Who Killed the Maya?
A powerful civilization ruled Central America for thousands of years, then mysteriously vanished. We've never known for sure what triggered this apocalypse. But now one man has stumbled upon dramatic new evidence. Can we finally reveal who killed the Maya? The Maya are famous for their pyramids but they're even more famous for the fact that their magnificent cities fell to ruin and that people perished in just a few generations. Maya society was on the threat and historian Nikolai Grube wants to know why.
He's helped crack the code of their ancient hieroglyphs carved in stone and preserved in just four books. His quest to push the boundaries of what we know about how these people lived and died leads to the story of a powerful woman. New biographical evidence paints a bloody picture of genocide, dark warlords, and a self-styled warrior princess known as Lady Six Sky. She was a woman formidable enough to lead armies and fight wars in a male dominated society. And she would threaten the very foundations of a world that spread from Southern Mexico through Belize, Guatemala and Honduras.
Lady Six Sky was born into this progressive jungle civilization. This was a diverse coalition of regional kingdoms, united by their bold architecture evident in hundreds of incredible limestone pyramids, temples, and palaces. The Maya thrived on art, astronomy, mathematics, and a sophisticated written language while Europe was still firmly immersed in the dark ages.
But everything they achieved was lost in just 200 years. By the 9th century AD there was virtually nothing and no one left. What went so wrong? Their seemingly strong society proved to be inherently weak. So much so that even the actions of a young woman would be the catalyst for an apocalypse. On the trail of Lady Six Sky's story, Nikolai Grube is finding tantalizing new clues.
natural factors, like drought is more likely the catalyst of the social turmoil which forced the Mayans to abandon southern regions; northern regions continue to prosper afterwards till Spanish invasion
this documentary reeks of colonialism and ingrained sexism.....the mayans were originally a peaceful, matriarchal culture and their downfall was brought about(of course other factors involved as any growing civilization but) largely by their assimilation of invading warrior patriarchal cultures....if you study the early phases of mayan culture you see that the decline coincided with their later transformation into the war/conquering phase so macho and blind to the consequences....and of course this doc wants to pin the blame on a woman....how typical.....of course, there are women war hawks like hillary clinton or margaret thatcher....but they're not really speaking for feminine values, just following the men's club....i'd like to end this post by dedicating it to the douche who said on here about an arab king saying how women can't control a country.....yeah right....because the arab men have been doing such a great f'n job of ruling their world with total peace and taking care of their people and treating their women like dogs...what a joke
This documentary is about a reveling discovery by Nikolai Grube of how this great Civilization had collapsed. To me with an interest of the collapse of the roman rule in the Balkans as the aftermath of the Justinian's rule, the parallel with the Mayans cannot be more telling of the nature of power, both dangerous and fragile
The Mayan People are still here! they didnt go anywhere...
Bulls**t! Another dumb-a** trying to make money making s**t up! (SMH)
So his theory is that one woman governed once and she destroyed the whole Maya civilization! When some men assess women's achievements, they are frankly mediocre. This is called misogyny.
totally agree....thank you
So, a woman rules then 100 years later ... ? Maya-ology is hampered by this insistence that the Mayans were war-mongers. Ever since the Spanish arrived Western academics have been trying to convince modern-day Mayans that their historic Civilisation amounts to a culture not worth hanging on to.
....An Arab king once said,...."When a woman rules a country, disaster surely follows." ...Seems he was right.
Well, thats kind of there religion.
This is all a story and not based on any real evidence
Hilary Clinton
The Mayans met the enemy and the enemy was them. Quite a lesson.
I thought all this was explained in Alejandro Jodorowsky's "The Holy Mountain"?
Is there any civilization that EVER lived in peace and harmony all this murder and stealing of land makes no sense to me. Maybe if I was born in a city of conflict I may comprehend WARS. I live in the twenty first century and we still murder & take people's land oil, & resources maybe this is how planet earth is hell & slavery! I hope when I make my transition that I never come back here again, because if I do the robots will control everything & humans will be chipped like cattle.
YES ...MOST if not ALL pre-EUROPEAN invasions.
30 seconds into this and I am quitting. Mayans didn't die off - they all live in Yucatan, Belize, Honduras, etc. to this day.
You'll be missing a decent doc. I agree the choice of words is not excellent but the doc is alright with interesting information on the Mayan wars and the decline of the Mayan civilization. And the point is made in the end of the doc that the Mayan descent is very much alive with similar language and way of life that mayans had centuries ago. They totally agree with you.
Well, its not just about their descendants today though. The fall of the Classic Maya was not the fall of the Maya at all. It was just the end of a phase of Maya culture, and the end of the highland cities. The lowland cities didn't even begin to thrive until well after the 9th century, and many of the most famous monuments associated with the Maya, like El Castillo, were not even built yet when the "decline" happened.
When the Spanish showed up, the Maya were in their Postclassic phase - the lowlands were dotted with teeming cities, and Cortes could not even manage to secure a landing, except at the uninhabited pilgrimage site on the isle of Cozumel. He sailed along the coast, attempting to land at several cities, but he was consistently attacked and didn't have the men to sustain a campaign against any of the city-states. It wasn't until he reached the lands of disaffected Aztec vassals, eager for rebellion, that he was able to make a safe landing. Even after the conquest of the Aztecs, his overland expedition into the Yucatan was a failure - further Spanish expeditions over the next two centuries were unable to make much headway either, and it really wasn't until the late 1600s that the Maya cities began to fall to Spanish attacks (the last capital, at Tayasal, didn't fall til 1696; less than 80 years before the American Revolution)
Wasn't this interesting!
I learned some new info here, about the Mayans. In addition, the scenery and visuals of the jungle cities were beautiful.
It's lucky for us that there's still some determined and curious explorers in this world like Nikolai!