The Mayan Empire: Rise and Fall

The Maya refer to both a modern-day people who can be found all over the world as well as their ancestors who built an ancient civilization that stretched throughout much of Central America, one that reached its peak during the first millennium A.D.The Maya civilization was never unified; rather, it consisted of numerous small states, ruled by kings, each apparently centered on a city. Sometimes, a stronger Maya state would dominate a weaker state and be able to exact tribute and labor from it.

The RISE

The earliest Maya settlements date to around 1800 B.C., or the beginning of what is called the Preclassic or Formative Period. The earliest Maya were agricultural, growing crops such as corn (maize), beans, squash and cassava (manioc). During the Middle Preclassic Period, which lasted until about 300 B.C., Maya farmers began to expand their presence both in the highland and lowland regions. The Middle Preclassic Period also saw the rise of the first major Mesoamerican civilization, the Olmecs. Like other Mesamerican peoples, such as the Zapotec, Totonac, Teotihuacán and Aztec, the Maya derived a number of religious and cultural traits–as well as their number system and their famous calendar–from the Olmec.

In addition to agriculture, the Preclassic Maya also displayed more advanced cultural traits like

pyramid-building, city construction and the inscribing of stone monuments. The Late Preclassic city of Mirador, in the northern Peten, was one of the greatest cities ever built in the pre-Columbian Americas. Its size dwarfed the Classic Maya capital of Tikal, and its existence proves that the Maya flourished centuries before the Classic Period.

Coe writes that the ancient Maya reached a peak between A.D. 250 and 900, a time that archaeologists call the “Classic” period when numerous Maya cities flourished throughout much of Central America.The civilization “reached intellectual and artistic heights which no other in the New World, and few in Europe, could match at the time,” Coe writes. “Large populations, a flourishing economy, and widespread trade were typical of the Classic …” he said, noting that warfare was also quite common.

The Maya civilization was influenced by the city of Teotihuacan, located farther to the west. At Tikal, it appears that one of their early rulers, named Siyaj K’ak, may have come from there. According to an inscription, he ascended the throne on Sept. 13, A.D. 379, and is depicted wearing feathers and shells and holding an atlatl (spear-thrower), features associated with Teotihuacan, writes researcher John Montgomery in his book "Tikal: An Illustrated History of the Mayan Capital" (Hippocrene Books, 2001).

The numerous cities found throughout the Maya world each had their own individual wonders that made them unique. Tikal, for instance, is known for its pyramid building. Starting at least as early as A.D. 672, the city’s rulers would construct a twin pyramid complex at the end of every K’atun (20-year period). Each of these pyramids would be flat-topped, built adjacent to each other and contain a staircase on each side. Between the pyramids was a plaza that had structures laid out to the north and south.

Copan, a Maya city in modern-day Honduras, is known for its “Temple of the Hieroglyphic Stairway.” It’s a pyramid-like structure that has more than 2,000 glyphs embellished on a flight of 63 steps, the longest ancient Maya inscription known to exist and appears to tell the history of the city’s rulers.s before the Classic Period.

The FALL

From the late eighth through the end of the ninth century, something unknown happened to shake the Maya civilization to its foundations. One by one, the Classic cities in the southern lowlands were abandoned, and by A.D. 900, Maya civilization in that region had collapsed. The reason for this mysterious decline is unknown, though scholars have developed several competing theories.

Some believe that by the ninth century the Maya had exhausted the environment around them to the point that it could no longer sustain a very large population. Other Maya scholars argue that constant warfare among competing city-states led the complicated military, family (by marriage) and trade alliances between them to break down, along with the traditional system of dynastic power. As the stature of the holy lords diminished, their complex traditions of rituals and ceremonies dissolved into chaos. Finally, some catastrophic environmental change–like an extremely long, intense period of drought–may have wiped out the Classic Maya civilization. Drought would have hit cities like Tikal–where rainwater was necessary for drinking as well as for crop irrigation–especially hard.

All three of these factors–overpopulation and overuse of the land, endemic warfare and drought–may have played a part in the downfall of the Maya in the southern lowlands. In the highlands of the Yucatan, a few Maya cities–such as Chichén Itzá, Uxmal and Mayapán–continued to flourish in the Post-Classic Period (A.D. 900-1500). By the time the Spanish invaders arrived, however, most Maya were living in agricultural villages, their great cities buried under a layer of rain-forest green.