Earthquakes
Climatic Changes
Epidemics
Foreign Conquest
Civil War
Intellectual and Esthetic Exhaustion
Social Decay
Governmental Disorganization
Economic Collapse
 
  Civil War  


 
 

The theory of Civil War has taken on more validity lately due to the discovery of new evidence at Mayan ruins.  The discovery of Stelas, stone templates at the sites of monuments, at both Uaxactun and Tikal give us a fairly good idea about what happened to the Maya. 

Stela 5 at Uaxactun depicts a Tikal lord, Smoking-Frog, as the aggressor in the conflict between the two city-states.  He is depicted holding an obsidian-edged club and a spear-thrower wearing a uniform that symbolizes conquest.  The only reason that a rival city would pay such respect to Smoking-Frog would be because they were defeated in the conquest.  In fact when Smoking-Frog succeeded his brother he ruled not from Tikal but from Uaxactun.  This tells us that these wars were not fought to settle disputes but instead had conquest as a goal.  Further proving that such a conquest did occur was the fact that the architecture of Uaxactun began to emulate that of Tikal.  When the archeologist Leonard A. Smith evacuated the temple behind Stela 5 he found the skeletons of what is thought to be the family of the Uaxactun leader.  The king was probably sacrificed at Tikal. 

Because of this our traditional view of the Mayan “empire” comes under some question.  There is no central Mayan government that each city-state must answer to.  Instead they view themselves as independently sovereign having little affection for the other city-states.  There was occasional trading and interaction but it does not seem to be regularity. 

The royalty of these cities were looked upon as the common peasants link to the spiritual world.  This made the peasants view them almost as gods themselves.  Having such an undying allegiance to a king drove the spike even deeper into the heart of Mayan unity.    We see an increase in the elite population in turn creating a heightened sense of competition for power which contributed towards the tension between the cities. 

So how did this warfare bring about the demise of the Mayan culture?  The answer is that the development of chronic warfare caused a breakdown in their fragile agriculture system.  Imagine you were a farmer at the city-state of Uaxactun and you are at war with Tikal.  Now, are you going to stay on your farm with no military protection?  Of course not, you will move as fast as you can into the protection of the city walls.  In the meantime your field becomes overgrown and no food can be produced.  So we see cases of extreme food shortages that cannot be compensated for causing the demise of the Mayan culture. 
 
 
 

 
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