Traveling through a thousand years of Mayan civilization
In 1502, Columbus embarked on his final voyage to the Americas, exactly ten years after his initial discovery of the "New World." His ship docked in the Gulf of Honduras, and Columbus and his crew excitedly stepped onto the long-missed verdant land. In a local market, a beautifully crafted pottery bowl caught his eye. The seller told him that this beautiful pottery bowl came from the "Maya." This magical name entered the ears of Europeans for the first time.
In 1519, Spanish explorer Hernan Cortez led his army across Mexico, conquering the Aztec Empire at the height of its civilization, "eradicating a culture as easily as a passerby plucking a sunflower from the roadside." By this time, the Mayan civilization was nearing its end, but some small Mayan settlements still remained on the Yucatan Peninsula. In 1526, a Spanish expedition went to the Yucatan, attempting to establish a Spanish colony by force and to forcibly impose Christianity. The Maya, refusing to surrender, waged a guerrilla war that lasted for over a century, until 1697 when the last Mayan city-state was finally destroyed by Spanish artillery fire.
The Mayan civilization was a jungle civilization that existed in what is now southeastern Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Belize. Although it existed in the Neolithic Age, it achieved remarkable advancements in astronomy, mathematics, agriculture, art, and writing.
Based on Mesoamerican chronology, Mayan history is divided into the Preclassic, Classic, and Postclassic periods. The Preclassic period (1500 BC – 300 AD), also known as the formative period, saw the invention of calendars and writing, the erection of monuments, and the construction of buildings. The Classic period (approximately 4th to 9th centuries AD) was the golden age, witnessing the peak of writing, monumental construction, architectural development, and artistic flourishing. The Postclassic period (approximately 9th to 16th centuries AD) saw the rise of city-states like Chichen Itza and Uxmal in the north, but the Maya culture gradually declined. Unlike civilizations like China and Egypt, the Maya never possessed a unified and powerful empire. At its peak, the Maya region was divided into hundreds of city-states, yet these city-states shared a common cultural sphere in terms of language, writing, religious beliefs, and customs.
The Maya civilization's architectural engineering reached the highest level in the world, enabling them to carve and process solid stone. Through long-term astronomical observation, they mastered the cycles of solar eclipses and the movements of the sun, moon, and Venus. Their sculptures, pottery, and murals possess high artistic value, earning them the title of the "Greece of the Americas." It established an early slave-owning state around 400 BC, flourished from the 3rd to the 9th centuries AD, declined in the 15th century, and was finally destroyed by Spanish colonists, after which it was long buried in the tropical jungle.