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The Ancient Maya
High rainfall between 440 and 660 CE allowed
the Maya to flourish. While mild droughts in
the following years led to extensive warfare
and the decline of Mayan civilization; it was a
prolonged period of drought between 1020
and 1100 CE that was ultimately fatal.
W hen the Spanish conquistadors claimed of their development, but the reasons why the pletely abandoned, the skill and knowledge of
areas of Central America and Mexico great structures were suddenly abandoned, and Maya writing persisted among segments of the
in the sixteenth century, they discovered the the exact purposes of the massive and elaborate population, and the early Spanish conquista-
ruins of a great civilization, that of the Mayans, buildings, continue to remain trapped in the dors knew of individuals who could still read
who had vanished and left evidence of their past. The Mayan culture at its pinnacle stretched and write the script. Unfortunately, the Span-
lost grandeur in massive structures that had from Central Mexico to Guatemala, El Salvador ish displayed little interest in it, and as a result
been over-whelmed by the surrounding rain and Honduras. There are fourteen commonly of the dire impacts the conquest had on Maya
forest. The native people could not explain the recognized major Mayan archeological ruin sites societies, the knowledge was subsequently lost,
significance of the sprawling, vacant cities to in the Yucatan. Tulum and Coba are the most probably within only a few generations. When
the conquistadors. Unlike the great Incan cities, visited sites in Quintana Roo. modern archaeologists learned how to read
the Mayan centers had long been abandoned. Mayan hieroglyphics a history emerged
The ruins of the Mayans did not begin to reveal The Spanish Church and government officials that showed the Mayan centers were not
their secrets for 300 years. Since the nineteenth destroyed Maya texts and with them the occupied by peaceful astronomers and the
century, enough information has been gathered knowledge of Maya writing. Although many large structures did not serve specifically as
about the Mayan structures to sketch a history Maya centers went into decline or were com- ceremonial sites.
