Thursday, January 6, 2011

Maya civilization part 1: Introducing



Maya civilization

The people of Maya is one of the most advanced Native American indigenous peoples. They were living on the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico and in Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Belize. Powerful Mayan civilization dates from 2000 BC. They were destroyed by Spanish conquerors in the early 16th century. Remains of their cities swallowed the rainforest. Today in the world lives for about 2 million descendants of the Maya.

Mayan language belongs to the language 'Mayan' who is at least 3,000 years old. Today's modern Mayans speak Mayan languages, which evolved from the ancient proto-Maya language Maya Nab'ee Tzij.

The first settlements were built by the Mayans 2000th BC. Empire were divided into city-states. Some have temporarily ruled the others or were connected to the covenant. During the classical period from 300 to 900 the empire reached its peak. Cities were connected with network of roads some of which are still in use. The most important towns were Comalcalco, Palenque, Copan, Calakmul, Uaxactun and Altun Ha. The largest and richest city in which lived between 75,000 and 100,000 people, was Tikal. Population growth increased the number of city-states, a nobility which was ruled by each other's marriages, and war.


The period from the 900th the 1500th is the beginning of the end of the Mayan civilization. After fighting each other and the conflict with the Nahua-Toltec tribes survived only three cities Mayapan, Chichen Itza and Uxmal.With the arrival of the Spaniards in Yucatan 1520th The nation has been exiled to the jungle. In 1524th The Spaniards under Pedro de Alvarado conquered the peninsula and occupied the southern part. The last Mayan city Itzuli was conquered in the 1697th year, but the Mayans fought with the invaders during the 19th century. Maya rebelled in Yucatan. The seat was a village of Chan-Santa-Cruz. Until 1910. several expeditions tried to reach the village. Each attempt ended with the number of victims.



Enjoy :)

25 comments:

  1. While European castles are top of my list of dream vacations some of the ncient temples rank top 10. Too bad these things dont interest the wife :/

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  2. the myans were a brilliant civilazation

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  3. Cool post

    I love history facts about the Mayas :)

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  4. I was recently at the Museum of Man in San Diego and I have to say that I could not stop staring at the Mayan art and thinking it was just sooooo much better than Egyptian. It had so much dimension and character, humor and pain. I think if I could see a culture recreated today, theirs would be the one I would choose rather than the typical choice of Egyptians or Aztecs or any other ancient cultures. I would want to hear their music, their language, see their costumes and their buildings when in full use and color. Really good choice to cover this one.

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  5. That's a cool post and video. Have you heard of Apocalypse Island? Google it if you haven't it's pretty cool too.

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  6. I'd never heard of the later history. thank you.

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  7. great post, lots of new information!

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  8. nice read.

    was way more interesting that I thought it would be at first :P

    following you now :)


    http://kind-of-informational.blogspot.com/
    only if you feel like giving it a click :)

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  9. i wish we hadn't skimmed over native american civilizations in world history.

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  10. I was in the Yucatan not long ago and that stuff is even better to see in real life!

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  11. awesome information, im glad that i had the privilege to learn about most of the mayan civilization in high school- one of the coolest cultures to read about :) following :D

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  12. Ah this reminds me of my archeology class in school. My teacher was an expert on Mayan stuff. We got to see lots of things like archtecture and pottery that was simply amazing.

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  13. that was a scene from Apocalipto great movie.

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  14. I love the mayan archtecture and art. It's interesting to see what different civilisations come up with.

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  15. This brought back memories of World History... It's good to learn about ancient civilizations that still have surviving descendants! Great post!

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  16. it would have been intense to be alive during that time period

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  17. yeah the myans certainly created interesting culture and architecture

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  18. gotta love the mayans. they sure have a great place amongst the history of nations

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  19. One of the fascinating bits about the Mayans is how the majority of the civilization sort of just, well, disappeared.

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  20. I always plays Mayans on Civ V.
    Don't know if that counts...

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  21. so advanced for their time its kind of freaky.

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  22. What struck me is that the roads that were built thousands of years ago are still being used today. Very interesting read, although my terrible internet connection mean that I couldn't see the video.

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