The Maya civilisation
History · Key Stage 2 · The School
Cities in the rainforest
The MAYA built great cities in the rainforest. This region is now Mexico and Central America. Two famous cities were Tikal and Chichen Itza. Each had tall stone pyramids, used as temples. Tikal was busiest in the Classic period, about 250 to 900 CE. Chichen Itza, in the north, grew powerful after about 900 CE.
Writing, zero, and the sky
The Maya made their own writing system. It was the most advanced writing system in the Americas before Europeans came. Maya mathematicians used the idea of ZERO. Europe would not use zero for centuries yet. Maya astronomers watched the sky closely. They tracked Venus and the sun. They used a detailed calendar called the LONG COUNT.
A collapse, city by city
Around 900 CE, many big southern cities were left empty. This happened over a few generations, not all at once. Historians are not fully sure why. Drought, wars between cities, and tired-out farmland may all have played a part together. No single, simple cause explains it all.
Some people say the Maya vanished. Let us test that claim with two places. First, look at the south. Tikal in Guatemala, and the land around it, seems to have lost most of its people between 830 and 950 CE. Next, look at Chichen Itza, in the Mexican state of Yucatán. It grew strong at about the same time. Then look at the 1500s. When the Spanish arrived, they found many Maya people living at or near Chichen Itza. Last, look at today. Mexico's 2020 CENSUS counted more than 500,000 people aged 3 and over in Yucatán who speak Maya. So the claim fails. Many southern cities were left empty, but the Maya people carried on.