The Mayan Civilization

​Many of the cultures that we have today have evolved from past events. Such as language it was something that became known throughout the years. Some of the languages that came from that were English, Spanish, German, and Latin to name a few. These languages were derived more past civilizations. One important civilization that is known for having great success is the Mayan civilization. The Mayan civilization is known for many things like they fully developed written language, art, architecture, math and some other factors. Historians have said that they don’t know an exact date of when this civilization rose up but they do mention that it flourished for about 2000 years. Although staring in 250 AD it is said that it was the start of their high point and it continued until the arrival of the Spanish in 1524. The Maya area covers southern Mexico and northwestern Central America. According to Sharer the area is divided into three regions: the Pacific coastal plain to the south, the highlands in the center, and the lowlands to the north. Even though these three regions were under the same civilization they all practiced different religious rituals. Religion plays a big role in every civilization. Some civilizations tend to praise more than one god and they always mention that what they have is thanks to their god. When they see things going wrong they often say that their god is punishing them because they did something that the god/s did not like. This tends to be the same

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 ancient Maya once occupied a vast geographic area in Central America. Their civilization inhabited an area that encompasses Mexico's Yucatan peninsula and parts of the states of Chiapas and Tabasco, as well as Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, and El Salvador. "From the third to the ninth century, Maya civilization produced awe-inspiring temples and pyramids, highly accurate calendars, mathematics and hieroglyphics, and a complex social and political order" ("Collapse..." 1). Urban centers were important to the Maya during the Classic period; they offered the Mayans a central place to practice religion.

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.

What happened to the Mayan civilization before it mysteriously collapsed is still a mystery, but heart-stopping achievements were made. Throughout 3000 years the Native tribe of the Maya inhabited México, Guatemala, Belize, and Honduras until the Spanish arrived. They were so secluded from anyone else, that they could not learn information from other tribes and they came up with all ideas themselves.(BGE) Trade routes, the creation of beautiful cities, establishing the number system and developing three calendars we all breathtaking achievements accomplished by the Mayan culture. Using scale, effort, genius, and significance four achievements will be argued about which was the most remarkable. Obviously the development

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.

Final draft Have you ever wondered what strengthened the Mayan empire and what made it so powerful? The Mayan people were the people who lived under Mayan rule. They lived in Mexico and Central Asia. They were very good at making buildings, trading and writing. The Mayan empire was strengthened skills such as architecture, writing and agriculture.

The early Mayan civilization had lowly beginnings. They rose to remarkable heights in a seemingly inhospitable land. As Maya scholar Arthur Demarest said “Such a civilization, had no business there.” The Mayans had to battle with torrential rain in the rainy season, and when the weather turned hot, it scorched the land and their water supplies would plummet. They were always faced with floods or drought. They were probably forced here due to overcrowding from other tribes. But nonetheless they began to conquer these threats as they learned advanced farming techniques to make the shallow earth fertile. They burned and cleared jungle to make room for their agriculture, particularly maize. They then began the process of crop rotation, long before anyone else. As the Mayan civilization began its steady uprising they began to redouble their efforts, they started composting, cultivating, they built irrigation systems and began to terrace the landscape to make farming more efficient and prevent erosion. They dammed rivers and flooded swamplands and marshes to create rich farmland. They instituted transport systems to move fertile silt and mud from lowlands to higher enclosed gardens and farms and created man made lakes and ponds that they used to fish and systems of corrals held wild game. They maximized their talents and squeezed out enough nourishment to support their population which had risen to several million people.

The Maya civilization was one of the most dominant indigenous societies of Mesoamerica. The growth of the great Mayan civilization is as much a mystery as its disappearance. The Maya Empire, centered in the tropical lowlands of what is now Guatemala, reached the peak of its power and influence around the sixth century A.D (http://www.history.com/topics/maya#). As a youth growing up in Belize Central America, I was very much intrigued by the Mayan civilization as we would regularly take educational field trips to the massive stone temples of Xunantunich and Altun Ha. Both Mayan ruins were no more than 50 miles away from my childhood home. Most of what we know about the Maya comes from what remains of their architecture and art, including stone carvings and inscriptions on their buildings and monuments. The Maya were deeply religious, and worshiped various gods related to nature, including the gods of the sun, the moon, rain and corn.

It was during the Paleo-Indian period when early nomads crossed into the Americas over 15,000 years ago. These were the "First People" to inhabit the Americas. They 'd first crossed into North America until eventually splitting off from other groups and eventually migrating south through Mexico into the Yucatán Peninsula of Mesoamerica.

The Mayans achieved many accomplishments. They had a very advanced system of writing hieroglyphics. They also, were advanced in carving and sculpting. They were good at making paper from fig trees They had an advanced calendar that had 18 months and each had 20 days.

The Mayans civilization is believed to be one of the world's most intriguing civilization on Earth. The Mayans originated around 2600 B.C. in Yucatan. They were mostly known for their classical civilizations in Mesoamerica. They were never unified as one but rather consisted of numerous different cities, each of the cities apparently had their own king. The indigenous people of Mexico soon rose to prominence around A.D 250. Some of the countries they rose to prominence would be modern day Mexico, Guatemala, western Honduras, El Salvador and northern Belize. The Mayan civilization was superior to the Aztec and Inca civilization in sections of astrology, agricultural methods, and architecture.

The Classical Maya was lost to the archaeological records until the last 200 years due to it’s abandonment. When the Mayans left there great cities, thick vines and jungles overtook the great monuments they once built. But in the last 200 years, in depth research has lead to breakthroughs into what the Classic Maya was like. The earliest Mayans were agriculturalist, growing crops such as corn (maize), beans, squash and cassava. The Mayans also invented a very accurate calendar, a math code using 0’s, constructed buildings still intact today, and a writing system that took decades to decode. The Mayans were situated in one geographical block covering all of the Yucatan Peninsula (Mexico), modern-day Guatemala, Belize, parts of the Mexican states of Tabasco and Chiapas, and the western part of Honduras and El Salvador. Due to their location on the

Massive temples hidden in the jungles of the Yucatan, mysterious stone stelas, and cryptic calendars eluding to advanced knowledge of the stars and mathematics are just some of the artifacts originating from the “Classic Maya” period (200 CE-900 CE). However, these popular items should not be the only defining characteristics of a society that dominated the Mesoamerican region for nearly a millennia. Dynastic lines, similar to those found in European houses, were important elements during this period in places like Palenque, Tikal, and Calakmul. Additionally, the Maya experienced violent and consistent warfare between localized powers and the backbone of their society, agriculture, suffered through several multi-year droughts. These factors

Many decades ago, northern Central America and southern Mexico cultures developed complex political and social ranks. Researchers today know this region as Mesoamerica, known for its rich soil, abundant amount of rainfall, and agriculture. (Judge & Langdon, 2012) The Mesoamericans, Aztec and Mayan tribes, developed into complex civilizations for multiple reasons. These societies were advanced and complex for their time in areas, such as architecture, agriculture, militarism, and education. Each had unique religion and political systems as well. The rise and fall of both were due to several factors.