Ancient History: The Mayan Empire

The Mayan Empire, Why it Was the Greatest The Mayan empire was a very successful empire lasting about 3000 years. During that reign they had several achievements such as, the Mayan Calendar and the Mayan languages. The Mayan civilization was a greater civilization than the Incas and the Aztecs because of their accomplishments and discover in astronomy, math, and writing were far greater than the Inca and the Aztec civilizations. To add to that their architecture was more renowned and larger than the likes of the Inca and the Aztec civilizations. To be a great empire you need to have the right geographical climate in order to protect yourself and feed your people. The Mayans had this, with their many areas of climate. The Mayans used this
vast range of climate zones in war. Northern and central regions include grasslands, rainforests, and swamps. The south regions included pine forests and mountain highlands. Mayan agricultural methods were different based on the area. In the south they slash and burn, while in the north they terrace farms on hills.
Mayans were very active in astrology, creating the Mayan Calendar.
“The Mayan Calendar, or Tzolk'in, is comprised of 20 Day Signs and 13 Galactic Numbers, making a 260-day calendar "year" (Horoscope, Web).” The Mayan Calendar started around the time off the Mayan creation and ended in 2012; although they were wrong it was still an astonishing feat considering other empires at that time didn’t even use astrology. The Mayans have always been famous for their architecture, mainly their pyramids. The Mayan pyramids were usually very large, and made of limestone. They used limestone because it was one of the natural resources that they had in their area. The Mayans also built large palaces for their kings and supreme rulers. Mayans created several different languages which were spoken based on which part of the Mayan territory they were in. The Mayans also created their own number system that included lines and dots. The Mayans were polytheistic, but they did think some gods were greater than others. Their main god was Itzamna. Though little is known about Itzamna, it was thought to be residing in the sky. The Mayans also had three lower class god which were Kukulcan, Bolon Tzacab, and Chaac. The Mayans had a 4 tier social class consisting of supreme rulers/ gods/ emperors, priests/ nobles, merchants/ artisans, and
peasants. The Maya Empire’s fall is unknown, and there is many different theories on why it declined. “Some believe that by the ninth century the Maya had exhausted the environment around them to the point that it could no longer sustain a very large population. (History, Web)” Others believe that it declined because of the constant warfare between inner cities. The residuals believed that their holy lords fell and their complex traditions, ended up turning cha otic. The Mayans are very similar to the Inca and Aztec empires, though the Mayans outlived both of these empires. During that time they were able to accomplish much more in their time than either the Aztec or Inca could do in their time. All three empires were near a large body of water but the Aztecs and the Incas didn’t have the climate on land that the Mayans did, the diversified regions, the mountains, and flatlands. The Aztecs were surrounded by water and mountains, so they didn’t have a large area for their empire. The Aztec and Inca both found one way to farm, the Aztec learning how to farm on flatland, and the Inca farming on flatland using the quipu. This went on while the Maya had already learned how to farm in two different ways (terrace farming and slashing and burning).

The Mayans achieved higher than the Incas and Aztecs in architecture, astrology and writing.
The Aztecs took spoken language to an art and the Incan created their own language. While the Mayans were creating glyphs and multiple different languages. The Mayan created many large pyramids, and palaces; the Inca created large stone houses and structures. Archaeologists aren’t even sure what the Aztecs architecture was like because after Cortes conquer the Aztecs, the city of Tenochtitlan was destroyed. The Aztec did have a little bit more advanced number system than the Mayans, but the Mayans still surpassed the Incas in that category.
In conclusion the Mayan empire was greater than the Inca and Aztec empires. They had more feats in writing, astrology, and architecture than both of the other empires, including their own languages, calendar, and many giant pyramids. The Mayan empire lasted longer because it is the survival of the fittest and the Mayan empire was the
fittest.