Mayan culture

The Maya civilization was one of the grandest in the history of the world and the reason for its collapse is still shrouded in mystery. The ancient Maya occupied a vast geographic area in Central and South America from around 2000 BC until 1500 AD. The Mayan culture extended to parts of what is now Mexico, Honduras, and El Salvador, and most of Guatemala and Belize. During the Classical Period which lasted from the third to the ninth century, Maya civilization built awe-inspiring temples, pyramids and cities and formed a complex social and political order. Many of the remnants in Tikal reveal the culture of this ancient civilization. The Mayan culture excelled in many different fields, and testaments of their achievements are found throughout the area. 

Today descendents of the old Maya, or the Indigenous as the are locally referred to, account for more than 50% of the Guatemalan population. Their present culture is vibrant and thriving, best shown by the many traditionally dressed woman and children seen along the streets in the entire country. Weaving is one of the outstanding Maya craft, an ancient art that has survived uninterrupted for centuries and is now becoming famous all over the world. The Maya also make baskets, pottery and wood carved of animals, saints and brightly-painted toys and chests. Chichicastenango hosts the traditional handicrafts market every Thursday and Sunday and a more typical Mayan market can be experienced every Saturday in Solola on the way to Lake Atitlan. 


The First Hemispheric Indigenous Education Conference was held in Guatemala in July 2001. The conference brought together various aspects of education for indigenous communities of America and facilitated participant's exchange of experiences, practical knowledge, and educational materials that are relevant to the development of bilingual, intercultural education in their respective countries.

Mayan history

The Maya are probably the best-known of the classical civilizations of Mesoamerica. Mayan history starts in the Yucatan around 2600 B.C., Mayan history rose to prominence around A.D. 250 in present-day southern Mexico, Guatemala, western Honduras, El Salvador, and northern Belize. Building on the inherited inventions and ideas of earlier civilizations such as the Olmec, the Maya developed astronomy, calendrical systems and hieroglyphic writing. The Maya were noted as well for elaborate and highly decorated ceremonial architecture, including temple-pyramids, palaces and observatories, all built without metal tools.

Mayan history shows that they were also skilled farmers, clearing large sections of tropical rain forest and, where groundwater was scarce, building sizeable underground reservoirs for the storage of rainwater. The Maya were equally skilled as weavers and potters, and cleared routes through jungles and swamps to foster extensive trade networks with distant peoples. Many people believe that the ancestors of the Maya crossed the Bering Strait at least 20,000 years ago. They were nomadic hunter-gatherers. Evidence of settled habitation in Mexico is found in the Archaic period 5000-1500 BC - corn cultivation, basic pottery and stone tools.

The first true civilization was established with the rise of the Olmecs in the Pre-Classic period 1500 BC -300 AD. The Olmecs settled on the Gulf Coast, and little is known about them. They are regarded as the inventors of many aspects of Meso-American cultures including the first calendar and hieroglyphic writing in the Western hemisphere. Archeologists have not settled the relationship between the Olmecs and the Maya, and it is a mystery whether the Maya were their descendants, trading partners, or had another relationship, that is white place in Mayan history. It is agreed that the Maya developed a complex calendar and the most elaborate form of hieroglyphics in America, both based on the Olmec's versions.