The Maya civilization () was a Mesoamerican civilization that existed from antiquity to the early modern period. Known by its ancient temples and glyphs (script), the civilization is also noted for its art, architecture, mathematics, calendar, and astronomical system. The Maya script is the most sophisticated and highly developed writing system in the pre-Columbian Americas.
The Maya civilization developed in the Maya Region, an area that today comprises southeastern Mexico, all of Guatemala and Belize, and the western portions of Honduras and El Salvador. Today, their descendants, known collectively as the Maya, number well over 6 million individuals, speak more than twenty-eight surviving Mayan languages, and reside in nearly the same area.
The Archaic period, before 2000 BC, saw the first developments in agriculture and the earliest villages. The Preclassic period () saw the establishment of the first complex societies in the Maya region, and the cultivation of the staple crops of the Maya diet, including maize, beans, squashes, and chili peppers. The first Maya cities developed around 750 BC. Hieroglyphic writing was being used in the Maya region by the 3rd century BC. In the Late Preclassic, a number of large cities developed in the Petén Basin, and the city of Kaminaljuyu rose to prominence in the Guatemalan Highlands. Beginning around 250 AD, the Classic period is largely defined as when the Maya were raising sculpted monuments with Long Count dates. This period saw the Maya civilization develop many city-states linked by a complex trade network. In the Maya Lowlands two great rivals, the cities of Tikal and Calakmul, became powerful. The Classic period also saw the intrusive intervention of the central Mexican city of Teotihuacan in Maya dynastic politics. In the 9th century, there was a widespread political collapse in the central Maya region, resulting in civil wars, the abandonment of cities, and a northward shift of population.
The Postclassic period saw the rise of Chichen Itza in the north, and the expansion of the aggressive Kʼicheʼ kingdom in the Guatemalan Highlands. In the 16th century, the Spanish Empire colonized the Mesoamerican region, and a lengthy series of campaigns saw the fall of Nojpetén, the last Maya city, in 1697. Rule during the Classic period centred on the concept of the "divine king", who was thought to act as a mediator between mortals and the supernatural realm. Kingship was usually (but not exclusively)The Ancient Maya Kinship System, Per Hage. The University of New Mexico 2003 patrilineal, and power normally passed to the eldest son. A prospective king was expected to be a successful war leader as well as a ruler. Closed patronage systems were the dominant force in Maya politics, although how patronage affected the political makeup of a kingdom varied from city-state to city-state. By the Late Classic period, the aristocracy had grown in size, reducing the previously exclusive power of the king. The Maya developed sophisticated art forms using both perishable and non-perishable materials, including wood, jade, obsidian, ceramics, sculpted stone monuments, stucco, and finely painted murals. The Maya elite were literate, and developed a complex system of hieroglyphic writing. The Maya recorded their history and ritual knowledge in screenfold books, of which only three uncontested examples remain. In addition, a great many examples of Maya texts can be found on stelae and ceramics. The Maya developed a highly complex series of interlocking ritual calendars, and employed mathematics that included one of the earliest known instances of the explicit zero in human history. As a part of their religion, the Maya practised human sacrifice.
Etymology "Maya" is a modern term used to refer collectively to the various peoples that inhabited this area, as Maya peoples have not had a sense of a common ethnic identity or political unity for the vast majority of their history.Restall and Asselbergs 2007, p. 4. Early Spanish and Mayan-language colonial sources in the Yucatán Peninsula used the term "Maya" to denote both the language spoken by the Yucatec Maya and the area surrounding the then-abandoned city of Mayapán. The term "Maya" was derived from the city of Mayapán.Restall, Matthew, 2004. "Maya Ethnogenesis" Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology, vol. 9 (1): 64–8.Restall, Matthew and Wolfgang Gabbert, 2017. "Maya Ethnogenesis and Group Identity in Yucatan, 1500–1900." In "The Only True People" Linking Maya Identities Past and Present. Edited by Bethany J. Beyyette and Lisa J. LeCount. Boulder: University Press of Colorado, pp.91–130. Some colonial Mayan-language sources also used "Maya" to refer to other Maya groups, sometimes pejoratively in reference to Maya groups more resistant to Spanish rule.Restall and Gabbert 2017, p. 92–97.
Geography
The Maya civilization occupied a wide territory that included southeastern Mexico and northern Central America. This area included the entire Yucatán Peninsula and all of the territory now in the modern countries of Guatemala and Belize, as well as the western portions of Honduras and El Salvador. Most of the peninsula is formed by a vast plain with few hills or mountains and a generally low coastline.Thompson 1966, p. 25. The territory of the Maya covered a third of Mesoamerica,Foster 2002, p. 5. and the Maya were engaged in a dynamic relationship with neighbouring cultures that included the Olmecs, Mixtecs, Teotihuacan, and Aztecs.Sharer and Traxler 2006, p. 29. Foster 2002, p. 5. During the Early Classic period, the Maya cities of Tikal and Kaminaljuyu were key Maya foci in a network that extended into the highlands of central Mexico;Marcus 2004b, pp. 342. there was a strong Maya presence at the Tetitla compound of Teotihuacan.Taube 2004, p. 273. The Maya city of Chichen Itza and the distant Toltec capital of Tula had an especially close relationship.Kristan-Graham and Kowalski 2007, pp. 13–14.
