In the 15th century, Europeans discovered America. They called the continent the New World. But although Europeans did see this land for the first time, it was new only to them. In fact, this continent has had a long, exciting history. The ancient civilizations of America, who inhabited the continent without any connection with the outside world, led a sedentary lifestyle. They built cities and villages, gradually creating an incredibly complex society. Each tribe had its own political system, its own religion, its own ideas about life and the universe. The traces of some tribes are completely lost in time. Others have left us a legacy reminiscent of the greatness of a lost world. The history of the ancient civilizations of America - Incas, Mayans, Aztecs - reflects the history of the whole continent.
Ancient civilizations
In the 16th century, after the discovery of America, myths about golden cities began to be composed in Europe. The Spanish conquistadors sailed to Eldorado, dreaming of getting rich. Just a few years after the start of the brutal invasion of the Spaniards, the Inca and Aztec empires collapsed, a whole world perished. Two amazing civilizations were destroyed in their heyday.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, this ancient world was rediscovered. The second discovery, like the first, entailed amazing adventures. Risking their own lives, researchers went to unknown countries and brought incredible stories from there. In the middle of the jungle, impassable mountains hid huge abandoned cities. The researchers discovered amazing civilizations that existed in America before Columbus, long before the white man invaded the American continent.
New discoveries have disproved all the ideas of Europeans about savage Indians. The majestic ruins of their cities spoke of an unexpectedly high level of development and a sophisticated Inca culture. Native American languages are also considered unique and one of the most ancient.
Among the Indian tribes, two completely different groups stand out. From the second half of the 4th century. BC e. The Andes saw the development of several large ancient civilizations of America, one of which is the Incas. Maya and the Aztecs belong to the civilizations of Central America, united by a common culture.
Mayan History
Mayan civilization and language originated in the forests of Guatemala in approximately 250-300 years. BC e. Its heyday fell on the 8th century. n e. Developed and sophisticated people erected cities where temples and palaces towered above houses, created the Mayan language, which is considered one of the most ancient.
Tikal is the most powerful city of the Mayan civilization. It is located in Guatemala. In Tikal were the highest temples of that era. They reached 70 meters in height. The gray ruins that we admire today reflect this city in all its splendor. Reconstruction of the main square of Tikal allows us to see the city where red color prevailed.
During the first studies, scientists tried to understand the purpose of the Mayan pyramids in Mexico. Perhaps they did not appear to honor the gods. Many of them were built in honor of the leaders.
In the early 50s of the 20th century, archaeologists discovered a tomb in one of the tunnels. It contained a human skeleton decorated with jade. This stone was a symbol of life and immortality in the Mayan culture. This skeleton belonged to the Mayan leader, who ruled Tikal until 834 A.D. e.
Mayan leaders were buried in the pyramids, as were the Egyptian pharaohs. Like the pharaohs, the leaders considered themselves deities. The leader not only ruled the city - he was a political, military and spiritual leader in his society. In the heyday of the ancient Mayans, the position of the leader as a spiritual leader was undeniable.
City life was built according to the laws of the cosmic world. The divine status of the leader guaranteed the inhabitants of the city peace and harmony. The monumental buildings of the city were to inspire fear in its inhabitants. The leader’s personality was sacred. His life was part of Mayan mythology. From the day of his ascension to the throne, the leader has been equated with the rising morning sun. The legend of the leaders was based on time cycles.
Indians - Astronomers
Among the indigenous peoples of the American continent, the Mayans were the best astronomers. In the city of Yucatan is one very interesting building. This is an astronomical observatory with a 360 ° sky coverage. Mayan priests spent time in boundless explorations of the sky, trying to predict the fate of the stars, the dates of the battle and the ascension to the throne of new leaders. This is not just an observatory. Here the Mayans tried to comprehend the past and present, to know the future and to understand the cyclical nature of everything that happens.
In the view of the peoples of Central America, time was completely cyclical. It consisted of certain cycles that once had to be interrupted forever. Therefore, the Mayans closely watched the progress of the luminaries, which possibly contained the secrets of their future. The Aztecs believed that the universe was subject to cycles that were guided by both the forces of good and the forces of evil. Days were divided into favorable and unfavorable.
The knowledge of time cycles was also applied in agriculture. Astronomers tell farmers when to plant and harvest, when what work needs to be done. Today, the Mayan descendants use slash-and-burn agriculture. In the dry season, they burn out areas in the jungle, which they will cultivate later, and fertilize the soil with ash.
For many thousands of years, the main food of the Indians was corn. They began to cultivate it 5,000 years ago. At first, the ears of corn were very small. Each of them gave no more than a dozen grains. The Indians selected the largest and most beautiful grains and planted them. This is how the corn we grow now appears. The Mayans called themselves "the children of corn." According to their legends, the gods created the first man from corn porridge. Modern historians are wondering how large Mayan communities existed in an environment in which only small groups of people can live?
