Who were the Classic Maya, and why did their cities collapse?

The Classic Maya: Tikal, Palenque and the collapse

Los mayas del periodo clásico

c. 250–900. From about AD 250 to 900 dozens of Maya kingdoms flourished in the lowlands of Guatemala, Belize, Chiapas and Yucatán.

Where: Mexico, Central America, Guatemala, Yucatán, Tikal, Palenque, Honduras

What happened

From about AD 250 to 900 dozens of Maya kingdoms flourished in the lowlands of Guatemala, Belize, Chiapas and Yucatán. Tikal, with perhaps 50,000 people, was a superpower that fought Calakmul for centuries; Palenque under Pakal (615–683) built some of the finest architecture in the Americas. Maya scribes used the most complete writing system in the New World and a calendar precise enough to date monuments to the day: the oldest at Tikal is from 292, the last at Toniná from 909. In the ninth century the southern cities stopped building, their elites vanished and populations fell. Drought, over-farming, war and overpopulation are all blamed; the mix is still debated. Northern cities such as Chichén Itzá carried on, and the Maya people never disappeared: millions speak Mayan languages today.

Say it

Los mayas escribían con jeroglíficos y tenían un calendario muy exacto.

The Maya wrote with hieroglyphs and had a very exact calendar.

Why it matters

Maya hieroglyphs, finally deciphered in the twentieth century, give the Americas their only long written history before 1492, and Mayan languages are still spoken by around six million people in Mexico and Central America.

There today

See

You can walk among the temples of Maya cities such as Tikal and Palenque, where the buildings raised under King Pakal still stand.

Read about it

• Los mayas — The Maya
• Las ruinas mayas y los viajeros — The Maya Ruins and the Travellers

Connected

• The Olmecs, Mesoamerica's first cities (c. 12th century BC–400 BC)
• The Olmecs, Mesoamerica's first cities (c. 12th century BC–400 BC)
• Teotihuacan, city of the gods (between 100 BC and 650)

• Before: The Olmecs, Mesoamerica's first cities
• After: Teotihuacan, city of the gods

Sources

1. Maya Civilization — World History Encyclopedia
2. Tikal — World History Encyclopedia
3. Palenque — World History Encyclopedia
4. Drought and Ancient Maya Practices Spelled Collapse of Tikal, Says Study — Popular Archaeology (on Lentz et al., PNAS)