The Maya Civilization: A Brief Overview

The Maya civilization is ancient and was one of the notable civilizations in the ancient Americas. It emerged around 1500 B.C.E. and rapidly transformed from a pre-agricultural society to a sedentary culture, building massive structures and cities. The Maya had a hieroglyphic writing system, with texts found on stone monuments, walls, and even jade necklaces. They also had advanced knowledge of astronomy, using their observations to develop calendars. The famous long count calendar, a numerical system based on 20, allowed them to represent time in a scalable way, symbolizing deep cosmic time. The Maya civilization experienced a collapse around 900 C.E., without a single conquest, and many cities were abandoned. However, some Maya communities persisted, and they are still present today. Modern archaeological advancements, such as LIDAR technology, continue to reveal new Maya sites, expanding our understanding of this remarkable ancient civilization.