The Maya are an ancient civilization with a rich culture and history. Many of their achievements are still not fully understood today. This blog is a place to share the latest discoveries and information about the Mayans.

The Mayans have been long gone for a long time, however, there are many artifacts that have been found and are still being found.

The most famous of these artifacts is the Mayan calendar. The main reason it is so famous is because it was very accurate in the ways of predicting the future. It predicted that the world would end in 2012.

Tzolk’in is the name of the mayan calendar and it consists of 20 symbols that represent each day in a month. The only problem with this calendar is that it has no year 0, which some people say makes it inaccurate because we are now in year 0. However this does not make it inaccurate because now we can say what year 1 B.C.E really was, or 1 C.E for that matter.

Tzolk’in has another cycle called Haab’, which consists of 18 months out of which only 5 have names and the rest are just numbered. Some people think this is just a backup cycle if something happens to Tzolk’in, but others think Haab’ was used to help track time during the hot season when Tzolk’in could not be used.

These two cycles had many purposes to the mayans, they used them to tell

The Mayans were a Mesoamerican pre-Columbian civilization of great cultural, intellectual and political complexity. Their culture flourished for six centuries before their first significant contact with Europeans in the 16th century. They were known as a great empire of commerce, with ties to other civilizations in North America, Central America, South America, the Caribbean and Europe.

A beautiful piece of mayan art depicted the day when the shadow covered parts of the earth in darkness or what is now known as The Great American Solar Eclipse on August 21st 2017

How then was it that the ancient Mayans built such monumental and advanced cities without the wheel, metal tools or even a written language? They accomplished this and more by using their most valuable resources, time and manpower.

Mayan civilization flourished in the southern lowlands of the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, Belize, Guatemala and parts of Honduras. Mayans were hunters and gatherers until about 3,000 years ago when they began to farm. Eventually, they traded with other civilizations along the Pacific coast of Mexico. The civilization reached its peak between AD 250-900. At that time, it was one of the most highly developed civilizations in the world.

The Mayans were a literate society that used hieroglyphs to write on paper made from tree bark called amatl. However because there was no alphabet, their writing system was complex. Each symbol represented a word or syllable; so it could take several symbols to represent a single sound or letter of the alphabet. They recorded information about their gods, ceremonies, history and everyday life on long strips of paper or on pottery or stone monuments.

However, when Spanish conquerors invaded in 1521 after first landing on the Yucatan Peninsula in 1517 they destroyed many Mayan texts

The Mayan civilization is one of the most mysterious and intriguing ancient civilizations that has ever lived. It is not just about their famous monuments, but also about their art and culture.

Tulum, Mexico is located along the Caribbean coastline near the Yucatan Peninsula in southeastern Mexico. The ruins of Tulum are often called “the jewel of Maya sites” because of its incredible natural beauty.

Rising out of a tropical jungle on the shore of a turquoise lagoon and stretching along ten miles of white sand beach, Tulum is located on a bluff overlooking the Caribbean Sea. The site dates back to 1200-1500 A.D. during the Late Post-Classic period.

The buildings were built with limestone, quarried from the area, and decorated with stucco designs in red, yellow, blue and green. The site has been preserved in much the same way it was when it was abandoned around 1500 AD.

Tulum is especially noteworthy for its architecture and water management system which was designed to divert rainwater through channels to artificial ponds used by the population for bathing and washing clothes as well as for drinking water supply during periods of drought.

The Mayan civilization was one of the most sophisticated and culturally advanced in the world, but it was also uncharacteristically fragile. The Mayan empire expanded quickly and collapsed just as fast.

Towards the end of the Classic period, around 900 A.D., regional centers throughout the southern lowlands began a rapid decline. By 950, large-scale ceremonial activity had ceased and many centers were completely abandoned. The northern centers suffered a similar fate in the next century. There are many theories as to why this happened, but no one really knows why such a strong culture collapsed so quickly.

Tikal is one of the largest sites in Guatemala. It was a major city with a population of over 200,000 people during peak times. Tikal is located in what is now the Peten District near the border with Mexico. The site covers more than 2 miles squared and contains over 3,000 structures including temples, palaces, plazas and houses. The ancient Maya built their cities on top of older cities so each site has several layers of history from different periods of occupation.

The city was first settled between 300 B.C.-A.D 100 and reached its peak between A.D 300-900. During this time it became one of

The Maya were a pre-Columbian Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as its art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems. The Maya civilization developed in an area that encompasses southeastern Mexico, all of Guatemala and Belize, and the western portions of Honduras and El Salvador.

The Maya area has been politically divided in recent times; it lies mostly within the modern countries of Guatemala, Belize and Mexico, with small parts in Honduras, El Salvador and Western Honduras. With the exception of western Honduras, most of the northern areas are still covered by lush tropical forest.

The Maya area was first incorporated into the Spanish Empire in the early 16th century during Spain’s conquest of the Yucatán Peninsula, then again in 1821 with the independence of Mexico. In 1846, however, most of the Maya peoples were conquered by the Mexican army during the Caste War of Yucatán.

Aguilar-Moreno (2001) distinguishes between different regional groups within Mayan:

Maya – Yucatec (Yukatek) – speakers who live either along or close to traditional Mayan lands on the northern part of Y