A lot of people don't realize that Maya buildings were coated with plaster and highlighted with colorful paints, so I'm glad the animation reflects this history.
We're just lucky we were able to get the vegetation growth off it. Thank God though the Europeans didn't tear anything down like this. They admired the cultures here, too bad they had a distorted view of admiring them.
Question: do people in Mexico pronounce the in Mayan/Nahuatl names as 'sh' or as the Spanish 'j' when speaking Spanish? I'm thinking for small places and topographic names, like Xolotlan
@@RcsN505 Neither, I'm not a linguist so I don't know much about, but we pronounce the X depending of the word as "JS" like in Xochitl or "KS" in Xalisco, similar as the name Xavier in Xmen franchise.
@@gillroygarlic3616 👍They left their large cities. People moved away to search for the resources they needed. Today, the descendants of the Mayas still live in Mexico and Central America. Of course, many have also moved all over the globe.
Yes pls give us a whole bunch of em. I’m a student of History and International Relations and I’m finding the historical videos here on TED-ED very helpful.
@@paillette2010 👍 it’s a common misconception that the educator/writer also does the narration. Props to the professional voice actors who bring the script to life
Como Yucateco realmente se agradece el trabajo invertido en esta pieza con contenido documentando la historia de la civilización maya con un excelente estilo artístico muy similar a la maya. Realmente sería muy excelente contar en español y maya la narración y/o subtítulos para poder presentarlo a las comunidades de la península ya que muchas veces desconocen de su propia historia por no contar con el material para verlo en maya y tambien poder preservar parte de la cultura maya que poco a poco se está perdiendo. Gracias. As Yucatenian i really thank you for the work invested on the film documenting the history of maya civilization with an excellent artistic style very similar to the mayas. It would be perfect having spanish and maya narration with subtitiles so it can be shown to communities on the Yucatan peninsula because often they dont even know their own past because they dont have a way of seeing it on maya lenguage and also could preserve part of the maya culture that little by little its fading away. Thank you.
Thank you for fcusing on Mayan history before the Spanish showed up. The Mayans have a rich history before Europeans showed up and they wrote it down. History is too Eurocentric most of the time.
@@zabrak999 Europe did do a lot but so did many nations and empires around the world. The only reason you think Europe was the only, and best one is because of the euro-centric misinformation egotistical rulers and racists have spread
wear a lot of sunscreen and be ready to walk a lot. Also you have to pay twice at the entrance. Go straight to the ticket booth don't let the local guides sell you anything. It is much cheaper buying it directly. They speak English there. Have funn.
@My_pfp_beats_all_dog_breeds. Just because the sacrificed children doesn't change the fact that they were a society we could learn from. The ancient Romans buried many Vestal Virgins alive for breaking their oath of celibacy, but it didn't change the fact that they were pioneers in the field of science and created many feats of engineering, and used many of the breakthroughs they made today. The same goes for the Ancient Indus, Chinese, Mesopotamian, Carthaginian and Egyptian Civilizations. Just because they did wrong, doesn't mean that we can't learn from them.
@My_pfp_beats_all_dog_breeds. Oh please whiner, Europeans slaughtered children too. The Aztec were highly advanced technologically, astronimically and even socially
The visuals are stunning and I love the narrator's voice. Another informative video!! I love learning about ancient civilizations. It feels surreal that long ago there were thes people who had their language which is either déad or spoken very differently then the original one, the culture and their lives.
I moved to Mexico at a young age and actually lived around here, visiting chichen itza and learning so much Mayan history! It was in the architecture everywhere, and this rally makes me feel that home like feeling. I miss Yucatán, and this brought back a whole flood of experiences and even the history we learned in my school. Really well done, thank you!
Funny coincidence: it happened to be, as this video was being released, I was in Cancun. The location of the city is only 2 Hour drive from where I am. very interesting video!
The Mayan Civilization was never an "Empire" as they did not have a single ruler who ruled over the entire Mayan culture, like the Aztecs. The Mayan civilization were a collection of independent city states each of which had their own independent rulers. This is such a well known fact about the Mayans, I am quite frankly shocked and disappointed that TED-ed, an organization that focuses on education would get this basic historical fact, wrong.