There is another issue related to slash-and-burn agriculture. The soil is rapidly depleted and ceases to yield crops. The ancient Mayans possessed several ways to grow crops much richer than the present. But their possibilities were limited.
Maya Empire Destruction
In the 8th century, the Mayan cities grew so rapidly that their population was already impossible to feed. The growth of cities led to periods of famine. Another problem of Mayan cities was related to their organization. United by a common culture, they had no political connections. Some cities, each ruled by a leader, were in a state of constant hostility. Tikal and Kalakmul fought fiercely for the championship. The Mayan political system was undeniably very effective, but it was also fragile and unreliable. This insecurity led to insecurity. Some cities were wiped off because the inhabitants killed each other. They were captured so quickly that people did not have time to run.
At the beginning of their research, scientists naively believed that the Mayans were a peaceful people. Now we know that this is completely wrong. Wars between different cities broke out very often. Chiapas has the most luxurious Mayan frescoes found in 1946. They depict the enmity that reigned between the Mayan cities. These cities fought among themselves for territory, power and prosperity.
Together with the depletion of war resources, they only accelerated the fall of the empire. After the 9th century, the Mayans no longer erected buildings. The ruins of their cities bear traces of war and destruction. In just a few years, the Mayan world collapsed completely. One of the indigenous peoples of the American continent was wiped off the face of the earth.
Aztec History
In the 13th century, the northern Aztec tribe came from the Gulf of Mexico. Their imagination was struck by the monumental pyramids of Teotihuacan, which for many centuries stood abandoned. The Aztecs decided that this city was erected by the gods themselves. To this day, it is not known which tribe built it.
On the one hand, the Aztec Indians wanted to create the same developed civilization, on the other, it was difficult for them to move away from their cruel customs and nomadic way of life. The Aztec tribe had dual views. They appreciated their ancestors and adopted the cultural values of those civilizations that preceded them. But among the ancestors of the Aztecs there was also a brave tribe of hunters, and they were no less proud of them.
Mexico City was built on the ruins of Tenochtitlan - the Aztec capital destroyed by the Spaniards. Traces of the Aztecs are not easy to find in the modern stone jungle. In 1978, an amazing discovery was made. The city of Mexico City planned to begin construction of the subway. Workers who began digging a pit found strange objects underground. Later it turned out that these were traces of the Aztecs. Archaeologist Jose Alvara Barerra Rivera remembers this amazing moment. The northern wall of the temple, dedicated to the god of the Aztec Sun, has been perfectly preserved. It turned out that the Spaniards built a cathedral on the ruins of the sacred heart of the Aztec capital. There were a dozen temples. Archaeologists managed to recreate the most important of all the temples. It, like the Mayan pyramids in Mexico, was built in several stages. Thanks to the ruins, specialists were able to revive the past of the Aztec people.
The Lost City of Tenochtitlan
Where Mexico City is now located at an altitude of 2000 meters, Lake Texcoco was centuries ago. Around it, the Aztecs erected a city that stood on artificial islands. This is Tenochtitlan - American Venice. At the time of the invasion of Europeans, 300 thousand people inhabited it. Conquistadors could not believe their own eyes. Tenochtitlan was one of the largest metropolises of its time. In its center stood a temple, the ruins of which were found in 1978. The area of the city is about 13 km². In order to build it, I had to dig a lot of land and drain the soil in order to make the territory habitable. This huge city was built in just a few decades, which makes it even more remarkable.
In the swampy area there was little land suitable for plowing, but the Aztecs managed to make the most of it to feed the hundreds of thousands of people living in the capital. In the suburbs of Mexico City are amazing agricultural areas - chinampa. They are so unique that UNESCO is listed as a World Heritage Site. Due to the fact that the chinamps were preserved, we can look into the past and reveal the secret of the history of civilizations of ancient America.
Aztec sacrifices
The Aztec tribes, like the Mayans, were engaged in the cultivation of corn. It was believed that the Aztec gods patronize this plant, to which young women were sacrificed. They were beheaded like corn during the harvest.
Human sacrifices were made everywhere in Central America, but during the Aztec era they became a real insanity. When the conquistadors first entered the main square of Tenochtitlan, they were horrified to see that the walls of the temple were covered in blood. Conquistadors captured the city and destroyed the temple, but archaeologists have found even more ancient buildings, exactly repeating the great temple in miniature.
The most common form of sacrifice was the carving of the heart, which was intended for the bloodthirsty Sun. The reason these actions took place is indicated on a sun stone. On a disk weighing 20 tons and a height of 3 meters, a calendar has been carved in which 4 catastrophes that destroyed 4 suns are indicated. According to this calendar, the last, 5th sun, was also in danger. But one of the gods saved him by sacrificing himself. He set himself on fire, and then was reborn as a bright star, which became the new sun. But it was motionless. Then the other gods sacrificed themselves to revive the sun. So the space drama continued, where the role of the gods was now played by people. In order for the sun to continue its journey across the horizon, it was necessary to feed it with precious water every day - human blood.
