It's very worth mentioning that the Maya, as an ethnicity, still totally exist and still live where they've always lived, the fall of their empire notwithstanding.
@@cholodesanfe87 It's also worth mentioning that the Maya didn't really perform Human sacrifice ti'l the end of there Empire and after they had contact with the Aztec's! Also the Inca didn't sacrifice either!
@@jeremykegley1669 Indeed. Also the human sacrifice was simply execution of criminals or prisoners of war... mixed with religious ceremony. Only very very rarely would children be sacrificed by sending them on mountains to starve... and this was extremely rare.
@@danielatherton1631 idk if I'd go that far. Yeah precolombian empires did some really impressive things and it's unfortunate that a eurocentric telling of history has essentially relegated them to "noble savages", but I don't think we should pretend that the Incan empire had space age technology or some shit. Incan weaving was definitely very advanced, and I'm sure there were unique aspects about it that weren't seen in europe (or in other american societies) which may have made it stronger or better at stopping arrows, but cloth armor was something that was pretty globally adopted out of both necessity and convenience. Again, I'm not trying to diminish the achievements of the Incan empire, and I'm sure that their skill as weavers could rightly be considered a very major achievement. I just don't think we should pretend that them having cloth armor (even if it was especially good cloth armor) was some sort of revolutionary development, in the global scale of things.
@Nachtjager I'm somewhat confused as to your point. Are you... trying to deny that the Incan empire did anything impressive or unique? Or trying to deny that eurocentrism has influenced academic and popular perceptions of history within the west? Because I feel like both of those facts are fairly self-evident. Obviously the Incan empire had plenty of flaws, and they were undeniably at a technological disadvantage to the Spaniards with respect to warfare. I never denied that, in fact the whole point of my comment was to try to demystify the Incan empire and present a more realistic telling of history. I don't think we should pretend that the Incans were some technologically advanced utopia, but we also shouldn't ignore their societal achievements, nor the fact that literally 90% of their population died from infectious diseases prior to the Spanish conquest. Similarly, I personally believe that the Roman empire was (by today's standards) barbaric, primitive, and deeply flawed as a society. I'm not going to try to pretend that the Romans didn't achieve some truly remarkable things, though.
It truly makes me sad as an Hispanic that so much culture was destroyed like that :( I’m still glad to know people descended from those empires still exist and even speak the native languages and it truly makes my heart leap :)
I have some mayan blood in me, my parents are from cuilco, but since its a small village just refer to it as huehuetenango, its so awesome to see all the awesome stuff the mayans built, and I know its a very contreverisial topic but I envy the incas for not being as war oriented as the aztecs or mayans, truly have respect for them.
believe me even people from Balkans are very interested in your point of view of history and want to learn more antithetic history of your people and not only the Spaniard version
The Aztecs are kind of a paradox of morality, imo. They colonized their neighbors through bloody conquest well before the Spanish arrived. It's easy to see why other tribes were quick to side with the new big bads against the Aztecs. Yet the Aztecs posed the only remotely effective military resistance, and had other tribes put their animosity aside everyone might have put up a better fight.
There are actually quite a few Mayans alive today. I knew one (he was a student of my father). interestingly enough, he actually spoke Spanish as a third language. (He spoke Mayan as a first language, and he learned English to study in the United States.)
Millions of them, many people lost their identity and don't know they are native until they take a DNA test. Reason Europeans stole indigenous children and adopted them out to non natives or put them in boarding schools to kill the Indian save the man
It would be neet to see more High Fantasy that doesn't rip off Tolkien's work. Heck, you don't even need to get out of Europe, Generic High Fantasy is heavely based on Medieval English and Nordic foklore, I would be pleased to atleast see more Fantasy based on Celtic foklore or Southern Europe.
robert hebert that's a terrible idea. We know almost nothing about life in these civilizations besides sacrifices. If a game developer(s) were to make a game like that they would have very little to run compared to the european/Asians ones.
fake account Actually, I'm pretty sure that we have more information other than sacrifices. While it's true that a lot of their writing was destroyed, it's not like none of the cool stuff and information is left. With Mayans at least (not sure for Incas and Aztecs), there still were and are people who know that stuff I'm sure.
To be fair, the Inca definitely had wheels and knew how to use them. It's just that the mountainous nature of their empire made them relatively hard to actually use for hauling stuff and the wheel was mostly relegated to children's toys and such.
@CortexNewsService there's a minor deposit in western Mexico and and a major one in the middle of south America just out of reach of the Incan empire's influence
Something very interesting about the Aztec empire that you missed was their concept of a "war season." Every year, the Aztec emperor would take an army and campaign against one of the local tribes, taking captives for ritual sacrifice. As I'm sure you can imagine, this kind of pissed off a lot of the native tribes, and was a big part of why so many were willing to ally with the Spanish and overthrow the Aztec (of course, the Spanish also promised these tribes half of all the Aztec's wealth and lands). I believe there was also a later indigenous revolt that failed despite initial military success, because the war season ended and all of their soldiers returned home to plant crops.