Maya Empire: deities Maya Hero Twins K'uk'ulkan (also known as Quetzalcoatl in Aztec) Rain deities (Chaac is the only Maya rain deities) Ix Chel (goddess of the moon)
Hey Ted Ed love your videos but i was wondering if you guys can make an educational video of ear infection it’s fascinating how the ear works and how it suffers thank you.
Sooo... Chichen Itza's advantage is that it have caverns to preserve water so it could withstand drought, but it's downfall was that it had a drought. And to stop the the drought people through dead bodies into the caverns. Makes sense...
Amazing video! Only caveat in my opinion: "diverse international culture" gets the point across but the term "international" may misleadingly project modern ideas of nationhood into premodern societies.
THIS IS FOR TED-ED I know it wasn't really an empire but it would be nice for you guys to do a video on the "rise and fall of the Maori empire". I would love to learn more about Maori history and how their empire fell and I always love your videos so I thought 'why not watch a video from TED-ED about it, but to my shock, there wasn't one!! thanks =)
The more pressing question is: whatever happened to Chechen Pizza?! It used to be a huge restaurant chain but now nobody can even remember it existed!...
i know this isnt the point of the video but the fact that sports were considered an important part of religious life/its importance society similar to how it is today makes me really happy- humans are all the same
All sorts of ancient cultures observed the passage of time based on the patterns of the sun, moon, stars, and planets. By doing so, they reached that conclusion.
Unnecessary trivia about me: The first time I saw the word Chichen Itza was on a classmate's T-shirt back on elementary school. I honestly thought it's a word play on chicken pizza 🍕 No offense intended peeps, just little me being silly.
No way is the 9th century the Mayan golden age. Literally the end of the civilization. The Mayans from Chichen Itza also were also sorta islander invaders. When they arrived the Mayans really hated them and tried to repel them. Also Mayans didn't have Empires. They had alliances at best but it was more based on tributary and subjugation rather than imperialism. Chichen Itza was so powerful because the rest of Mayan civilization was struggling. It's hard to compare it with Mayan cities just a couple of centuries earlier when we're seeing the heyday of Calakmul and Mutul/Tikal.
How did the mayans know there were 365 days in a year? Its got me thinking idk. Why was their unit for their year the same as a culture across the atlantic? Youd think theyd have their own time keeping units they literally have a calendar.
I always love central and south american cultures. The aztecs could of fought off the spanish if they didn't have so many. They messed them up the firts time and spain had to come back with more men Is there a video on Olmec culture.
Why does it all feel like the narration of some sort of mystical and magical place like a lost Atlantis of some sort? The narrator’s voice as well as the video score sound all too overly flourished. When will the narrative surrounding Mesoamerican civilisations change from the white folclore of mysticism to actually spotlighting the complex development of humanity in these non-European territories?
Yes it was a beautiful culture although when you have a drought its probably not the best idea to sacrifice people and throw them into your water reserves!
@nic558 It depends, really. There are two different ways to understand the American continent's geography. For what I understand, the USA's system sees it as two continents, North and South Americas. But for many countries, there is only one continent, divided in three regions: North (Canada to Mexico), Central (Belize to Panama and the Caribbean Islands) and South (Colombia to Argentina). I not super familiar with the USA's system but I think Mexico is not considered part of Central America regardless.
So sad that colonial language killed native language hope and wish latin Americans open there eyes and start reviving there culture and language like Indians did in India. They didn't learn English and forgot native language and culture. Hinduism.
NOT PROVEN. The biome in Mexican peninsula is the place where it rains the most yearly, many times per week, and has been like that for probably millions of years. Ancestral vegetation and fauna still present today had developed there for thousands of years because of it. The mystery of how the Mayans disappeared is so unknown, archeologists just decided to close the chapter. There are no signs of civil unrest, no signs of war, no signs of mass migration, a 100 year drought would have caused that. This video is not completely educational, it ends in a fabricated tale derived from the lack of human consciousness expansion to actually admit “we should, but we don’t know”.
