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This is true, and thanks for reminding me about chichen itza, but I just wanted to emphasize how blurry the cultural lines are to the people around me - at leas
by monetus 4y ago
This is true, and thanks for reminding me about chichen itza, but I just wanted to emphasize how blurry the cultural lines are to the people around me - at least where I am in the Appalachias. My city has Mayans with Mayan restaurants. Not too long ago though, a kid told me he had thought the Mayans all died out, like the Romans he said.
Sorry, this is all kinda tangential. That kind of blurriness is something I'm super interested in.
- School-Cotton 4y agoYeah, it seems to be a relatively common (false) belief that the Mayans died out or even mysteriously disappeared. In reality their “classical” civilization declined and was eventually completely conquered by Spain, but as you point out, the people are still around. There are still millions of ethnic Mayans, who still speak Mayan languages, primarily in Guatemala and to a lesser extent in Mexico. The Incas were separated from the Mayans by thousands of miles of jungle (and their civilization reached its height hundreds of years after the Mayan decline). It’s unlikely they had much direct contact, if any. For what it’s worth the Romans didn’t die out either, again their civilization declined but their cultural and biological descendants are alive and well in the form of Italians, Spaniards, etc.
- cwillu 4y agoSo what you're saying is the Mayans were conquered by the Romans? “Not exactly, no…” TIL the Mayans were actually conquered by the Romans! “‹gives up›”