Mexican History

Classical Period - 300 AD to 900 AD

The second period is

referred to as the Classical Period and ranged from around

300 AD to 900 AD. It is considered to have been the golden

age of Mesoamerica, as main civilizations all flourished during

this period and reached the height of their development. Religion

was a very important element of all these peoples and determined

organization of the social structure.

The civilization with its cultural center at Teotihuacan,

which means “City of Gods” was very influential

in its time, with a fairly advanced counting, writing and

calendar systems. Later the Cholula, Zapotec and Mixtec cultures

also flourished, at times imposing on each other, at times

intermixing and living side by side. The largest of these

civilizations however was made up of the group of people known

as the Mayas; a group of Indians that lived in the territory

north of what today is Peru.

Of all Mesoamerican civilizations, the Mayans are considered

to have been the most intelligent. They reached the peak of

their development approximately during the 6th century.

These people depended mainly on agriculture for sustenance

and raised a varied range of crops, including cotton, cocoa,

maize and beans among others. Life was very much interrelated

with religion and ceremonial rites and sacrifices were necessary

to appease the gods and secure their favor. Scientifically

the Mayas excelled far beyond any of their contemporaries,

refining the techniques and discoveries that others had left

before them. This included hieroglyphic writing, astronomy

and mathematics. They were able to predict natural events

such as eclipse with great accuracy and the calendar system

they developed and used was actually more precise than the

calendar we know and use today.

These are some of the legacies left behind by these great

people, along with many ruins of temples, palaces and other

buildings and architectural wonders.

The demise of the Mayas is said to have come about due to

a combination of natural disasters such as earthquakes, famine,

epidemics, internal uprisings and foreign invasions.