Why do the depictions of the city show ziggurats poking out the treetops, the way we have discovered the now, centuries after their collapse. With rampant farming, heavy trade, and need of wood and stone, wouldn't they, like all civilisation, have cleared much of the land around the city of dense tree cover? Feels like this is a very superficial depiction using what we see now, rather than what must have existed to support a city (including housing!) of ~50k people...
You know whats funny though and kinda bad karma was that mexico citu had to move over because spnaish couldn't keep up with the water like the natives did.
A lot of people don't realize that Maya buildings were coated with plaster and highlighted with colorful paints, so I'm glad the animation reflects this history.
We're just lucky we were able to get the vegetation growth off it.
Thank God though the Europeans didn't tear anything down like this.
They admired the cultures here, too bad they had a distorted view of admiring them.
According to my tour guide when I visited this March, they mixed sacrificial blood in with the plaster
Much like the etruscans and Greeks
Interestingly, in Maya architecture, there's no clear distinction made between religious and non-religious buildings.
@@howru33666 That's true from most ancient cultures, I daresay.
As a Mexican I appreciate the great effort and good pronunciation of the narrator, well done!
Mayan history being slowly taken away from Mexico. When the Mecca is in current day Guatemala.
Question: do people in Mexico pronounce the in Mayan/Nahuatl names as 'sh' or as the Spanish 'j' when speaking Spanish? I'm thinking for small places and topographic names, like Xolotlan
@@RcsN505 Neither, I'm not a linguist so I don't know much about, but we pronounce the X depending of the word as "JS" like in Xochitl or "KS" in Xalisco, similar as the name Xavier in Xmen franchise.
As a human, i hate purists!
@@gillroygarlic3616 👍They left their large cities. People moved away to search for the resources they needed. Today, the descendants of the Mayas still live in Mexico and Central America. Of course, many have also moved all over the globe.
The animation, the narration, the history- everything is perfect! Please gift us more historical videos Ted-Ed!
Yes pls give us a whole bunch of em.
I’m a student of History and International Relations and I’m finding the historical videos here on TED-ED very helpful.
Please donate them
@@nikolovadimi if you are a lover of history, we could connect and share perspectives together. What do you think?
Mr. Braswell's enunciation does my people proud. Thank you.
Braswell’s words + Adrian Dannatt’s narration = absolute gold
@@jrbship Thank you!
And thank you Mr Dannatt! (should have read the credits!)
@@paillette2010 👍 it’s a common misconception that the educator/writer also does the narration. Props to the professional voice actors who bring the script to life
The fact that we get free videos on TH-cam by TED-Ed is truly a gift; keeping the education and knowledge alive. 👏👏👏
Agreed.
Como Yucateco realmente se agradece el trabajo invertido en esta pieza con contenido documentando la historia de la civilización maya con un excelente estilo artístico muy similar a la maya. Realmente sería muy excelente contar en español y maya la narración y/o subtítulos para poder presentarlo a las comunidades de la península ya que muchas veces desconocen de su propia historia por no contar con el material para verlo en maya y tambien poder preservar parte de la cultura maya que poco a poco se está perdiendo. Gracias. As Yucatenian i really thank you for the work invested on the film documenting the history of maya civilization with an excellent artistic style very similar to the mayas. It would be perfect having spanish and maya narration with subtitiles so it can be shown to communities on the Yucatan peninsula because often they dont even know their own past because they dont have a way of seeing it on maya lenguage and also could preserve part of the maya culture that little by little its fading away. Thank you.
Amigo sí tiene subtítulos en español. Entra a configuración del video
*_"You have to understand the past to understand the present"_*
-Carl Sagan
Yeah, this principle is used in every field of life.
Thank you for fcusing on Mayan history before the Spanish showed up. The Mayans have a rich history before Europeans showed up and they wrote it down. History is too Eurocentric most of the time.
