A Brief History of the Ancient Maya Civilization

Introduction to the Maya People

The Maya are a group of people of southern Mexico and northern Central America with some three thousand years of rich history. They were a division of the Mesoamerican Pre-Columbian civilizations. Contrary to popular belief, the Maya people never vanished completely; millions still live in the region, and many of them still speak one of the numerous Maya languages (A Brief History of the Mayan Civilization, 2011). The Maya are perhaps the most well-known of the traditional civilizations of Mesoamerica. Mayan history began in the Yucatan around 2600 B.C. and grew to prominence around A.D. 250 in what is now southern Mexico, Guatemala, western Honduras, El Salvador, and northern Belize (Mayan History, n.d.).

Building on the inventions and ideas of earlier civilizations such as the Olmec, the Maya advanced astronomy, calendrical systems, and hieroglyphic writing. They are well known for complex and highly ornamented ceremonial architecture, including temple-pyramids, palaces, and observatories, all constructed without metal tools. Mayan history demonstrates that they were also accomplished farmers, clearing large areas of tropical rainforest and, where groundwater was scarce, constructing large underground reservoirs for the storage of rainwater. The Maya were equally skilled as weavers and potters, and they cleared paths through jungles and swamps to support far-reaching trade networks with distant peoples (Mayan History, n.d.).

Cultural Achievements and Society

Unlike the cultures of the Valley of Mexico, the only era in which urban centers were significant to the Maya was during the Classic era, from 300 to 900 AD. Maya culture, however, did not change dramatically from the Classic era to the modern era, for it remained mostly tribal and rural throughout the Classic period. What distinguishes Classic from post-Classic Maya culture is the importance of urban centers and their role in the spiritual life of the Maya, as well as the degree of scholarly culture (Mayan History, n.d.).

The Maya were never a truly urban civilization. Their urban centers were used almost entirely as spiritual centers for the surrounding rural population. Consequently, the decline of the urban centers after 900 AD did not entail massive social change so much as spiritual change. Some scholars believe that the abandonment of the cities was largely due to religious conversion spreading from the north. Nonetheless, the Classic era saw an outburst of cultural creativity throughout the area occupied by the Mayan tribes. They absorbed many cultural forms from the north and also developed cultural advances that deeply influenced all subsequent cultures throughout Mesoamerica. Much of Maya culture — especially the spiritual understanding of time — remains an important feature of Native American life in Guatemala and Honduras today (Mayan History, n.d.).

Mayan society was vibrant but could also be harsh. It was strictly hierarchical and deeply religious. People were sacrificed to appease the gods, and the elite also practiced self-mortification. Male Maya rulers pierced the foreskins of their penises and women their tongues, apparently in the hope of providing sustenance for the gods who required human blood (Cecil, 2011).

The Classic and Post-Classic Eras

In the Early Classic era, there is little evidence of Maya presence in the northern Yucatan region. A few isolated sites are linked to that period, but they are more strongly associated stylistically with the Teotihuacan culture from the north, near present-day Mexico City. That culture collapsed around 600 AD for unknown reasons, ending its influence in the Maya areas and marking the division between the Early and Late Classic eras. In the Late Classic era, Mayan civilization flourished and reached its greatest heights (Periods in Maya Civilization, 2011).

In the Terminal Classic era, the Maya cities of the central area underwent collapse. The center of Maya culture shifted northward to the Puuc Hills, centered at Uxmal. The Puuc architectural style is defined by distinctive construction methods. The influence of Puuc-style architecture at Chichen Itza is clearly visible in the older southern section — in the Nunnery Annex, the Iglesia, and other small buildings in the area. Some Puuc-style facades can be seen in older buildings where exterior construction has fallen away. The inner temple of El Castillo is also nearly pure Puuc Mayan. Only a century after the collapse of the central Mayan cities, the cities in the Puuc hills also fell, bringing the Classic period to an end (Periods in Maya Civilization, 2011).

The Post-Classic era is distinguished by the dominance of the Yucatan by the Toltec culture of central Mexico. This military culture introduced the cult of Quetzalcoatl — renamed Kukulcan by the Maya — to the region. The Toltecs are credited with bringing the Chacmool figures into the temples and producing the mixture of styles seen at Chichen Itza. The Eagles and the Jaguars, the skulls on the Tzompantli, and the warrior reliefs on the columns of the Temple of the Warriors are all examples of this new cultural influence (Periods in Maya Civilization, 2011).

Classic Maya culture developed in three main areas of Mesoamerica. By far the most significant urban developments took place in the lowlands of the central area of southern Guatemala — a drainage basin approximately sixty miles long and twenty miles wide, covered by tropical rainforest. The Maya are one of only two civilizations to develop an urban culture within a tropical rainforest. The principal city in this region was Tikal, and urban development extended south to Honduras; the southernmost Mayan city was Copan in northern Honduras. In the Guatemalan highlands, Mayan culture developed less completely; the highlands appear to have been the primary source of raw materials for the central urban centers, and the largest urban center there was Palenque. The other chief area of Mayan development was the Yucatan peninsula, comprising the southern and eastern parts of modern Mexico. Although urban centers such as Chichen Itza and Uxmal were constructed there, most scholars regard this as a culturally secondary area. After the abandonment of the Classic Maya cities, the Yucatan peninsula became the center of a new, hybrid culture called Toltec-Maya, formed when Toltecs traveling from the north merged with native Maya peoples (The Civilizations of Ancient Mesoamerica, 2009).