They packed three full civilizations in a twelve-minute video, with less than that being relevant. He complains about Euro-centrism, but he just did a video that should be renamed to "Pseudo-History of some Central & South America places about which no-one cares about".
@Adam Craig Yeah, not really much for diplomacy, those Aztecs. Or maybe they were actually genius diplomats. "Give us what we want or we'll murder your family and destroy your civilization" does tend to be a rather compelling argument. Kinda reminds me of the romans, in that regard.
@@Felipe_XIV-XVI Three of the greatest civs of the west boiled down to one vid. how spanish of the author lol. jokes aside it was a little disappointing. The video on atlantis is longer...
This is correct and plus that feudal system pissed off most of the common people of the Aztec Empire, only the nobles, the vassals, Bloodthirsty Priests and the King were benefiting.
The Aztec empire was in decline by the time of Cortez's arrival. They relied on unsustainable militaristic expansion to retain their social hierarchy, which only increased the frequency and intensity of insurrection from the conquered tributary states. The empire had stretched to its limits and was already imploding; when the Spanish showed up, the internally-revolting states centralized around them to destroy the Aztec empire for good. You can't build a stable civilization on military domination alone.
Fun Fact: There are a lot of parallels between the Inca and Roman Empires, including syncretism, diplomacy and nationwide road network building efforts.
I'm always sad that the Inca empire doesn't get as much praise as the Mayan and Aztec just because their writing system of knots is basically a dead language. Quechua has, linguistically, been changed dramatically by the Castilian (Spanish) spoken by the conquistadors. So the oral stories were lost all that much faster. When you think about it they had the largest empire (or at least almost the largest) on both American continents that used trade, agriculture, diplomacy, and multi-ethnic groups of people to serve in that empire in service to the Emperor, it's people, or their army. PS: Their army was awesome! They had some of the best terror tactics against their enemies. And your direct superior ALWAYS spoke YOUR native language. People that could speak multiple languages had higher governing power than those that couldn't. AKA: smarter people were always the heads of government, military, and trade.
Quechua is still spoken, in fact you can learn quechua at the national university of Córdoba, Argentina. And eventhough it was changed by spanish, the spanish spoken in the region is also strongly influenced by quechua.
@@Flantomas Oh I know that. My grandmother's native tongue was Quechua, her family were descendants from the indigenous Inca that lived in Bolivia. Actually a good portion of political backing in Peru has reignited teaching Quechua as a second language. Considering that a large number of rural South Americans (Inca regions, like Peru, Bolivia, Chile, etc) speak Quechua; it is good to see political backing to keep old cultural languages alive. Especially since Quechua was seen in a "second class citizen" light, or at least that's how my Mother's family (all indigenous to South America) explained it to me when asked why Grandmother never taught Quechua to her children.
Quechua is an ethnic group tho, the Incas were the dinasty of said ethnic group, but that doesn’t mean they were the same. Besides you seem to romanticize quite some things, according to Chachapoyas the Incas just gave positions due to affinity, which pissed off many of the nobility of the conquered kingdoms.
It should also be mentioned, that the people that formed these civilizations are still around. Nahua, Maya and Quechua people still live in Central and South America and number in the millions (these three alone combined at least 20 million and there are many more like Zapotec or Aymara). They're not "gone" like Hittites or Gauls or whatever.
Wolfsgeist the people that formed those civs are dead, but their descendants are still around, like the descendants of the hittites and gauls (though they are not called that anymore).
Pretty much. Almost all of my family still speaks the local Western Tlacolula dialect of Zapoteco. I think almost all of the residents of the city of Tlacolula are descendants of the original inhabitants of Yagul, which is now an archaeological site. Same with San Pablo Mitla and places like Santa Maria Atzompa and Villa de Zaachila in the Zaachila-Zimatlan Valley. Everyone of us is Zapotec, but there is a sizable population of Mixtecs from the (really fucked up) Mixteca Region.
feels nice having u guys explain part of my history (girl from Peru and Venezuela here so I love learning about the incas) I really want Red to talk about the inca myths, I think she might enjoy some since she seems to enjoy the aztec ones.
As a historian i think you did a decent job of an abridged description of each empire, as a Mayan myself i think there should have been more details that distinguish these empires since many think of them as sisters when it is more comparable to think of Maya as Greeks, Aztecs as Roman, and Inca as well tbh i dont think they have an old world equivalent. but thank you and i hope you go into pre-Columbian history more on this channel.
Thank you! The goal for this minimum was, at an absolute bare minimum, to distinguish them from each other for people who (like me a month ago) couldn't describe the differences. Without making this into a giant 3 part series with 20-minute videos apiece (*cough cough* Abrahamic religions), this was the best I could do. It's very much just a *start*.