Because Europeans dominated history, kiddo - cry about it 🇪🇸🇫🇷🇬🇷🇮🇹🏴✊🏻
@@zabrak999 Europe did do a lot but so did many nations and empires around the world. The only reason you think Europe was the only, and best one is because of the euro-centric misinformation egotistical rulers and racists have spread
@@zabrak999😂 calm down you never would have conquered anywhere without native peoples
@@zabrak999 I bet you thought that was such a clever retort, didn't you? How much have you gone and learnt about non-European history
@@UncleD-f9ewhat do you mean by this? Do you mean without their help or without conquering them?
Good timing. I'm going to Chichen Itza on Monday!
wear a lot of sunscreen and be ready to walk a lot. Also you have to pay twice at the entrance. Go straight to the ticket booth don't let the local guides sell you anything. It is much cheaper buying it directly. They speak English there. Have funn.
Have a nice trip
I really wish we could've learned more from ancient cultures rather than working to sweep them away just for the sake of greed and ego
@My_pfp_beats_all_dog_breeds.
Did you by lynching and burning people in a cross?
@My_pfp_beats_all_dog_breeds. Spotted the ignoramus history. The Maya were a highly advanced culture, and Europeans also butchered children
@My_pfp_beats_all_dog_breeds.what are you complaining about?
@My_pfp_beats_all_dog_breeds. Just because the sacrificed children doesn't change the fact that they were a society we could learn from. The ancient Romans buried many Vestal Virgins alive for breaking their oath of celibacy, but it didn't change the fact that they were pioneers in the field of science and created many feats of engineering, and used many of the breakthroughs they made today. The same goes for the Ancient Indus, Chinese, Mesopotamian, Carthaginian and Egyptian Civilizations.
Just because they did wrong, doesn't mean that we can't learn from them.
@My_pfp_beats_all_dog_breeds. Oh please whiner, Europeans slaughtered children too. The Aztec were highly advanced technologically, astronimically and even socially
The narration and pronunciation in this one is Chef's kiss!
Narration and visuals👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
The large cities may be gone, but I’m glad the Mayans in the Yucatán survived, and preserved their food and culture.
The visuals are stunning and I love the narrator's voice. Another informative video!! I love learning about ancient civilizations. It feels surreal that long ago there were thes people who had their language which is either déad or spoken very differently then the original one, the culture and their lives.
Their language is still spoken today. It is an endangered language. It is a Yucatecan Mayan Language.
I moved to Mexico at a young age and actually lived around here, visiting chichen itza and learning so much Mayan history! It was in the architecture everywhere, and this rally makes me feel that home like feeling. I miss Yucatán, and this brought back a whole flood of experiences and even the history we learned in my school. Really well done, thank you!
Wow It's been a while since I've seen a history video, it’s really informative! 👍
whoever summarized all the history did a great job here
The Feathered Serpent god, also known as Quetzocoatl has gotten so popular, there's a pterosaur named after him!
Yeah, biggest one.
Funny coincidence: it happened to be, as this video was being released, I was in Cancun. The location of the city is only 2 Hour drive from where I am. very interesting video!
Imagine how many people are within two hours of this location 🤔
Voiceover is top notch. ❤
My favorite Ted-Ed narrator
My favorite Ted-Ed narrator
Well the Red Court of Vampires was enacting a massive ritual curse, so Harry Dresden had to intervene. (It's a book reference.)
Still hate how those books handle non-christian gods
Ninth comment!
Also I've wanted to see this for ages. Love you Ted ED!
The Mayans were an amazing civilization
The Mayan Civilization was never an "Empire" as they did not have a single ruler who ruled over the entire Mayan culture, like the Aztecs. The Mayan civilization were a collection of independent city states each of which had their own independent rulers.
This is such a well known fact about the Mayans, I am quite frankly shocked and disappointed that TED-ed, an organization that focuses on education would get this basic historical fact, wrong.
Just took a course and this was one of the units
Maya Empire: deities
Maya Hero Twins
K'uk'ulkan (also known as Quetzalcoatl in Aztec)
Rain deities (Chaac is the only Maya rain deities)
Ix Chel (goddess of the moon)
Amazing work!
