Check out a few more interesting facts about Maya Civilization.
The Maya civilization is an extinct civilization that was flourishing before Europeans arrived.
The reason why is that it's called only the Maya civilization and not the Maya Empire as there was no centralized power and the Maya civilization was divided into many cities with their own kings. Every city will have different laws but the cultures are mostly the same. These cities used to fight against each other to expand their area and seize resources. The captured people used to become slaves of the winning city and they were used as laborers to make temples and other monuments.
The Maya people believed in human sacrifice and this single barbaric practice of them made the Europeans believe that Maya people are uncivilized and barbaric. Slowly they wiped off this entire culture from the earth in the ‘process’ of civilizing them. For the Mayans, this ritual was a very sacred ritual that makes the Gods happy. In the beginning, high-born people were sacrificed because of their pure blood but later criminals and orphans were sacrificed. They used bows and arrows to sacrifice someone and sometimes by throwing them into pits. The practice of human sacrifice was present till the fall of the Maya civilization.
The Maya people used to write as they had their own script and they wrote on their homes, stone monuments, rare books, and pottery. They even wrote books on papers created from the inner bark of fig trees. At present only three books by Mayans are available. Many books got destroyed by themselves due to damping and many books were burnt by the Europeans because for them it’s not of any use.