Of course, I just appreciate the fact that you decided to talk about this subject at all, I know this is a bit outside your comfort zone, I also hope you had fun researching this subject and this inspires you to do more videos on Latin American people, Indigenous or otherwise. Anyways keep up the good work I love everything you and red doing so far.
I will be honest, the Incas were more of Romans, roads, empire, vasal system, eficient, disciplined army. The azteks and maysn would be more of like similar hellenic states, kind of like the seleucids and the macedonians.
I'm so excited you did a video on Mesoamerica! The Mayas and Incans have some of the most interesting history in my opinion; I was horribly upset when our school cut the unit in favor of one on the foundings of Judaeo-Christian religeons. I do have a few facts you might like.1) the Incans did have wheels, but the mountains were so steep that they found them more trouble than they were worth.2) a lot of Mayan writing was initially decyphered by one teenage boy who was at the sites a lot because his father was an archeologist.3) the Aztecs had books, but the Spanish banned them as devil worship and actively destroyed them and anyone who tried to preserve them. They also had libraries.4) the Mayan calendar was actually more acurate than any contemporary European one. They highly valued math and science and in some cases put contemporary Old World math to shame.5) cocoa was a valuable commodity and in Aztec culture reserved only for nobility. Traditional hot chocolate was unsweetened and mixed with peppers, and since cocoa beans were used as currency on occasion it was literally eating money. In Mayan culture cocoa was considered sacred and they even had a cocoa god.The cocoa stuff might be a little shaky because it's been a while, but I'm sure about everything else.
i mean, kind of, but not really. i'm not totally sure about this, since i learned this at school a few years ago and haven't checked it since, but the incas were known for being a good empire. no mass murdering or anything- just taking hold of the territories in the most effective way possible, talk or fight. they even let people still worship their gods and keep their authorities, as long as they were loyal to the inca, paid tribute to the empire (in food and labour) and worshipped the sun god, Inti. as far as i know, they never were overtly violent. really, their fall happened because of outside threats, illnesses and the spanish, otherwise, they would have kept on going strong (maybe, if they toned down the incest). they were always my favorite of these big three.
@@9990zara Actually Inca Diplomacy worked this way...if you were to be conquered, you would be invited to join the confederacy and as ruler, you would become a nobleman and your people would have all the benefits of being part of the empire as subjects. If not, military forced would be used to subdue you and then you and the entire surviving population would be relocated to a different part of the empire.
@@nathanj1474 nope, the Aztec and Mayans as well. The only animals that could be "tamed" in meso and South America are alpacas. Horses weren't avilable until the Old World brought them. They all did almost everything by hand
@@saber2802 Interestingly, from paleontology there were supposed to be prehistoric horses (or related animals) in the Americas but they eventually went extinct. Later modern horses were brought over with Europeans. The stories you have may come from very far back ancestors which is really interesting!
@@josue-he5kh yeah i know, i meant the united states. Its just that a lot of people just call them america and at the time i thought it was easier...looking nack now i thunk i could just jave said the US instead of america...oh well
I possibly could say: Aztecs Sparta (Perfectly disciplined warriors) Mayas Athens (Great advances in science and mathematics) Incas Rome (Advanced political organization) Do you have a better comparation? I would like you to tell me it.
I’ve heard the Maya compared to Classical Greece (a collection of independent city-states with a largely shared culture but fierce political/military rivalries) and the Aztecs to Rome (a conquering empire with a huge capital city, advanced feats of engineering, and extreme wealth). In theory I suppose the Inca could be compared to Rome as well.
Mesheeka is where the word Chicano derives from, it's important to get it right. When you're talking about post colonial Mexico, then it's appropriate to use the English or Spanish pronunciation, but not in this case.
There is a lot of myth/history records. The most well known is the Trojan War which probably did happen but probably not in the way that it was mention in the Iliad. Since they've already covered that thoroughly I would say the Chinese Romance of the Three Kingdoms tale would be cool.
I asked my mother in law her family history and she said Azteca. I asked her more about it and she said, I have to be an Aztec because we are all from Guadalajara. It is strange how people from Mexico really do not give their ancient roots much thought.
"[The Olmecs] are still decently mysterious" we don't even know the name they gave themselves, the word Olmec means people of the land of rubber, but was given by the Náhuatl people that inhabited the lands later on.
Actually the road to el Dorado is probably Mayan. but it's said the Dorado is in South America rainforest, and the Incas controlled a part of the amazones , so I guess the Dorado would be Incas , but because of the ball games and sacrifices it's a reference to Aztecs, idk it's quite a mess...
Deshone Robinson, c'mom, no they won't! All these natives that met with the Europeans were from the same ethnicity as the Inuit people in Alaska & northern Canada.
