Project

José Manuel Vargas Sánchez

While the Mayans settled in what is now southeastern Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El
Salvador, the so-called "Aztec" empire spanned from the Gulf to central Mexico. Of course with an
overlapping area between both cultures. In addition, when the Aztecs reached their greatest
expansion, by the year 1300, the Mayan civilization had already passed its classical period... 400
years earlier.

The first Mayan cities were founded around 750 BC (at the same time as Rome was founded) and
the last ones were abandoned around 950 AD, when Europe was in the middle of the Middle Ages.

The Aztecs, more properly called "Mexicas" founded their empire in the 14th century (when the
Medicis were becoming one of the most powerful houses in Europe) and it lasted until 1521 with
the arrival of the Spanish. Their rule prevailed for just over 100 years.

The language of the Maya is related to those of Central and South America. Among their gods are
Chaac, the rain god, and Kukulcan, the feathered serpent.

The Mexicas, on their part, came from the tribes of northern Mexico and southern United States.
Upon arriving at the valley of Mexico, they took and adapted various elements of the local culture.
Although the great Mayan cities had been abandoned, the people and their culture still remained.
The Mexica equivalent of Chaac was Tlaloc, god of La and Kukulcan, Quetzalcoatl... and they
brought their own god of war, Huitzilopochtli, as their main deity. Because of their very different
origins, the language of the Mexica (Nahuatl) and the Maya have structures as different as Spanish
and German.

The Mexicas settled on Lake Texcoco, which became the powerful city of Tenochtitlan around
1325. From there the "Huey Tlatoani" demanded from the conquered peoples tribute of furs,
crops, crafts and young people for human sacrifices. Gulp! The taxes were worse in those days!
The Mayas never had a consolidated empire, but were a series of city-states ruled by priests
among which there was commerce and constant wars.

The Mayan culture became very advanced: they are the American people with the most
sophisticated writing system: they used ideograms (symbols that mean ideas) and phonograms
(symbols that translate into syllables). In addition, they had the concept of the number zero, which
allowed them to make extremely complex calculations with which they predicted the movement
of the stars and built pyramids higher than the Aztecs... or domes and arches, which the Mexicas
did not have (in addition to making wider interior spaces).

The Mexicas, in turn, developed important technologies for agriculture such as chinampas and
canals to irrigate their crops, or drainage systems that amazed the Spaniards as much as personal
hygiene, which allowed them to have a well-groomed army for their conquests.
When the Spaniards arrived, Mayan culture resided in small kingdoms and communities scattered
throughout the Yucatan peninsula and Guatemala, while the Mexica empire was in its greatest
expansion. With the help of Mexica-dominated peoples (and diseases that mattered) the
Europeans defeated the Aztec empire in a few years, but it took almost another 100 years to
conquer the Maya peoples. As late as 1761, the Maya Jacinto Canek led an indigenous rebellion in
the Yucatan. In fact, the Mayan heritage is still alive today: the Lacandons, Zoques, Tzotziles and
Tzeltales, among many others, still speak the Mayan language and preserve their traditions. As for
the Mexicas, they have their heirs in the Nahua peoples that inhabit central Mexico and their
language, Nahuatl, is present in Spanish in hundreds of words, such as coyote, tomato and
chocolate.

In conclusion i chose these 3 civilizations because the 3 civilizations are in mexico and they are a
big part of our descent.