Mayan culture

The incredible legacy

From 2000 BC the Mayan culture encompassed many tribes of Maya who lived throughout the Yucatan Peninsula and in the North of Guatemala.

They achieved amazing success with agriculture (maize being the primary crop, but also cacao & beans) without wheels.

They were able to predict eclipses thousands of years into the future with incredible accuracy, without telescopes. The Mayan calendar

fascinates with it's complex mathematics and it's 2012 end date.

And they built pyramids (with the same base-size as those of Giza) from huge stone blocks, without the use of metal tools.

Many of the Mayan ceremonial centers survive to this day. Chichen Itza and Pelanque are just two of these incredible sites.

Popular books such as the 'Celestine Prophecy' spread the myth that the Mayans mysteriously disappeared from existence, but while it's true that the civilization collapsed for unknown reasons it's incorrect to say that the Mayan people themselves disappeared.

What the Maya disappeared from was only the urban centers. They just went back to their previous rural lifestyle. And their descendants exist today all around the Yucatan. It seems that another tribe, the Toltecs, came into the area from the north and inter-mixed with the Maya. So the Maya of today have mixed blood, like almost everyone in Mexico.

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