"Contrasting Cultures: Aztecs and Mayas in Mesoamerica"

Can you pronounce the name of the Aztec capital city? Yes, it's quite difficult to say in English and above my pay grade. Okay, okay, it's Tenochtitlan. Mayan cities are hard to pronounce too. Consider Chichen Itza. They must be part of the same language, right? Well, not really. The Aztecs and the Mayas were among the most famous Mesoamerican peoples, present-day Central Americans, but they didn't speak the same language and they weren't even the same civilization. The two nations lived in different eras; the Aztecs dominated the region from the 14th to the 16th century, near the end of the Middle Ages in Europe. The Mayas came before the Aztecs; historians believe they started building city-states in the 3rd century. Their peak lasted until the 10th century.

Now, this doesn't mean that the Mayas and the Aztecs didn't have contact with each other, but at the time this happened, the Mayas were on a decline. So, the Aztecs traded more with their descendants than with real Maya people. The two civilizations didn't even live in the same place; the Aztecs built their cities in the north of what is today Mexico, while the Mayas lived to the south of them in the Yucatan Peninsula. Yes, that's also in Mexico nowadays, but the Mayas inhabited parts of modern-day Guatemala and Belize as well, and they spoke a number of languages. There's a whole Mayan language family they spoke, not just one language. Some of those languages have survived to today. Estimates show that there are 6 million indigenous Maya people groups spread across Central America. In Guatemala, there are 21 recognized Maya languages by the authorities; further north in Mexico, the number of official languages is 29.

For the Aztecs, the situation is much simpler. They had a single language that still has around 1.5 million native speakers, mostly in central Mexico. That's more than any other family of indigenous languages in the region. But is there a chance a speaker of Aztec languages can understand a speaker of a Maya language? Not by a long shot. The two languages are completely unrelated. In fact, they didn't even share the same writing systems. The Mayans were more advanced because they used hieroglyphs, similar to the ancient Egyptians, instead of letters that make up words. Ancient civilizations used tiny pictures to symbolize objects or concepts. When the Mayas wanted to write the word 'jaguar,' for example, they would draw a small image of the animal. In total, their writing system had more than 800 characters like this one, way too complicated compared to the modern way we write down words.

But the Aztecs were one step behind the Mayas. They used pictograms and ideograms. Simply put, these are elaborate drawings that mark an object, animal, or concept. Compared to Maya hieroglyphs, they aren't simple symbols anyone can draw but true masterpieces of visual art. Only highly skilled painters could draw them. I don't say 'write' because technically, the Aztecs didn't have a writing system. So, you could say that the Mayas were more advanced when it came to language. After all, they had the only known fully developed language in the Americas before the arrival of Europeans. But in terms of culture and economy, the two societies weren't that much different. Neither of them used work animals for agriculture and transport. The main crop for both peoples, you guessed it, was maize, what we call corn. Christopher Columbus was the first to transport corn back to the Old Continent in 1493. The Mayans also cultivated sunflower, vanilla, and cotton. The Aztecs produced chili, beans, and squashes. When it comes to meat, the Aztecs were happy to catch fish and shrimp; Mayans, penned turkey, just like we do with chicken today.

The Aztec society consisted of nobles and commoners, all led by an emperor. The Mayas mostly lived in independent city-kingdoms ruled by a king and his royal household. There were no wheeled vehicles in these civilizations; Aztec merchants traveled across Mesoamerica carrying goods on their backs, not the most comfortable mode of transportation, definitely. We shouldn't think of Aztec roads as the ones we have today; they were narrower because they saw only foot traffic. Mayans used a similar road system that also included canoes. They wouldn't travel far from the coast though; they carved out these vessels from large tree trunks. An average Mayan canoe was 50 feet long, that's the length of a modern-day yacht.

The goods these Mayans traded ranged from salt to pearls. They considered meat a luxury good, together with gold, copper, and turquoise. And can you guess the currency of Aztec merchants? Let me give you a hint: it wasn't metal and paper like it is today, but cocoa beans. They had a fixed market price which made them the ideal payment option. The situation in modern societies is not much different; around two-thirds of all countries have pegged their currency to the US dollar. For Mesoamericans, cocoa beans were their green banknotes. The Aztecs used the same exact currency, but with a twist; they had something called 'ax money.' One ax was worth 8,000 cacao seeds. I bet their exchange offices were fun places to work.

When it comes to minerals, jade was highly esteemed in both cultures. The Mayas and the Aztecs made tools and ornaments from it. These peoples believed jade brought beauty and long life to the person who wore it. Their jade mines were located in present-day Guatemala. And remember that city from the beginning that we could hardly pronounce? The founding of the Aztec capital gives insight into the belief system of the whole nation. According to legend, the Aztec deity told them to build a city in the place where an eagle sits on a cactus with a snake in its talons. They saw this happen on an island in a lake; this is where they built the city. If you want to find it on the map of Central America today, look for Mexico City. That's the site of an ancient Aztec capital; it even got its name from the ancient nation because 'Mexica' was an alternate name for the Aztecs. They constructed the city on small artificial islands; it was slightly bigger than the surface area of London Heathrow Airport.

The Mayas didn't have a capital city as we know it today; their civilization spanned across 40 cities. These settlements had a population of 5,000 to 50,000 inhabitants. Today, these sites could be classified in terms of size as small American towns, but the total number of Mayan cities is not final. Archaeologists keep discovering new ones deep in the jungle of the Yucatan Peninsula. Quite recently, researchers unearthed a new site in the southeast of Mexico; they found a number of stone columns and named the city after the Mayan word for it. Back in the day, the city was part of the central Maya lowlands; today, this region is covered with thick jungle. The Maya abandoned their settlements in this area around the 8th and 9th centuries. Historians still cannot agree on why this happened; some claim overpopulation was the main issue, others argue the trade routes collapsed, so Mayan cities couldn't flourish anymore. Whatever the case, northern Mayan cities lived on; the descendants of these peoples were there when the Europeans stumbled upon them several centuries later.

The Aztecs were also present in today's Mexico at this time, but contact with a foreign culture didn't bring them much good. There was an outbreak of smallpox that sealed the Aztec fate. This doesn't mean that this American nation left the world stage forever, though. Every time we say words like avocado, chili, guacamole, chocolate, and coyote, we are actually reviving the Aztec language. These words are present in pretty much every language on the planet. Mayan words also entered Modern English; linguists argue that the word 'shark' actually comes from a Mayan language. This is the word these ancient Mesoamerican people used for fish.

Both ancient civilizations left behind pyramids, and they look very similar in style. The only hint that can help you differentiate between them is that there are way more Mayan ruins that still exist today. Finally, regarding maize or corn as we call it, there's a story among the Maya descendants that their process of harvesting corn back then was called 'amazing.' Get it? 'Maze' corn? Okay, I made that up. You're not surprised, are you? That's it for today, so hey, if you satisfied your curiosity, then give the video a like and share it with your friends. Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the bright side."