Tabasco, Mexico
Located in the Gulf coast region in southern Mexico, Tabasco has a tropical climate, fertile terrain, mountains, rivers and lagoons surrounded by lush vegetation.
Here you can visit Villahermosa, the state capital, a modern and culturally rich city with beautiful parks, such as Parque-Museo La Venta, where you'll see numerous Olmec archaeological pieces and a beautiful zoo. You can also visit Parque Tomas Garrido Canabal and the Carlos Pellicer Museum of Anthropology. This city also hosts an interesting carnival with floats, music and masked dancers, and in April it offers the Celebracion del Mes de Abril, a showcase of Tabasco's most splendid crafts.
In the surrounding areas, you can visit the town of Nacajuca, which has a crafts plaza where they sell objects made from palm leaves and embroidered goods. Also of interest is archaeological zone La Venta, an ancient Olmec capital, and Comalcalco, an ancient Mayan ceremonial center that was built with bricks, rather than stones.
In the Agua Selva nature reserve you'll find huge waterfalls, excellent cliffs for rock climbing and a cavern known as the Cueva de la Luz, an ideal spot for cave diving. At the Pantanos de Centla Biosphere Reserve, you can tour the Usumacinta and Grijalva rivers and visit the Yu-Balcah Ecotourism Center, a protected area that serves as a refuge for howler monkeys. In any of Tabasco's cities or towns you can enjoy excellent cuisine like ensalada de pejelagarto (fish salad), tortas de iguana (iguana pancakes), pan de platano (banana bread) and pozol (a drink made from ground corn and cacao). These are just some of the dishes you can try here that have Mayan- and Chontal-influenced recipes.
tabasco.gob.mx
Maya civilization | Wikipedia audio article
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Maya civilization
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- Socrates
SUMMARY
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The Maya civilization was a Mesoamerican civilization developed by the Maya peoples, and noted for its hieroglyphic script—the only known fully developed writing system of the pre-Columbian Americas—as well as for its art, architecture, mathematics, calendar, and astronomical system. The Maya civilization developed in an area that encompasses southeastern Mexico, all of Guatemala and Belize, and the western portions of Honduras and El Salvador. This region consists of the northern lowlands encompassing the Yucatán Peninsula, and the highlands of the Sierra Madre, running from the Mexican state of Chiapas, across southern Guatemala and onwards into El Salvador, and the southern lowlands of the Pacific littoral plain.
The Archaic period, prior to 2000 BC, saw the first developments in agriculture and the earliest villages. The Preclassic period (c. 2000 BC to 250 AD) saw the establishment of the first complex societies in the Maya region, and the cultivation of the staple crops of the Maya diet, including maize, beans, squashes, and chili peppers. The first Maya cities developed around 750 BC, and by 500 BC these cities possessed monumental architecture, including large temples with elaborate stucco façades. Hieroglyphic writing was being used in the Maya region by the 3rd century BC. In the Late Preclassic a number of large cities developed in the Petén Basin, and the city of Kaminaljuyu rose to prominence in the Guatemalan Highlands. Beginning around 250 AD, the Classic period is largely defined as when the Maya were raising sculpted monuments with Long Count dates. This period saw the Maya civilization develop a large number of city-states linked by a complex trade network. In the Maya Lowlands two great rivals, the cities of Tikal and Calakmul, became powerful. The Classic period also saw the intrusive intervention of the central Mexican city of Teotihuacan in Maya dynastic politics. In the 9th century, there was a widespread political collapse in the central Maya region, resulting in internecine warfare, the abandonment of cities, and a northward shift of population. The Postclassic period saw the rise of Chichen Itza in the north, and the expansion of the aggressive K'iche' kingdom in the Guatemalan Highlands. In the 16th century, the Spanish Empire colonized the Mesoamerican region, and a lengthy series of campaigns saw the fall of Nojpetén, the last Maya city, in 1697.
Classic period rule was centred on the concept of the divine king, who acted as a mediator between mortals and the supernatural realm. Kingship was patrilineal, and power would normally pass to the eldest son. A prospective king was also expected to be a successful war leader. Maya politics was dominated by a closed system of patronage, although the exact political make-up of a kingdom varied from city-state to city-state. By the Late Classic, the aristocracy had greatly increased, resulting in the corresponding reduction in the exclusive power of the divine king. The Maya civilization developed highly sophisticated artforms, and the Maya created art using both perishable and non-perishable materials, including wood, jade, obsidian, ceramics, sculpted stone monuments, stucco, and finely painted murals.
Maya cities tended to expand haphazardly, and the city centre would be occupied by ceremonial and administrative complexes, surrounded by an irregular sprawl of residential districts. Different parts of a city would often be linked by causeways. The principal architecture of the city consisted of palaces, pyramid-temples, ceremonial ballcourts, and structures aligned for astronomical observation. The Maya elite were literate, and developed a complex system of hieroglyphic writing that was the most advanced in the pre-Columbian Americas. The Maya recorded their history and ritual knowledge in screenfold books, of which only three uncontested examples remain, the rest having been dest ...