@Deshone Robinson Nope, they were Native Americans and had slight differences in complection even then. Currently those called Hispanic/Latinos are mostly mestizo or mulato, aka so damn mixed we can't even tell.
I’ve been to Machu Picchu and some of the Inca sites in Peru and they are huge!!! Seriously Machu Picchu is huge and super cool to walk around. I was in awe. Also their stone walls are super cool and super well built. Also if you go to Peru I’d reccomend to try alpaca
@@leyslawAlpacas are pretty expendable here in Peru along with the llamas. Beautiful animals but also very good source of nutrients. The vicuña is our precious animal, which id you touch you either get a huge fine or kicked out of the country.
Akane Tsunemori the video doesn't just talk about mexico though, a big part of mayan lands were in central america and in modern day cultural central america
Yandere-Kun in your closet this video IS talking about mexico, 3 civilizations named here were in mexico and those were the -aztects -olmecs and mayans didn’t you hear the “Yucatán peninsula” throughout the whole video and you know where the Yucatan peninsula is? It’s in mexico
hmmm nope there are ruins all over Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador so it all comes from parts of Mexico AND parts of Central America, in other words you all people are wrong
As a Mexican, I congratulate you and thank you for such a professional high quality video on this subject that is often neglected. I just have one suggestion: it's been proved that the famous Aztec headdress exhibited at the Weltmuseum of Vienna was not owned by Motecuhzoma (which is a popular misconception). Rather, Aztec rulers used to wear the xiuhuitzolli, a turquoise mosaic diadem (which would look much more elegant than a feather headresss, in my opinion) as a symbol of their imperial power, while the feather headdress was reserved for battles and war.
In francee we had an absolutely amazing animated serie called "the mysterious cities of gold" where you follow three kids and three spanish men crossing inca and maya countries to find the cities of gold and it s a real wonder of adventure, epicness, accurate cultural depiction of the incas and mayas and even sci fi
I'm gonna be honest... every time I hear about the destruction of these old civilizations, it just makes me angry, and sad, knowing what could've been.
@@keithbrannon251 How do you mean that? The Inca did not have a human sacrifice culture. They fought wars of course, but that can be said about every human civilization
I am very dissatisfied with the lack of references to The Emperor's New Groove and Road to El Dorado. Eh, I guess that would be more under Red's jurisdiction.
2:56 actually there were many native and mestizo chroniclers that documented many of the beliefs, traditions and way of life of their people, at least in the case of the incas. The only problem is that most of these chronics were not translated to other languages, being many of them just available in spanish or quechua.
@@savyskunk6683 los comentarios reales de Los Incas by garcilaso is widely regarded as one of the best accounts of the empire, as the author had ties both to Spanish nobility and the incan empire (and there are English translations available). But, really, if you did a few seconds of googling you'd probably realize that this massive empire that existed for generations does indeed have a lot written about it in the native languages of the people who experienced it.
The creator of this video does not know about the Incas, or Peru, or Mestizaje, or the civil war of Huascar and Atahualpa. In fact, since it summarizes the whole story that the Spanish were bad and decultured, I lost any seriousness to this video.
Moarice Incas were from south but as someone from there too, the visible diference between them is almost un-existant. It really doesnt matter where are them from they are too similar to care
They may be part of the same broad ethnic group, but their cultures were hugely different, and that difference is important. The Maya and Aztec were similar to each other, but the only things the Inca had in common with the others were large cities and being in the Americas.
Crazael wich was enouth for everyone that didnt know them well to put them in the same group. The only notable diference is that they didnt fight cuz they didnt have rivals and stuff
Ok, if it isn't clear already, that emporer's was "Cuzco". . . . So they is that ..... And that fact that llamas aren't found outside of mountains South America.....so yeah
Ok so Cuzco is a city in Peru and there was a Emperor name Cuzco but they didn't name the city based out of him. The name has a meaning to it and it's also called the puma city. Which is Cusco no Z but supposed to be spelled with a S. The meaning of the name is 'dried up lake bed' I'm a Peruvian and I've recently went to Peru and got to go to the Sacred Valleys and the well known Inca Empire which was Machu Pichu so you learn new stuff their if you go there someday :)
0:01- Introduction. 0:22- The three great civilizations: Aztec, Maya and Inca. 0:28- What’s the difference between them? 0:40- Human sacrifice and smallpox 0:46- The societies (Before the Spanish conquest). 0:53- The Mayans in the Yucatan Peninsula (Before the Spanish conquest) 1:03- Where is the Aztec empire? 1:14- Where is the Inca empire? 1:31- Archeology in these civilizations 1:37- Pictographic writing (Mayan and Aztec) 2:18- Why were these scriptures burned? 2:45- Inca writing method (“The khipu”) 2:56- The stories of these civilizations (After the Spanish conquest) 3:38- Olmec Civilization 3:50- Olmec art 4:08- The pyramid of the sun 4:40- Yucatan peninsula 5:03- How was the Mayan agriculture? 5:20- Cenotes. 5:45- The Mayan death beliefs. 6:11- Why were they pulling towards the north of Yucatan? 6:51- The history of the Aztecs of the northwest. 7:15- The Aztec empire expands and conquers its neighbors. 7:58- The mayan game: Polka. 8:15- Spain arrives in America and the Azteca rebellion. 8:46- The Spanish debate. 9:28- The Inca empire. 9:45- The Inca government. 9:57- The construction of the Inca cities. 10:36- What the Incas discovered. 10:45- What the Spanish people brought and took away. 11:07- Conclusion and fired.
