Aztecs vs Mayans: Who Ruled Mesoamerica?

Bright Side

Ever wondered who ruled Mesoamerica, the Aztecs or the Mayans? The Mayans were first, building their amazing cities and pyramids in places like Guatemala and southern Mexico from around 2000 BCE. They were great at astronomy and had an advanced writing system. The Aztecs came later, dominating central Mexico with their powerful empire starting in the 14th century, known for their massive capital city, Tenochtitlán. Both civilizations were incredible in their own ways, but they ruled different parts of Mesoamerica at different times.  Credit: Glyphic compounds: Mexican Manuscript, French National Library, https://www.mesoweb.com/pari/publications/journal/804/PARI0804.pdf logogram AKOL: https://www.mesoweb.com/pari/publications/journal/804/PARI0804.pdf Mexico relief location map: By Carport - NordNordWest, CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9864019 Tlatelolco Marketplace: By Joe Ravi, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9003058 Balam 3: By Goran tek-en - http://www.famsi.org/research/pitts/MayaGlyphsBook1Sect1.pdf, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=40927433 Basin of Mexico 1519 map-en: By Yavidaxiu, Sémhur, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9263087 Animation is created by Bright Side.  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/   Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV   Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Our Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightside  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightside.official TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brightside.official?lang=en   Stock materials (photos, footages and other): https://www.depositphotos.com https://www.shutterstock.com https://www.eastnews.ru ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me

Transcript

00:00Can you pronounce this name of the Aztec capital city?

00:03Yes, it's quite difficult to say in English and above my pay grade.

00:07Ok, ok, it's Tenochtitlan.

00:11And Mayan cities are hard to pronounce too, consider Jaxchilan.

00:15They must be part of the same language, right?

00:18Well, not really.

00:19The Aztecs and the Mayas were among the most famous Mesoamerican peoples – that's present-day

00:25Central America.

00:26But they didn't speak the same language, and they weren't even the same civilization.

00:31The two nations lived in different eras.

00:34The Aztecs dominated the region from the 14th to the 16th century.

00:39Back in Europe, this was near the end of the Middle Ages.

00:42The Mayas came before the Aztecs.

00:45Historians believe they started building city-states in the 3rd century.

00:49Their peak lasted until the 10th century.

00:52This doesn't mean that the Mayas and the Aztecs didn't have contact with each other.

00:57But at the time this happened, the Mayas were on a decline.

01:00So the Aztecs traded more with their descendants than with real Mayan people.

01:05The two civilizations didn't even live in the same place.

01:08The Aztecs built their cities in the north of what is today Mexico.

01:13The Mayas lived to the south of them in the Yucatan Peninsula.

01:16Yes, that's also in Mexico nowadays.

01:19But the Mayas inhabited parts of modern-day Guatemala and Belize as well.

01:23And they spoke a number of languages.

01:26There's a whole Mayan language family they spoke, not just one language.

01:30Some of those languages have survived through today.

01:33Estimates show that there are 6 million indigenous Maya people groups spread across Central America.

01:39In Guatemala, there are 21 Maya languages recognized by the authorities.

01:45Further north, in Mexico, the number of official languages is 29.

01:50For the Aztecs, the situation is much simpler.

01:53They had a single language.

01:55It still has around 1.5 million native speakers, mostly in central Mexico.

02:00That's more than any other family of indigenous languages in the region.

02:05But is there a chance a speaker of Aztec languages can understand a speaker of the Maya language?

02:11Not by a long shot.

02:13The two languages are completely unrelated.

02:16In fact, they didn't even share the same writing systems.

02:19The Mayans were more advanced because they used hieroglyphs.

02:23Yep, like the ancient Egyptians.

02:25Instead of letters that make up words, ancient civilizations used tiny pictures to symbolize

02:30an object or a concept.

02:32When the Mayas wanted to write the word Jaguar, for example, they would draw a small image

02:37of the animal.

02:38In total, their writing system had more than 800 characters like this one.

02:43Way too complicated compared to the modern way we write down words.

02:47But the Aztecs were one step behind the Mayas.

02:50They used pictograms and ideograms.

02:53Simply put, these are elaborate drawings that mark an object, animal, or concept.

02:59Compared to Mayan hieroglyphs, they aren't simple symbols anyone can draw but true masterpieces

03:04of visual art.

03:06Only highly skilled painters could draw them.

03:08I don't say write because, technically, the Aztecs didn't have a writing system.

03:14So you could say that the Mayas were more advanced when it came to language.

03:18After all, they had the only known fully developed language in the Americas before

03:23the arrival of Europeans.

03:25But in terms of culture and economy, the two societies weren't that much different.

03:30Neither of them used work animals for agriculture and transport.

03:34The main crop for both peoples?

03:35You guessed it, corn.

03:37What they called maize.

03:39Christopher Columbus was the first to transport corn back to the Old Continent in 1493.

