Universal Encyclopedia
What was the Maya civilization?
They wrote in glyphs, tracked Venus to the day, and built stone cities in the rainforest — then abandoned them before Europe ever arrived.
Last updated: October 2026
Deep in the rainforests of Mexico and Guatemala, the Maya built a civilization of astronomer-kings: they predicted eclipses, wrote the most complex script in the Americas, and kept calendars more accurate than the one Europe used at the time. Then, at the height of their power, they walked away from their greatest cities — and no one fully knows why.