I knew more about a historical empire than Blue? Eew, this feeling is weird! They taught us about the American Empires all the time in my history classes in Florida. Particularly these big three. Of course, after the tests most of us remembered the Aztec, Mayan, and Incan Empires as "The Bloody one on a lake", "The Mysterious disappearing Yavin IV Guys", and "The ones that liked mountains and roads but not wheels" respectively.
@@eeeecccc I would guess it's following requirements: 1. Rulership over several nominal kingdoms. 2. Self-proclamation of imperium. (couldnt word it better)
Third. I've never clicked on a notification this quickly. Blue, if your still online, you and Red are awesome! You helped me in history class, so, thanks.
Blue, I love your videos! I enjoy all of your history videos (especially the one with Shadiversity and the one about Africa) and how nuanced your explanations are. you introduced me to new and fascinating subjects like the Samurai and the Rise of Islam. This one is particularly interesting to me since this is *very* close to home (Mexico). Now, I think a little bit of clarification is necessary: 1) 1:45 that's the Sun Stone (here we call it Piedra del Sol), is Aztec, not Maya. This is a frequent mistake. 2) at, 11:17 that wasn't Meso-America. The Olmecs, the Maya and the Aztecs *are*, but the Inca are a different cultural area (I think it's callen Andean, because of the Andes, but I'm not sure. The point is, the Inca are a different group). Mesoamerica covers about the southern half of Mexico, all of Guatemala, Belice and El Salvador, and the western parts of Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Oh, and it's me-SHEE-ka :)
Thank you for your clarifications! No matter how much research I do, I'll never get *everything* right, so I appreciate your comment! (Right you are about Andean vs Mesoamerican. I wish I had a better term to use in the video itself. "American" sends the wrong message, and "Mesoamerican" is too narrow. There isn't really a proper umbrella term for it.) -B
Also the Norte Chico (or Caral) civilization is considered the oldest in the Americas (located not far from Lima, Peru). Furthermore the Inca are somewhat of a successor state to the Wari and to a lesser extent the Tiwanaku. (These started the road networks, terraces, the religion, etc).
Mog of War saying that the Sun Stone is Mayan just because it came from the Maya (arguably, since there’s a chance it came from the Olmecs) is like saying that Christians are Jews because Christianity is an offshoot of Judaism. So, no it is is own thing.
Its good your learning more about your culture most Mexicans just like to say they are Mayan but know nothing about them but hey they get tattoos of the Inca calendar...
No man, but he already had to make it short, if he mentions toltecs, the he had to mention tlaxcaltecas and if he mentions tlaxcaltecas cas then zapotecas and so on and on, it was a decent job
Fun Fact! The Emperor's New Groove takes place in an alternate universe where The Incan Empire were never conquered by The Spanish, and instead survived through the modern ages, and not just a parody of the modern setting like in The Flintstones.
yeah, their human sacrifice was a lot more brutal than most people want to believe because the idea of an innocent civilization being destroyed by a foreign invader is a lot more emotionally evoking story than a super murdery and universally hated civilization finally getting what it deserves
Great choice of music, made me feel building the civilization and explore, I was totally digging it. Now, I think every historical video like this should add this music, it would make it so much interesting.
Spanish stoking rebellions isn't quite accurate. Many tribes already hated the aztecs because they were constantly under threat by them so Cortes found natural and willing allies with them.
Sir Aroun That's called alliances. Or if you're fond of Sun Tzu "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." Stoking rebellions would involve spreading propaganda or encouraging riots among a mostly complacent/obedient population to destabilize the government.
It is a shame both the young empires didn't have enough time from the Spanish. I would have loved to see them battle it out over time and expansion. My money was firmly on the Inca :) They were great diplomats and Aztec was rife with unloyal city states. And on top of the fact they were big enough to take and give anyway militarily.
@fish4man61 The problem is smallpox and other infectious disease would have devastated any new world empire. How can you successfully fight back against the Spanish when half your citizens are dropping dead and everyone thinks it's because you've angered the gods or some other nonsense.
Something really awesome about the Pyramid of the Moon at Teotihuacan is that they built it with amazing acoustics in mind. The Aztec used the first platform for announcements and religious purposes and when someone is standing on it you can be way at the opposite end of the plaza in front and still hear them as if you are standing side by side. It's essentially a built-in megaphone. Really cool to experience by the way.
