Talks about the Mayans enliven in our present-day society because our calendar marks the year 2012, which according to the Mayan Long Count Calendar interpretation corresponds to the end of the 52 years great cycle. This calendar construal has become the source of the December 21, 2012 end of the world prophecy believed by the many doomsayers but there are no accurate pieces of evidence to support its truth. Aside from the this Mayan Calendar prediction, the Mayan Civilization has been well-known because of its massive contribution to world history, and its people, the Mayans, were dominant indigenous societies of ancient Mesoamerica who were known to establish sophisticated discoveries in agriculture, arts, hieroglyphics, astronomy, and mathematical calculations. The Mayans invented systems of calendar that were examined to be rather accurate with the understanding of our present-day calendar, so as long as the Maya calendar stays as a subject matter and the Maya ruins such as the Chichen Itza and Uxmal located in the Mexican state of Yucatan continue to welcome tourists, the Mayan Civilization will live on.

However, despite the glorious accounts of the Mayan developments, the mystery on how did the Mayan Civilization end continues to feed our people’s curiosity. How did a well-established empire collapsed? Was it due to natural tragedy? Was it due to political turmoil?

The highest level of development of the Mayan Civilization occurred between the classic period 250 and 900 AD. Unfortunately, during the 11th century, the sub-areas of the Mayan society gradually decayed, leaving behind abandoned cities. Little is known about the cause of the fall of the Mayan empire because there are no written documents, no inscriptions, and no accurate pieces of evidence that tell how the collapse began. This scenario brought only speculations that pervasive diseases and natural disasters caused the Mayans to abandon their settlements or later on die.

A number of archeologists and paleoclimatologists had conducted experiments and studies to find out circumstantial evidence that will support claims of severe drought and climate change as two of the many possible causes of the Mayan collapse. A team from the University of Florida revealed “that the ninth century had been the driest time in the region for 7,000 years,” referring to one of the Maya areas in the present-day Yucatan region.

Unfortunately, these findings are not sufficient enough to put the puzzles together. We should not disregard the social and political upheavals that are common in citystates and kingdoms during the ancient and medieval times. Thus far, the timeline and turn of events about the fall of the Mayan Civilization still remain an obscurity to humanity, which I believe will continue to interest our future generation until speculations become truth and the mystery is revealed.