Mayan Mexico

In its heyday, the Mayan empire covered the whole of south-eastern Mexico – an area that extends west almost as far as Oaxaca – plus northern Guatemala, parts of Honduras, Belize and north-western El Salvador. The Mayan civilisation flourished for some 700 years, until the middle of the 10th century, although Mayan communities had settled in these regions hundreds of years before.

The greatest of the achievements of the Mayans – such as Chichén Itzá, one of the new Seven Wonders of the World – date from the 7th to the 10th centuries; towards the end of this time frame, many of the great city-states that made up what we loosely call the Mayan empire began to self-destruct. The people, their traditions and their language survived, however.

The Spanish conquistadors, who first arrived in Mexico in 1517, did not conquer all the Mayan territories until the mid-16th century (and the Lacandó* communities in the Mexican jungle assert that the invaders never successfully subjugated them). Some Mayan sites, such as those in Mérida and Izamal in the north-east Yucatan peninsula, were taken apart, stone by stone, to build Catholic churches.

Other Mayan creations, such as Palenque, Yaxchilá* and Bonampak, were reclaimed by the jungle. Even though these sites have been partially cleared, you can still sense the excitement that the first non-Mayan explorers must have felt when tracking down these "lost" cities.

Read More