Forget about that: he blatantly ignored the existence of all Central America. I think, with these documentaries about America, we should really forget about the idea of seeing a documentary about non-popular Mesoamerican civilizations at all.
Los mayas tenía un reino muy extenso, constaba de más de 60 pequeños reinos, la mayoría de sus ciudades más importantes están en Mexico Palenque, Bonampaq, Uxmal, also their main temple Chichén Itzá y Tikal me parece en Guatemala, pero estoy de acuerdo que hace un mal trabajo en omitir varios países importantes donde también se desarrolló la cultura
Georges Rojas dirás que los más importantes de los maya estaban en lo que es Mexico hoy en día? Aparte de Tikal, copan, punta de chamino, tres islas, el peru, aguateca, la Amelia, Naranjo, cancuen, caracol, uaxactun, cival, Chetumal, flores, dos pilas, nakbe, mixco, motul de San José, piedras negras, y tantos más que ni puedo recordarme de ellos en este momento.
I wish you went more into the Incan history, there was one Incan runner who learned Spanish and literally sprinted around the empire writing down as many things as he could before the people who knew them died. A ton of what we know about Incan culture and history comes from this person. Imagine just being a guys surviving through a plague with a 40+ percent mortality rate, a genocide, and forced labor jsut to run thousands of thousands of miles and feverishly trying to save your culture. That dedication.
This! I still play it sometimes (I still have the CD-ROM lol) and omg the music is sooo distracting in this video because that's all I can think about, Age of Mythology, omfg!
Im Peruvian (mestiza). People speak as though the inca where one unit. But its not that simple(think rome) My ancestors are Quechua. Actually Inca was our word for king/royal. The people of Cuzco and surrounding areas that conquered the rest of the Andes where the Quechua. Its also the primary language. This vid is more informative than most textbooks but I’d wish theyd given each civilization its own vid, not mesh them together like amerian history class. But i digress. AMA.
Im so happy there’s videos like this, this one I think is extremely helpful for people who don’t have long attention spans but summarizes a lot of the history that you can’t still understand it and remember!
I love you this channel so much. I really hope you get around to doing some Caribbean countries and stuff. I never hear anything about them from before colonization. It would be awesome. 😃😃😃
Bro, great job. I’ve only recently become super interested in Mesoamerica, but I have been consuming a whole lot of information on this topic lately. I think this is the best video I have seen on the topic so far. I could have saved myself several hours if I found this earlier.
As an engineer, the mention of Mayan fresh water sources all being down sink holes just blows my mind! The amount of effort to just survive with that challenge is incredible, and yet, they built huge cities... Maybe the tax rate was a little steep, but I'm sure glad it meant we can look back at it now to learn and wonder.
I had to do a social studies project where we picked a group of people and had to learn about them. I picked the inca and it went decently; but I like your way of telling them Blue.
This is nice, I’m currently in Belize for a school trip and we checked out Lamanai yesterday and tomorrow we go to Xunantunich. Today we we to the xibalba cave. It’s good to get a brush up when our tour guides have a lot but I answer most of my own questions.
Alexander Hamilton Alexander Hamilton Got yourself a problem, he can Alexander handle it Lost 150 pounds Alexander damn he thin Never lost a single fight Alexander champion Has a love for weird guitars Alexander mandolin Wishin he could go to sleep Alexander Ambien Lives in a department store Alexander mannequin Breath is smellin kinda whack Alexander hand ya mints Sees something he doesn't like? He Alexander banning it Loves The Office way too much Alexander Pam and Jim _Alexander Hamilton_ _Alexander Hamilton_ Recently became a saint Alexander hasn't sinned Favorite Sith lord in the world Alexander Anakin Has a very lovely smile Alexander handsome grin Transitioned to a woman, now he Alexander man again Knows 2 songs by Eminem Alexander Stan and Kim Totally skipped lunch, I want an Alexander sandwich What you want on your footlong? Alexander ham and swiss Yo he'd make a good president Alexander candidate Really needs some liquor now Alexander hand me gin Doesn't get enough sunlight Alexander tanning bed This costume cost a jillion dollars Alexander damn he rich Used to watch the old school Jack Alexander Handypen Elton John's his favorite artist Alexander Candle Wind I used way too much time to type all of that while listening to the song.
Mesoamerican civilization took forever to take off, but it's truly insane how well they persevered despite the harsh conditions and cultural upheaval. Despite the population being decimated and the empire falling, the peoples still survived and are around to this day and I'm proud to be part of the indigenous American people
I'm starting to see a pattern where civilizations who unexpectedly come across large hordes of gold (Aztec, Spain, Zimbabwe) are doomed to non-relevance within 100 years of the discovery. It throws the balance of the economy into wicked turmoil, causes a huge vacuum between rich and poor which incites popular revolts, and then when the other powerful nations find out then you become a massive target for invasion by everybody else. So this leads to a question of "why is gold good?" as in why bother putting effort into amassing gold instead of covering up the discovery or throwing it into the ocean?
