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HISTORY · OPEN COLLECTION

Maya worlds

The collection introduces Olmec contexts as a distinct formative window before exploring Maya histories. Connections do not erase local developments, and the history of Maya peoples continues into the present.

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Maya worlds

Before you begin · Maya

Before the Maya Kingdoms

Maya cities arose from local processes of cultivation, gathering and construction, within a very connected Mesoamerica.

  1. Before the 2nd Millennium BCE

    Cultivating and Moving

    Mobility, gathering and maize cultivation combined in different ways according to region.

  2. From ca. 1000 BCE

    Gathering at Ceibal

    The construction of ceremonial spaces accompanied a gradual process of community settlement.

  3. Late Preclassic and Classic

    Centres and Dynasties

    New forms of authority and political networks transformed centres with very different prior histories.

Read the introduction

Prehistoric origins

The lands that would later harbour Maya cities were inhabited for millennia by communities with different forms of mobility. Human and plant remains from Belize document changes in population and a growing importance of maize in the diet. Cultivation did not imply immediately abandoning hunting or gathering: each community combined resources and modified its relationship with forests, fields and wetlands.

The earliest cultures

In the Preclassic period, settlements and ceremonial spaces developed at different rates. At Ceibal, around 1000 BCE, formalised meeting places were constructed while some people still maintained mobile ways of life. Research compares these processes with those of Cuello and other areas: shared ceremonies may have contributed to gathering populations before all lived in permanent villages.

How this history is formed

Contacts with Gulf societies and other Mesoamerican regions circulated objects and ideas, including expressions we call Olmec. Throughout the Preclassic, monumental centres and forms of authority grew; subsequently, the kingdoms and dynasties of the Classic period emerged. History had crises and reorganisations, and continues in today’s Maya peoples: it does not end with the abandonment of certain cities.

From the past to the museum you are about to explore

The route distinguishes the Olmec world and the Maya to observe contacts without turning one culture into a unique ancestor of the other.

Interpreting these traces. The results of a site do not describe the entire Maya region; sedentarisation processes were diverse.

Sources for further exploration
Explore the earliest cultures

Mayas

Villages from c. 2500 BCE · centres from c. 1000 BCE · AMERICA

Access to the museum brings together the atlas and the background of the Maya. Afterwards, seven areas organise the historical context, culture, architecture, characters and society, treasures and equipment, beliefs and curiosities, and a historical door towards other museums. Each file preserves narrative layers, cautions and differentiated sources.

The room combines a specific visual catalog with an audited thematic dossier. Separates facts, interpretations and cautions; the 3D volumes continue to be replaceable markers until models with provenance and license are incorporated.

Maya lowlands of Guatemala, Belize, southern Mexico, and neighbouring areas of Mesoamerica

The museum first preserves twelve Olmec stops as a separate formative window and then continues with twelve traces of the Maya world, without erasing local developments or the continuity of contemporary Maya peoples.

A single door titled 'Maya' does not turn Olmec into a Maya phase: exchange, appropriation, and influence do not prove ethnic, linguistic, or political lineal descent.

Read the background and its sources →

EXPLORE THE COLLECTION

The museum, section by section

Follow the museum’s curated order or go straight to a section. Every record includes its full public documentation and sources.

01 · COLLECTION

Museum Access

All sections ↑

Consult the maps and initial context sheets to situate this museum in time and territory; then choose the areas that interest you most.

02 · COLLECTION

Origins and context

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The first stop reconstructs the area before the Maya; afterwards, places and processes allow entering their history without reducing it to a start date or an inevitable destiny.

03 · COLLECTION

Culture, music and words

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These stops distinguish instruments, ritual actions, orality or writing and visual culture. Where there is no theatre, score or certain meaning, the museum preserves the limit.

04 · COLLECTION

Architecture and places

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These architectures explain how materials, water, work and memory organized the territory without converting an elevation reconstruction into certainty.

05 · COLLECTION

People and their stories

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Known people, reconstructed voices and collective footprints. From oldest to most recent according to life, reign or scene. The periods may overlap; The voices without a determinable date close the journey.

06 · COLLECTION

Treasures and evidence

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Concrete pieces to understand materials, decisions and knowledge systems, with separate evidence and interpretation.

07 · COLLECTION

Beliefs and curiosities

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These cards separate what is documented from what is interpreted and recover practices, questions and details capable of changing our image of this culture.

08 · COLLECTION

Connected cultures

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Each door explains why the link exists, when it occurred, and what limits prevent contact from being converted into shared identity.

Continue exploring

books

Las cabezas que no eran retratos

Discover the connected fiction project. The available Prehistory reader is in Spanish; other volumes are not presented as finished products for sale.

Explore the books →

Play through history

Try the available Prehistory browser alpha. Campaigns for the other cultures are still in development.

Open the game (Spanish) →

Visit the real places

Use each record’s institution and heritage links to continue your research. Country-by-country historical travel guides are planned, not yet published.

Historical travel →

Objects with a story

Discover artistic designs inspired by the collections and check each product’s availability. Museum access remains free.

Explore the collection →