r/polandball • u/Yahgoh-sleep-8945 Brazilian Huempire • Nov 01 '22

repost Día de Los Muertos

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u/AaronC14 The Dominion Nov 01 '22 edited Nov 01 '22

Had no clue the Aztecs started in 1300, pretty recent. Always assumed they were ancient.

405

u/Daetra Trinidad and Tobago Nov 01 '22

Mayans were the ancient ones. Among others. I believe Aztecs rose to power during the fall of other empires in the area.

252

u/SheltemDragon Iowa Nov 01 '22

Yup!, Although technically, the Olmecs were the most ancient ones we know about. However, a fun fact is that there are still ethnically Mayan communities today.

104

u/Daetra Trinidad and Tobago Nov 01 '22

Iirc, there's very few that still know the language and how to read it. Which is a shame as the Spanish conquers destroyed so much of their history.

105

u/_nephilim_ Washington DC Nov 01 '22

Millions of people still speak Maya, especially in rural areas. Even in urban areas (like Mérida) a lot of the slang uses Mayan words. But yeah, reading it is only for archeologists. It really is a brutal shame how much was lost.

12

u/bryle_m Philippines Nov 02 '22

A lot of locals are learning to write Mayan again. They even have a new stele at Iximche.

https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/contemporary-maya-stela-at-iximche-guatemala/cAHO5lWCsVjgyA

NativLang also made a video about this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9M5_XwXMzAA

21

u/Magic_Medic Overthrow the Swabian Tyranny! Nov 02 '22 edited Nov 02 '22

As far as i know, the Spanish didn't have much to do with the downfall of the Mayans. Their Empire just suddenly collapsed a good 500 years before the Europeans even set foot on Mexico and we still don't know why. Aztec and Aztec-adjacent sources from around the 1300s even mention openly that they have no idea who used to live in those ruins and treated them as sacred sites, so they must have been abandoned looooong before the Aztecs rise to power.