It's funny bc Incas didn't actually care much about gold, it mostly for ceremonial use and it wasn't largely mined. But then come the spaniards and well... the rest is history :)
Japan would be an exception. But as soon as they saw what the foreigners were doing, they shut off their country. Then again Japan has a geographical privilege these other civilizations did not which made their country easier to protect.
@Stefan Dubois see what you mean. if you thought i was danish becuse of my name im not, im Norwegian. The fall of Meso America was sad but we can not change what has already happend. We can only learn from it.
Eh! We didn't became Geopoliticaly irrelevance in a century, we became Geopoliticaly irrelevance in **two** centuries (althouth our downfall started a century after the conquest). And, on the karma thing. I'm not saying that our downfall wasn't karmatic (we did some fucked up things in the Americas), but you can argue that the fall of the Aztec Empire was as karmatic as the fall of the Spanish Empire, as the Mexicas were quite big fans of mass sacrifices (compared to the Mayans, who's human sacrifices were quite tame.) of their conquered subjects and enemies.
I remember watching about this kinda civilization in the movie Apocalypto. The ending was so sad when the survivors saw some Spanish ship (Colombus'?) approaching. Their real misery was about to begin.
LONG LIVE FOR CUSCO AND MY ANCESTORS THE INCAS. THEY DID HAD WRITING, WHEELS, SOPHISTICATED, ARCHITECTURE, VAST AGRICULTURE, INCLUSIVE SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT AND LOVE FOR NATURE...
*Spain:* We're not irrelevant! We still have the Straight of Gibraltar, so we still have a massive say in trade in and out of the Mediterranean. *Britain:* YOINK!
big shout out to the choice of music as you yeeted my brain back to days of playing age of mythology my entire childhood due to my obsession with ancient history, myths and the like- worked wonders for my adhd brain to get hella invested in the topic more than I already was xD
It's very worth mentioning that the Maya, as an ethnicity, still totally exist and still live where they've always lived, the fall of their empire notwithstanding.
same with all those civilizations, literally a quarter of all peruvians speak quechua.
Came on here to say the same thing.
As well as the Mexica”aztec “ we just call it mexico
@@cholodesanfe87 It's also worth mentioning that the Maya didn't really perform Human sacrifice ti'l the end of there Empire and after they had contact with the Aztec's! Also the Inca didn't sacrifice either!
@@jeremykegley1669 Indeed. Also the human sacrifice was simply execution of criminals or prisoners of war... mixed with religious ceremony. Only very very rarely would children be sacrificed by sending them on mountains to starve... and this was extremely rare.
The Inca fiber weaving was soo elaborate that they also had protective wearing that protected from arrows as well...pretty cool!!
So they basically invented Kevlar? Amazing!
@@danielatherton1631 idk if I'd go that far. Yeah precolombian empires did some really impressive things and it's unfortunate that a eurocentric telling of history has essentially relegated them to "noble savages", but I don't think we should pretend that the Incan empire had space age technology or some shit.
Incan weaving was definitely very advanced, and I'm sure there were unique aspects about it that weren't seen in europe (or in other american societies) which may have made it stronger or better at stopping arrows, but cloth armor was something that was pretty globally adopted out of both necessity and convenience.
Again, I'm not trying to diminish the achievements of the Incan empire, and I'm sure that their skill as weavers could rightly be considered a very major achievement. I just don't think we should pretend that them having cloth armor (even if it was especially good cloth armor) was some sort of revolutionary development, in the global scale of things.
It seems like a lighter form of chainmail at least.
@Nachtjager I'm somewhat confused as to your point. Are you... trying to deny that the Incan empire did anything impressive or unique? Or trying to deny that eurocentrism has influenced academic and popular perceptions of history within the west? Because I feel like both of those facts are fairly self-evident.
Obviously the Incan empire had plenty of flaws, and they were undeniably at a technological disadvantage to the Spaniards with respect to warfare. I never denied that, in fact the whole point of my comment was to try to demystify the Incan empire and present a more realistic telling of history. I don't think we should pretend that the Incans were some technologically advanced utopia, but we also shouldn't ignore their societal achievements, nor the fact that literally 90% of their population died from infectious diseases prior to the Spanish conquest.
Similarly, I personally believe that the Roman empire was (by today's standards) barbaric, primitive, and deeply flawed as a society. I'm not going to try to pretend that the Romans didn't achieve some truly remarkable things, though.
Just not bullets obviously
It truly makes me sad as an Hispanic that so much culture was destroyed like that :( I’m still glad to know people descended from those empires still exist and even speak the native languages and it truly makes my heart leap :)
I feel the same and i thought I was alone on that.
