Ninguno

The Mayan Empire had their origins in the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. Today, there are many Mayan people that still live in Central America and their influence can still be seen. Some scholars claim that during pre-colonial times, the Spanish tried to conquer the Mayan Empire without success. Other scholars claim that Spain did conquer the Mayan Empire but it took over 170 before thishappened. The Mayan Empire was spread out into many states with their own independent governments, even though all states shared the same culture. One of the reasons Spain took so long to conquer the Mayas was that the Mayan Empire had no unified political system and fierce resistance to the Spanish.

The area occupied by the Mayan Empire was ​​324,000 square kilometers including the Mexicanstates of Yucatan, Quintana Roo and Campeche, Tabasco and Chiapas, Republics of Guatemala and Belize, and several parts of Honduras and El Salvador. This vast region was the southern boundary of Mesoamerica. Between 2500-2000 B.C. and 300 C.E., known as Pre-Classic period, the Maya began their great technological advances that would distinguish them for centuries. Throughout those years, the Mayadeveloped a specialized and strong labor force that was supported by a solid social stratification and control of its human resources and the environment.[1]

The Mayan Empire entered into a long period of bloom and cultural advancement known as the Great Climax of the Mayan civilization starting around 300 C.E. This period was sustained until 900/1000 C.E. The existing urban centersexpanded their political power and influence on urban middle and lower rank through political alliances, marriages, and military conflicts, among other means. The priestly apparatus became more complex in order to legitimize the nobility in their divine right to rule and adopt new religious practices such as human sacrifice. The merchants of no noble birth right gained wealth and power. This allowedthem to access relevant positions within the rigid government organization.[2]

At the end of the eighth century the Maya society of the southern lowlands entered into a process of slow decline that gradually spread to the north of the peninsula, culminating with the collapse and abandonment of the Puuc cities in the tenth century, and the collapse of their political power a centurylater. Throughout these years the Mayan people gradually abandoned their core urban centers and began to occupy the peripheries, but they did not total abandon the area.

The architecture reached its exquisite ornamental stage in the Late Classic Period. The best example is the Puuc style of the governor's house at Uxmal. The construction of the buildings, unlike previous centuries, came toits highest degree of perfection. Architectural additions were being built and some existing spaces were being modified. New facilities (Mayapan, Chichenitza, Tulum, Xcaret) on the eastern coast were also being built. These architectural additions did not reach the splendor of previous centuries. The abandoned buildings were drowned out by the forest. Ceramic production and luxury goods declinedin quality and quantity, as well as specialized agricultural practices. Agriculture fields existing in certain gions regions of the peninsula were modified and the cornfield became their main source of agriculture. Additionally, other military orders were created. [3]

Some scholars believe that these new architectural and agricultural traditions were introduced from central Mexico, andothers were the result of the presence of different Mayan groups. Technological advancement, knowledge, and cultural production collapsed but not the Mayan ethnicity. The Mayan society that the Spanish conquered in the sixteenth century was not the same Mayan society that existed for centuries earlier. The Confederate government of the Mayan Empire disintegrated which was the beginning the...