Sacrifices played a very important role in the Aztec worldview. They were the cornerstone on which the self-determination of the people was based. The Aztecs believed that by making human sacrifices to the gods, they maintained the order in the world and that if it had once stopped, humanity could perish. Successful policies and expansion of the Aztec empire also led to these victims.
In order for the system to continue to evolve, the Aztecs tried to surpass themselves in all areas. In 1487, Emperor Auisotl celebrated the renewal of the great temple. The ceremony was terrifying. Priests carved the hearts of at least 10,000 captives. It was the heyday of the Aztec empire - the ancient civilization of America.
The Aztecs are conquerors
Beginning in 1440, the Aztecs endlessly conducted military campaigns to expand their own empire, capturing the tribes living in the Mexican valley. By 1520, the area of their empire reached 200 thousand km². By the time the conquistadors invaded, it numbered 38 provinces, each of which had to pay a great tribute to the leader.
Power in the Aztec empire was supported by fear. The main interest of the rulers was to control the occupied territories, levy tribute and keeping subjects in fear. This explains the grandeur of the Aztec architecture. It was impossible to maintain the wealth of such a huge empire only through the relocation of tribes and the seizure of new territories. The Aztecs did not so much colonize new territories as they carried out brutal campaigns or simply threatened other tribes. That is how they expanded their borders. The subjects of the Aztec empire recognized the power of the cities of Tenochtitlan and Tlatoani. They worshiped the emperor and their deities endlessly. The Aztecs allowed the captured tribes to conduct their affairs independently, while they paid tribute and treated the ruling tribe with reverence.
Inca History
In the same period, the Incas ruled an empire 5 times superior to the Aztec empire. It stretches from modern Ecuador to Chile, occupying about 950 thousand km². In order to manage it, the Incas created a system based on a conglomerate of several different tribes.
In 1615, Guaman Poma de Ayala completed his amazing work, which described the history of the Inca civilization, the heyday of the tribe before the invasion of the conquistadors and the discovery of America. In his book, he described the cruelty that the Spaniards treated the indigenous people of New Earth. The chronicles of Poma de Ayala are one of the few sources from which we can learn about the organization of the amazing Inca tribe.
The word "Incas" was used both by leaders and ordinary people. According to legend, there were 13 great Incas. Most likely, the first 8 of them were mythical characters.
Empire Formation
The history of the tribe began with the ascension to the throne of the ninth Inca - Pachakutek. Until this moment, the Incas were no different from other Peruvian tribes. Pachacutec was a talented commander. He began to expand the territory of the country. Combining 500 tribes, Pachacutec began a new era in the history of the Incas. He was a wonderful ruler. And in his empire, families lived in communities, the land in each of them was common. Each region had to supply the community with the food that was best grown in it.
The Incas created an administrative system with a stable structure, led by a group of officials. In order to ensure economic exchange between different regions, a communication system was needed. But roads needed to be built in the Andes, the world's highest mountain range after the Himalayas. The Incas perfectly mastered the art of building bridges across rivers. Many of them are still valid. In order to build bridges and roads in the Andes, a clear organization of labor was needed. Each employee had to contribute to the common cause. Collective labor was one of the fundamental principles of the Inca empire.
The road system helped the Incas create one of the most well-organized states in the world. The messengers could deliver news from the leader’s palace to the distant ends of the empire with incredible speed.
The Incas did not have written language - only oral communication in Native American languages, but they developed an original system of transmitting information using bales - bundles of multi-colored threads, where each thread color and length had its own meaning. Thanks to the bale, the Incas managed to very successfully control their treasury. The leaders controlled the economy through intermediaries, in the role of the rulers of individual regions. Those were to collect tribute from their subjects and organize their work. This was only one link in the overall chain. The Incas created an entire administrative system.
There were few large cities in the empire. Most of the Incas lived in villages and engaged in agriculture, which was the basis of the economy. The organization of the state allowed everyone to be in acceptable conditions.
At the head of the state was a leader who was considered a direct descendant of the Sun God. He directed the politics and economics of the empire, but his main duty was to maintain his own religious cult. Miraculously preserved city of Machu Picchu is a majestic symbol of the leader's power. The Incas dreamed of leading a great immortal empire.
80 years after the reign of Pachacuchek ended, the conquistadors reached the Andes. The leader was Frasisco Pizarro. This illiterate and poor man was determined to seize the Inca empire. His only weapon was courage and a longing for wealth.
The following years turned into a tragedy for the Incas - representatives of the ancient civilization of America. Many of them fell at the hands of the Spaniards, the survivors were forced to watch how their empire collapsed. The Indians were killed and tortured. The earth was taken from them, they were treated like lower beings. The life of the Indians has turned into a chain of endless tribulations and humiliations. In the end, the genocide of the Indians led to the almost complete extermination of these tribes.