365 Stairs equivalent to 365 days. Wow!
Masterpiece 👏👏❤❤🔥🔥
Hey Ted Ed love your videos but i was wondering if you guys can make an educational video of ear infection it’s fascinating how the ear works and how it suffers thank you.
Good information
Sooo... Chichen Itza's advantage is that it have caverns to preserve water so it could withstand drought, but it's downfall was that it had a drought. And to stop the the drought people through dead bodies into the caverns. Makes sense...
More of these stories!
This is a great basis for a fantasy story.
Amazing video! Only caveat in my opinion: "diverse international culture" gets the point across but the term "international" may misleadingly project modern ideas of nationhood into premodern societies.
THIS IS FOR TED-ED
I know it wasn't really an empire but it would be nice for you guys to do a video on the "rise and fall of the Maori empire". I would love to learn more about Maori history and how their empire fell and I always love your videos so I thought 'why not watch a video from TED-ED about it, but to my shock, there wasn't one!!
thanks =)
Richard Feynman once said that the 10's of 1,000's of books of Mayan civilisation had been reduced down to a mere three. 😳
Most powerful city is a very BOLD statement.
these animations are sick ❤
How do you pronounce Chichen Itza, again?
The more pressing question is: whatever happened to Chechen Pizza?! It used to be a huge restaurant chain but now nobody can even remember it existed!...
Nice
Good video.
i know this isnt the point of the video but the fact that sports were considered an important part of religious life/its importance society similar to how it is today makes me really happy- humans are all the same
it’s really informative!
¡VIVAN LOS MAYAS! ¡VIVA MÉXICO! ¡VIVA LATINOAMÉRICA! SOMOS UN PUEBLO MILENARIO CON UNA HERMOSA HERENCIA PREHISPÁNICA
Fascinating archeological discovery
Learn from the past,
Understand the present,
Prepare for the future.
Next video on Kailasa Temple of Elora Caves
When you say it was an international city, people from which other countries were present there?
Most likely the Aztec, Inca and even Native American. Would be my first guess.
THANK YOU!
Admirable 💛💚
I heard native america history including maya was wiped away by spanish. Am i right? I dont know their history well. is there many record about them?
Always thought “Chichen Itza” was the cutest name, for some reason 😊
Will you be posting this video in your spanish channel?
Atte. Una mexicana 🇲🇽
Amazing how ancient Romans made 365 days year and so did Mayans
All sorts of ancient cultures observed the passage of time based on the patterns of the sun, moon, stars, and planets. By doing so, they reached that conclusion.
Unnecessary trivia about me: The first time I saw the word Chichen Itza was on a classmate's T-shirt back on elementary school.
I honestly thought it's a word play on chicken pizza 🍕
No offense intended peeps, just little me being silly.
The animation of the setting sun is a bit dodgy for a location on the northern hemisphere.
Always wondered what happened to the Chicken Pizza.
Please make a video on the rise and fall of “Great British empire”.
It would just be the British empire. Great Britain is the name of the island that has england wales and scotland
Yeahh ,I'm curious too
Do you have time for a miniseries? That story takes awhile
No way is the 9th century the Mayan golden age. Literally the end of the civilization. The Mayans from Chichen Itza also were also sorta islander invaders. When they arrived the Mayans really hated them and tried to repel them. Also Mayans didn't have Empires. They had alliances at best but it was more based on tributary and subjugation rather than imperialism. Chichen Itza was so powerful because the rest of Mayan civilization was struggling. It's hard to compare it with Mayan cities just a couple of centuries earlier when we're seeing the heyday of Calakmul and Mutul/Tikal.
Have I...been pronouncing 'turquoise' wrong all this while...
It’s a regional thing
I love history
I’m sorry, but when I very first read the title in the thumbnail, I thought it was going to be about some kind poultry dish 😆
Why is X pronounced as SH?
How did the mayans know there were 365 days in a year? Its got me thinking idk. Why was their unit for their year the same as a culture across the atlantic? Youd think theyd have their own time keeping units they literally have a calendar.
