O texto seguinte servirá de base para responder à questão.
(1º§) The Maya are probably the best-known of the
classical civilizations of Mesoamerica. Originating in the
Yucatán around 2600 B.C., they rose to prominence
around A.D. 250 in present-day southern Mexico,
Guatemala, northern Belize and western Honduras.
Building on the inherited inventions and ideas of earlier
civilizations such as the Olmec, the Maya developed
astronomy, calendrical systems and hieroglyphic writing.
The Maya were noted as well for elaborate and highly
decorated ceremonial architecture, including
temple-pyramids, palaces and observatories, all built
without metal tools. They were also skilled farmers,
clearing large sections of tropical rain forest and, where
groundwater was scarce, building sizeable underground
reservoirs for the storage of rainwater. The Maya were
equally skilled as weavers and potters, and cleared
routes through jungles and swamps to foster extensive
trade networks with distant peoples.
(2º§) Around 300 B.C., the Maya adopted a hierarchical
system of government with rule by nobles and kings. This
civilization developed into highly structured kingdoms
during the Classic period, A.D. 200-900. Their society
consisted of many independent states, each with a rural
farming community and large urban sites built around
ceremonial centres. It started to decline around A.D. 900
when - for reasons which are still largely a mystery - the
southern Maya abandoned their cities. When the
northern Maya were integrated into the Toltec society by
A.D. 1200, the Maya dynasty finally came to a close,
although some peripheral centres continued to thrive until
the Spanish Conquest in the early sixteenth century.
(3º§) Maya history can be characterized as cycles of rise
and fall: city-states rose in prominence and fell into
decline, only to be replaced by others. It could also be
described as one of continuity and change, guided by a
religion that remains the foundation of their culture. For
those who follow the ancient Maya traditions, the belief in
the influence of the cosmos on human lives and the
necessity of paying homage to the gods through rituals
continues to find expression in a modern hybrid
Christian-Maya faith.
https://www.historymuseum.ca/cmc/exhibitions/civil/maya/mmc01eng.html
