
A prospective king was expected to be a successful war leader as well as a ruler. Kingship was usually (but not exclusively) patrilineal, and power normally passed to the eldest son. Rule during the Classic period centred on the concept of the "divine king", who was thought to act as a mediator between mortals and the supernatural realm.
#Arrachera meso maya series#
In the 16th century, the Spanish Empire colonised the Mesoamerican region, and a lengthy series of campaigns saw the fall of Nojpetén, the last Maya city, in 1697. The Postclassic period saw the rise of Chichen Itza in the north, and the expansion of the aggressive Kʼicheʼ kingdom in the Guatemalan Highlands. In the 9th century, there was a widespread political collapse in the central Maya region, resulting in internecine warfare, the abandonment of cities, and a northward shift of population. The Classic period also saw the intrusive intervention of the central Mexican city of Teotihuacan in Maya dynastic politics. In the Maya Lowlands two great rivals, the cities of Tikal and Calakmul, became powerful. This period saw the Maya civilization develop many city-states linked by a complex trade network. Beginning around 250 AD, the Classic period is largely defined as when the Maya were raising sculpted monuments with Long Count dates. In the Late Preclassic a number of large cities developed in the Petén Basin, and the city of Kaminaljuyu rose to prominence in the Guatemalan Highlands. Hieroglyphic writing was being used in the Maya region by the 3rd century BC. The first Maya cities developed around 750 BC, and by 500 BC these cities possessed monumental architecture, including large temples with elaborate stucco façades. 2000 BC to 250 AD) saw the establishment of the first complex societies in the Maya region, and the cultivation of the staple crops of the Maya diet, including maize, beans, squashes, and chili peppers. The Archaic period, before 2000 BC, saw the first developments in agriculture and the earliest villages. Today, their descendants, known collectively as the Maya, number well over 6 million individuals, speak more than twenty-eight surviving Mayan languages, and reside in nearly the same area as their ancestors. It includes the northern lowlands of the Yucatán Peninsula and the Guatemalan Highlands of the Sierra Madre, the Mexican state of Chiapas, southern Guatemala, El Salvador, and the southern lowlands of the Pacific littoral plain. The Maya civilization developed in the Maya Region, an area that today comprises southeastern Mexico, all of Guatemala and Belize, and the western portions of Honduras and El Salvador. The civilization is also noted for its art, architecture, mathematics, calendar, and astronomical system. The Maya script is the most sophisticated and highly developed writing system in the pre-Columbian Americas. It is known by its ancient temples and glyphs (script).

The Maya civilization ( / ˈ m aɪ ə/) was a Mesoamerican civilization that existed from antiquity to the early modern period.