03:45The Mayans also cultivated sunflower, vanilla, and cotton.

03:49The Aztecs produced chili, beans, and squashes.

03:53When it comes to meat, the Aztecs were happy to catch fish and shrimp.

03:58The Mayans penned turkey, just like we do with chicken today.

04:02The Aztec society consisted of nobles and commoners, all led by an emperor.

04:07The Mayas mostly lived in independent city kingdoms, ruled by a king and his royal household.

04:14There were no wheeled vehicles in these civilizations.

04:17Aztec merchants traveled across Mesoamerica carrying goods on their backs.

04:22Not the most comfortable mode of transportation, definitely.

04:26We shouldn't think of Aztec roads as the ones we have today.

04:29They were narrower because they saw only foot traffic.

04:33Mayas used a similar road system that also included canoes.

04:37They wouldn't travel far from the coast, though.

04:40They carved out these vessels from large tree trunks.

04:43An average Mayan canoe was 50 feet long.

04:46That's the length of a modern-day yacht.

04:49The goods these Mayas traded ranged from salt to pearls.

04:53They considered meat a luxury good, together with gold, copper, and turquoise.

04:57And can you guess the currency of Mayan merchants?

05:00Let me give you a hint.

05:02It wasn't metal and paper like it is today, but cocoa beans.

05:06They had a fixed market price, which made them the ideal payment option.

05:11The situation in modern societies is not much different.

05:15Around two-thirds of all countries have pegged their currency to the U.S. dollar.

05:20For Mesoamericans, cocoa beans were their green banknotes.

05:24The Aztecs used the same exact currency but with a twist.

05:28They had something called ax money.

05:30One ax was worth 8,000 cacao seeds.

05:33I bet their exchange offices were fun places to work.

05:37When it comes to minerals, jade was highly esteemed in both cultures.

05:42The Mayas and the Aztecs made tools and ornaments from it.

05:46These peoples believed jade brought beauty and long life to the person who wore it.

05:51Their jade mines were located in present-day Guatemala.

05:55And remember that city from the beginning that we could hardly pronounce?

05:59The founding of the Aztec capital gives an insight into the belief system of the whole

06:03nation.

06:04According to legend, the Aztec deity told them to build a city in the place where an

06:09eagle sits on a cactus with a snake in its talons.

06:13They saw this happen on an island in a lake.

06:16This is where they built the city.

06:18If you want to find it on the map of Central America today, look for Mexico City.

06:23That's the site of an ancient Aztec capital.

06:27It even got its name from the ancient nation, because Mexico was an alternate name for the

06:32Aztecs.

06:33They constructed the city on small artificial islands.

06:36It was slightly bigger than the surface area of London Heathrow Airport.

06:41The Mayas didn't have a capital city as we know it today.

06:45Their civilization spanned across 40 cities.

06:48These settlements had a population of 5 to 50,000 inhabitants.

06:52Today, these sites could be classified in terms of size as small American towns.

06:58But the total number of Mayan cities is not final.

07:02Historians keep discovering new ones deep in the jungle of the Yucatan Peninsula.

07:07Quite recently, researchers unearthed a new site in the southeast of Mexico.

07:12They found a number of stone columns and named the city after the Mayan word for it.

07:17Back in the day, the city was part of the Central Maya lowlands.

07:20Today, this region is covered with thick jungle.

07:24The Maya abandoned their settlements in this area around the 8th and 9th century.

07:29Historians still cannot agree on why this happened.

07:32Some claim overpopulation was the main issue.

07:35Others argue the trade routes collapsed, so Mayan cities couldn't flourish anymore.

07:41Whatever the case, northern Mayan cities lived on.

07:44The descendants of these peoples were there when the Europeans stumbled upon them several

07:49centuries later.

07:51The Aztecs were also present in today's Mexico at this time.

07:55But contact with a foreign culture didn't bring them much good.

07:59There was an outbreak of smallpox that sealed the Aztecs' fate.

08:03This doesn't mean that this American nation left the world stage forever, though.

08:08Every time we say words like avocado, chili, guacamole, chocolate, and coyote, we are actually

08:14reviving the Aztec language.

08:17These words are present in pretty much every language on the planet.

08:21Mayan words also entered modern English.

08:24Linguists argue that the word shark actually comes from a Mayan language.

08:28This is the word these ancient Mesoamerican people used for fish.

08:33Both ancient civilizations left behind pyramids, and they look very similar in style.

08:39The only hint that can help you differentiate between them is that there are way more Mayan

08:43ruins that still exist today.

08:46Finally, regarding maize, or corn as we call it, there's a story among the Maya descendants

08:52that their process of harvesting corn back then was called amazing.

08:57Got it?

08:58Maize?

08:59Corn?

09:00Okay, I made that up.

09:01You're not surprised, are you?

09:05That's it for today!

09:06So hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like and share it with your

09:10friends!

09:11Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the Bright Side!

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