the Spanish overtook the Aztecs and left Tenochtitlan in ruins. Mexico City is now built on top of that area and only a few of the Aztec descendants carry on the vibrant culture and language. Nevertheless, the Aztecs made contributions to the world that we still use today. More importantly, they thrived because of their intelligence, and talent. What claimed their downfall was their foolishness and being uncivilized.

The Aztecs, part of modern day Mexico, were once the epitome of fine culture. They began their rule of southern and central Mexico during the 14th century and practiced an incredibly wealthy lifestyle. Nonetheless, this rule began to deteriorate when Spanish explorers disembarked at Tabasco and Vera Cruz on April 21st 1519. When the Spanish voyagers first arrived, they were welcomed warmly, respectfully and received Godlike treatment. Montezuma, the ruler at that time, believed that the Spanish military leader, Hernán Cortés, was the great god Quetzalcoatl. The Spanish took advantage of this Aztec belief and conquered Mexico within two years. By 1521, the Aztec culture was officially eradicated and a new culture, consisting of a

The Maya were a people from Middle America, which includes modern Guatemala, Southern Mexico, and Northern Belize (Editors). The Maya civilization was considered to be “one of the most dominant indigenous societies of Mesoamerica,” (Maya). “The Maya excelled at agriculture, pottery, hieroglyph writing, calendar-making, and mathematics, and left behind an astonishing amount of impressive architecture and symbolic artwork,” (Maya). They also gave mankind the modern calendar (Jarus, Maya). The Mayans were a very advanced people, but one of the most important things in the Mayan culture was their religion/god worshipping rituals.

The Maya of Mesoamerica, along with the Aztecs of Mexico and the Incas of Peru, made up the high civilizations of the American Indians at the time of the Spanish conquest. Both the Aztecs and the Incas were late civilizations, between 1300-1533 AD, but the Maya of the Yucatan and Guatemala exhibited a cultural continuity spanning more than 2,000 years, 1000 BC-AD 1542. Many aspects of this culture continue yet today. The Ancient Maya in their time had actually refined writing.

The ancient Mayan civilization settled in the Yucatan Peninsula in around 900 AD. This civilizations was one of the most advanced of its times. They created their own religion, language, mathematical structure, a very precise calendar, and many other things.

The Maya were known for their agriculture, trade, science and religion. They had a complex writing system and developed a calendar from observing the earths movements around the sun. One can’t say that just one

The fourth one is the Mayan civilization that bloomed in Central America from about 2600 BC and had been the cream of the crop in recent times because of the controversial timeline in the calendar they created. It became one of the most sophisticated civilizations with a population of about 19 million at its peak. The Mayans had already started their own way of writing by 700 BC, which they used to create their own solar calendars carved in the stones. They hypothesized that the world was created on August 11, 3114 BC, which is the date their calendar counts from and the supposed end of the world last December 21, 2012. The Mayans are also said to be culturally richer when compared to many of the contemporary civilizations. The latter and the Aztecs both build pyramids, many of which are larger than those in Egypt. But their collapse is still a controversy on ancient history (lbid).

The Aztecs were warrior people who lived in the Valley of Mexico, with the capital at Tenochtitlan, during the 1400s. Under their authoritarian state, the Aztecs worshipped their patron god, Huitzilopochtli, among other deities. Despite their warrior tactics and developed belief system, the Spaniards conquered them in 1519. The Incas (or Inkas) were the people who lived throughout the Andes Mountains from southern Peru to central Chile. With a society based on agriculture, the Incas farmed the terrain of the Andes Mountains west of their capital at Cuzco. The Incas suffered a fall to the Spaniards in 1532. The Aztecs from the Valley of Mexico in the 1400s and the Incas from throughout the Andes Mountains during the 1400s are similar and different because of their ideological and intellectual values, their rise and fall by conquest of their empires, and the way they applied the characteristics of their economies to their lifestyles.

Before the legendary empires of the Romans and the Greeks, there were other prospering civilizations thriving in parts of Central America and parts of Mexico. The Mayan, Incan and Aztec civilizations were a few of the greatest ancient civilizations in history, but they each had distinct characteristics that helped them prosper into the great empires that they became. Each had their own fascinating ways of food production, governing system and culture. The Mayans were established first out of the three and settled in modern-day Mexico. Then came the Aztecs and they also settled in modern-day Mexico and the Incas were the last of the three and they settled in the Andes Mountains and what is now Peru. All three had very successful and long-lasting civilizations until they were taken out by a natural cause or foreign invaders. Even though the Mayan, Aztecs and Incan empires had their distinct characteristics of what made them great, only the Incan empire would be able to succeed in today’s world because of their unique governing system and their advancements in military and infrastructure.

They lived 200 years and in the early 1000th century. The Inca leader was Sapa Inca. The Inca government was called the Tawantinsuyu. It was a monarchy ruled by a single leader called the Sapa Inca. Atahuallpa, the 13th and last emperor of the Incas, dies by strangulation at the hands of Francisco Pizarro's Spanish conquistadors. When Francisco Pizarro's Spanish conquistadors came, the execution of Atahuallpa, the last free reigning emperor, marked the end of 300 years of Inca civilization. As you can tell, these similarities and differences are not all the

If I had to live in one of the three civilizations- Maya, Inca, or Aztec- I would choose Maya. The Maya had a very simple number and math system. I’m not very good at math, so I would enjoy math much more if I could use the Mayan number system. The Mayan also had a diet mainly consisting of plants like maize. I do like meat, but I could definitely live without it. Plus I really do enjoy fruits and vegetables. They also had this ball game called pok-a-tok. Though it was used for religious purposes, children and adults still used it as a game for entertainment, and I think that it sounds as if it was very nice entertainment.

The title "Inca Empire" was given by the Spanish to a Quechuan-speaking Native American population that established a vast empire in the Andes Mountains of South America shortly before its conquest by Europeans. The ancestral roots of this empire began in the Cuzco valley of highland Peru around 1100 AD. The empire was relatively small until the imperialistic rule of emperor Pachacuti around 1438. Pachacuti began a systematic conquest of the surrounding cultures, eventually engulfing over a hundred different Indian nations within a 30-year period. This conquest gave rise to an empire that, at its zenith in the early 16th century; consisted of an estimated 10 million subjects living

     The Maya civilization can be divided into three main periods: Pre-Classic, Classic, and Post-Classic. Their greatest accomplishments most likely took place in the Classic period. This period occurred between 250 and 910AD. An extensive trade network was in place during this period that allowed the civilization to grow as large as sixty separate kingdoms. Other technological advances also took place during this time.

The Mayan civilization society was very complex and intelligent; rising to become very influential to people in different areas and much of their influence is still felt today. Relics indicate they were very skilled in mathematics, education, astronomy and astrology, agriculture, architecture, and politics. They originated in the Yucatan area of present day Mexico between 250 and 900 A.D.