Maya city

A Maya city was a centre of population of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization of Mesoamerica. It served the specialised roles of administration, commerce, manufacturing and religion that characterised ancient cities worldwide. Maya cities tended to be more dispersed than cities in other societies, even within Mesoamerica, as a result of adaptation to a lowland tropical environment that allowed food production amidst areas dedicated to other activities. Maya kings ruled their kingdoms from palaces that were situated within the centre of their cities. Cities tended to be located in places that controlled trade routes or that could supply essential products. This allowed the elites that controlled trade to increase their wealth and status. These precincts contained pyramid temples and other monumental architecture dedicated to elite activities, such as basal platforms that supported administrative or elite residential complexes. Sculpted monuments were raised to record the deeds of the ruling dynasty. By 500 BC these cities possessed large temple structures decorated with stucco masks representing gods. Nakbe in the Petén Department of Guatemala is the earliest well-documented city in the Maya lowlands, where large structures have been dated to around 750 BC. It possessed paved avenues, massive triadic pyramid complexes dated to around 150 BC, and stelae and altars that were erected in its plazas. The Late Preclassic cultural florescence collapsed in the 1st century AD and many of the great Maya cities of the epoch were abandoned; the cause of this collapse is as yet unknown. At its height during the Late Classic, Tikal had expanded to have a population of well over 100,000. In the north of the Maya area, Coba was the most important Maya capital. Overlords of city-states that held sway over a greater number of subordinate lords could command greater quantities of tribute in the form of goods and labour. The most notable forms of tribute pictured on Maya ceramics are cacao, textiles and feathers.

Postclassic Period

The Postclassic Period (AD 900-c.1524) was marked by a series of changes that distinguished its cities from those of the preceding Classic Period. Chichen Itza, in the north, became what was probably the largest, most powerful and most cosmopolitan of all Maya cities. One of the most important cities in the Guatemalan Highlands at this time was Q'umarkaj, also known as Utatlán, the capital of the aggressive K'iche' Maya kingdom. |Late Classic |- |Copán |Copán Department, Honduras |15,000-21,000 |Late Classic |- |Calakmul |Campeche, Mexico |50,000 |Late Classic |- |Cival |Petén Department, Guatemala |2,000-5,000 |Late Preclassic |- |Quiriguá |Izabal Department, Guatemala |1,200–1,600 |Late Postclassic |- |Santa Rita Corozal |Corozal District, Belize |7,000 |Late Postclassic |- |Sayil |Yucatán, Mexico |10,000 |Terminal Classic |- |Seibal |Petén Department, Guatemala |10,000 Shortly afterwards, the Spanish were invited as allies into Iximche, the capital city of the Kaqchikel Maya. Good relations did not last and the city was abandoned a few months later. This was followed by the fall of Zaculeu, the Mam Maya capital, in 1525.

By the 19th century, the existence of five former Maya cities was known in the Petén region of Guatemala. Tayasal had been visited by Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés in 1524, followed by a number of missionaries at the beginning of the 17th century. Since the 1960s, formal archaeological mapping projects have revealed that the ceremonial centres in fact formed the centres of dispersed cities that possessed populations that at some sites could reach tens of thousands.

Notes

References

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Category:City Category:Maya civilization Category:Ancient cities Category:Lists of states by dominant ethnic group