At palenque, tonina, bonampak and other cities, dynastic kings ruled absolutely, controlling trade and tribute. They presided over intricate hierarchies of nobles and officials at courts resplendent with works of art. Maya culture, shrouded in a mystery as dense as the forests in which it took root, revealed itself fitfully over three centuries. When the ruins in the jungle were first discovered, there was no way of understanding how the civilization was organized. So its really through the inscriptions that weve been able to identify kings, to find out their capitals, their seats of power. And through this, we recognize now that there were many kingdoms. There was no unified maya state. There wasnt even just a few states. There were many, many states. narrator the first inroads into understanding the maya were made by spanish missionaries in the 16th and 17th centuries who followed in the imperial wake of hernan cortes. Their discoveries included the ruins at copan. But interest in th
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