Now I know where Dame shot that 3 from, the more ya know
I thought Tikal was the most powerful Maya city given the resent Lidar discovery which apparently estimated the population at 100,000 🧐
I always love central and south american cultures.
The aztecs could of fought off the spanish if they didn't have so many.
They messed them up the firts time and spain had to come back with more men
Is there a video on Olmec culture.
Cocoa beans as currency? *Sign me up!* 😁
Why does it all feel like the narration of some sort of mystical and magical place like a lost Atlantis of some sort? The narrator’s voice as well as the video score sound all too overly flourished. When will the narrative surrounding Mesoamerican civilisations change from the white folclore of mysticism to actually spotlighting the complex development of humanity in these non-European territories?
your concern was gold of eldorado
Cool.
Yes it was a beautiful culture although when you have a drought its probably not the best idea to sacrifice people and throw them into your water reserves!
The only issue is the beginning.
Yucatan is part of North America, not Central America.
Central America is part of North America. “Central America” is simply a region.
😂 what a silly thing to whine about. If you look at the globe it’s literally the CENTER of the continent
Central America and the Caribbean are both geopolitically considered to be a part of North America
@@havenless3551 politically yes but geographically they are central
@nic558 It depends, really. There are two different ways to understand the American continent's geography. For what I understand, the USA's system sees it as two continents, North and South Americas. But for many countries, there is only one continent, divided in three regions: North (Canada to Mexico), Central (Belize to Panama and the Caribbean Islands) and South (Colombia to Argentina). I not super familiar with the USA's system but I think Mexico is not considered part of Central America regardless.
Please make "The rise and fall of the British Empire" video. 🇬🇧
That would be a long video. And technically still happening today
Chichen ItZAHHH
Ted Ed should tell us why the mayans and aztecs were so obsessed with human sacrifices
Religion and other stuff.
❤❤❤
Calling the Maya civilization an empire is a bit of a stretch... More of a loose confederation of city-states. Great video, though! :)
cool
So sad that colonial language killed native language hope and wish latin Americans open there eyes and start reviving there culture and language like Indians did in India. They didn't learn English and forgot native language and culture. Hinduism.
If only cacoa beans were still a form of currency.
I mean… it’s still worth a lot.
😮😢😊😮😢😊
Yeah I love chicken pizza...
Woah
For a moment there I thought it was a restaurant chain that I'd never heard of.
NOT PROVEN. The biome in Mexican peninsula is the place where it rains the most yearly, many times per week, and has been like that for probably millions of years. Ancestral vegetation and fauna still present today had developed there for thousands of years because of it. The mystery of how the Mayans disappeared is so unknown, archeologists just decided to close the chapter. There are no signs of civil unrest, no signs of war, no signs of mass migration, a 100 year drought would have caused that. This video is not completely educational, it ends in a fabricated tale derived from the lack of human consciousness expansion to actually admit “we should, but we don’t know”.
Didn't the Mayan people create city states instead of empires just like the Greeks?
yes!
eight hundred & eighty nine AD*
This guy’s voice sounds like a text to speech AI.
Why do the depictions of the city show ziggurats poking out the treetops, the way we have discovered the now, centuries after their collapse. With rampant farming, heavy trade, and need of wood and stone, wouldn't they, like all civilisation, have cleared much of the land around the city of dense tree cover? Feels like this is a very superficial depiction using what we see now, rather than what must have existed to support a city (including housing!) of ~50k people...
First!
You know whats funny though and kinda bad karma was that mexico citu had to move over because spnaish couldn't keep up with the water like the natives did.
Winner winner Chichen dinner
Skibidi YAAAAAAAA
No one is really going to talk about K'uk'ulkan? Just me? Okay
💅💸 tur-KWAZE ✈️💸💵
The mayans were cursed by God for their crimes its Intresting to see their fall
Ma'alob ts'aa t'aan
They lost there NITHRA that what happened... FACT they kept sacrificing human to regain the NITHRA..... FACT