What held together the Maya society and civilization?

Question

What in your opinion was the central, economic, religious, or social factor that held together Maya society and civilization? Was this ultimately a strength or a weakness?

Answer 1

i believe it was held together by their religious commonalities. some things that were common throughout maya society, even across all social ranks, were the positioning of the household groups. always around a central plaza. also, the dead were buried underneath the houses or at a nearby shrine. i'd say that its a strength.

Answer 2

A strong militaristic religio/political structure.  Also the fact that most of their sites were fairly geographically isolated.  If someone wanted to leave, where would they go?  To another Mayan city where they were likely to encounter the same ruling structures?

So I would say that I believe their combination of religio/political, cultural and geographic exclusivity held them together to a large extent.

Was it a strength?  I don't know.  It is certainly NOT a system I would choose to live under.  I would prefer a system where I had other options, but stayed because I WANTED to - not because I lacked other choices and pretty much HAD to.

Answer 3

It was a linguistic factor -- the Mayan language.  Only the top scribes knew how to write it down, and the rest of the clerical staff were copyists who colored in comic "codexes" that could be writtten fast with a ball point pen on paper.  Universal literacy and justice for all is still far away!

Answer 4

Same things that held a lot of other civilizations together. Common religion, strong central government, distinction from other groups of people, good natural resource sources, etc. I bet their kids did their own homework, too.