The Petén region consists of densely forested low-lying limestone plain;Lovell 2005, p. 17. a chain of fourteen lakes runs across the central drainage basin of Petén.Sharer and Traxler 2006, pp. 46–47. To the south the plain gradually rises towards the Guatemalan Highlands.Rice and Rice 2009, p. 5. The dense Maya forest covers northern Petén and Belize, most of Quintana Roo, southern Campeche, and a portion of the south of Yucatán state. Farther north, the vegetation turns to lower forest consisting of dense scrub.Quezada 2011, p. 17.
The littoral zone of Soconusco lies to the south of the Sierra Madre de Chiapas,Lovell 2000, p. 400. and consists of a narrow coastal plain and the foothills of the Sierra Madre.Viqueira 2004, p. 21. The Maya highlands extend eastwards from Chiapas into Guatemala, reaching their highest in the Sierra de los Cuchumatanes. Their major pre-Columbian population centres were in the largest highland valleys, such as the Valley of Guatemala and the Quetzaltenango Valley. In the southern highlands, a belt of volcanic cones runs parallel to the Pacific coast. The highlands extend northwards into Verapaz, and gradually descend to the east.Sharer and Traxler 2006, pp. 34–36.
History
The history of Maya civilization is divided into three principal periods: the Preclassic, Classic, and Postclassic.Estrada-Belli 2011, pp. 1, 3. These were preceded by the Archaic Period, during which the first settled villages and early developments in agriculture emerged.Sharer and Traxler 2006, p. 98. Estrada-Belli 2011, p. 38. Modern scholars regard these periods as arbitrary divisions of Maya chronology, rather than indicative of cultural evolution or decline.Estrada-Belli 2011, p. 1. Definitions of the start and end dates of period spans can vary by as much as a century, depending on the author.Demarest 2004, p. 17.
+Maya chronologyEstrada-Belli 2011, p. 3. Period Division DatesArchaic 8000–2000 BCSharer and Traxler 2006, p. 98.Preclassic Early Preclassic 2000–1000 BCMiddle Preclassic Early Middle Preclassic 1000–600 BC Late Middle Preclassic 600–350 BCLate PreclassicEarly Late Preclassic 350–1 BCLate Late Preclassic 1 BC – AD 159Terminal Preclassic AD 159–250Classic Early Classic AD 250–550 Late Classic AD 550–830 Terminal Classic AD 830–950Postclassic Early Postclassic AD 950–1200Late Postclassic AD 1200–1539Contact period AD 1511–1697Masson 2012, p. 18238. Pugh and Cecil 2012, p. 315.
Preclassic period (c. 2000 BC – 250 AD)
The Maya developed their first civilization in the Preclassic period.Estrada-Belli 2011, p. 28. Scholars continue to discuss when this era of Maya civilization began. Maya occupation at Cuello (modern Belize) has been carbon dated to around 2600 BC.Hammond et al. 1976, pp. 579–81. Settlements were established around 1800 BC in the Soconusco region of the Pacific coast, and the Maya were already cultivating the staple crops of maize, beans, squash, and chili pepper.Drew 1999, p. 6. This period was characterized by sedentary communities and the introduction of pottery and fired clay figurines.Coe 1999, p. 47.
During the Middle Preclassic Period, small villages began to grow to form cities.Olmedo Vera 1997, p. 26. Nakbe in the Petén department of Guatemala is the earliest well-documented city in the Maya lowlands,Sharer and Traxler 2006, p. 214. where large structures have been dated to around 750 BC. The northern lowlands of Yucatán were widely settled by the Middle Preclassic.Sharer and Traxler 2006, p. 276. By approximately 400 BC, early Maya rulers were raising stelae.Sharer and Traxler 2006, pp. 182, 197. A developed script was already being used in Petén by the 3rd century BC.Saturno, Stuart and Beltrán 2006, pp. 1281–83. In the Late Preclassic Period, the enormous city of El Mirador grew to cover approximately .Olmedo Vera 1997, p. 28. Although not as large, Tikal was already a significant city by around 350 BC.Martin and Grube 2000, pp. 25–26.
In the highlands, Kaminaljuyu emerged as a principal centre in the Late Preclassic.Love 2007, pp. 293, 297. Popenoe de Hatch and Schieber de Lavarreda 2001, p. 991. Takalik Abaj and Chocolá were two of the most important cities on the Pacific coastal plain,Sharer and Traxler 2006, p. 236. and Komchen grew to become an important site in northern Yucatán.Sharer and Traxler 2006, p. 275. The Late Preclassic cultural florescence collapsed in the 1st century AD and many of the great Maya cities of the epoch were abandoned; the cause of this collapse is unknown.Martin and Grube 2000, p. 8.
Classic period (c. 250–900 AD)
The Classic period is largely defined as the period during which the lowland Maya raised dated monuments using the Long Count calendar.Coe 1999, p. 81. This period marked the peak of large-scale construction and urbanism, the recording of monumental inscriptions, and demonstrated significant intellectual and artistic development, particularly in the southern lowland regions. The Classic period Maya political landscape has been likened to that of Renaissance Italy or Classical Greece, with multiple city-states engaged in a complex network of alliances and enmities.Martin and Grube 2000, p. 21. The largest cities had 50,000 to 120,000 people and were linked to networks of subsidiary sites.