I have some mayan blood in me, my parents are from cuilco, but since its a small village just refer to it as huehuetenango, its so awesome to see all the awesome stuff the mayans built, and I know its a very contreverisial topic but I envy the incas for not being as war oriented as the aztecs or mayans, truly have respect for them.
believe me even people from Balkans are very interested in your point of view of history and want to learn more antithetic history of your people and not only the Spaniard version
What country?
The Aztecs are kind of a paradox of morality, imo. They colonized their neighbors through bloody conquest well before the Spanish arrived. It's easy to see why other tribes were quick to side with the new big bads against the Aztecs. Yet the Aztecs posed the only remotely effective military resistance, and had other tribes put their animosity aside everyone might have put up a better fight.
There are actually quite a few Mayans alive today. I knew one (he was a student of my father). interestingly enough, he actually spoke Spanish as a third language. (He spoke Mayan as a first language, and he learned English to study in the United States.)
Thats fascinating lol
Yea they're called guatemalans now
And Mexicans
Likewise, the Aztecs are still alive today, though in small numbers, in parts of Central America.
Millions of them, many people lost their identity and don't know they are native until they take a DNA test. Reason Europeans stole indigenous children and adopted them out to non natives or put them in boarding schools to kill the Indian save the man
Man I wish there was more fantasy set in Meso-American type worlds, I'm getting a little sick of constant Middle-Age Europe settings
robert hebert I actually never thought about this until now. Yeah, that would be interesting!
It would be neet to see more High Fantasy that doesn't rip off Tolkien's work.
Heck, you don't even need to get out of Europe, Generic High Fantasy is heavely based on Medieval English and Nordic foklore, I would be pleased to atleast see more Fantasy based on Celtic foklore or Southern Europe.
robert hebert that's a terrible idea. We know almost nothing about life in these civilizations besides sacrifices. If a game developer(s) were to make a game like that they would have very little to run compared to the european/Asians ones.
Malik h. Again bad idea. We barely know anything about life there apart from what we savaged. Please think these through for one second.
fake account Actually, I'm pretty sure that we have more information other than sacrifices. While it's true that a lot of their writing was destroyed, it's not like none of the cool stuff and information is left. With Mayans at least (not sure for Incas and Aztecs), there still were and are people who know that stuff I'm sure.
To be fair, the Inca definitely had wheels and knew how to use them. It's just that the mountainous nature of their empire made them relatively hard to actually use for hauling stuff and the wheel was mostly relegated to children's toys and such.
Also to add onto that, all of the new world cultures werent stone age, they were maybe early bronze age.
@CanofSouls or would've been if they had actually found the material needed to make bronze
I think they also didn't have beasts of burden that could've pulled anything heavy on wheels or at least any tha could be domesticated
@@dinosaurusrex1482are there any tin deposits in the Americas? That's one of the ingredients of bronze, isn't it?
@CortexNewsService there's a minor deposit in western Mexico and and a major one in the middle of south America just out of reach of the Incan empire's influence
Something very interesting about the Aztec empire that you missed was their concept of a "war season." Every year, the Aztec emperor would take an army and campaign against one of the local tribes, taking captives for ritual sacrifice. As I'm sure you can imagine, this kind of pissed off a lot of the native tribes, and was a big part of why so many were willing to ally with the Spanish and overthrow the Aztec (of course, the Spanish also promised these tribes half of all the Aztec's wealth and lands). I believe there was also a later indigenous revolt that failed despite initial military success, because the war season ended and all of their soldiers returned home to plant crops.
They packed three full civilizations in a twelve-minute video, with less than that being relevant. He complains about Euro-centrism, but he just did a video that should be renamed to "Pseudo-History of some Central & South America places about which no-one cares about".
@Adam Craig Yeah, not really much for diplomacy, those Aztecs. Or maybe they were actually genius diplomats. "Give us what we want or we'll murder your family and destroy your civilization" does tend to be a rather compelling argument. Kinda reminds me of the romans, in that regard.
@@Felipe_XIV-XVI Three of the greatest civs of the west boiled down to one vid. how spanish of the author lol. jokes aside it was a little disappointing. The video on atlantis is longer...
This is correct and plus that feudal system pissed off most of the common people of the Aztec Empire, only the nobles, the vassals, Bloodthirsty Priests and the King were benefiting.
The Aztec empire was in decline by the time of Cortez's arrival. They relied on unsustainable militaristic expansion to retain their social hierarchy, which only increased the frequency and intensity of insurrection from the conquered tributary states. The empire had stretched to its limits and was already imploding; when the Spanish showed up, the internally-revolting states centralized around them to destroy the Aztec empire for good.
You can't build a stable civilization on military domination alone.
9:29 "The Inca Empire began with the once small kingdom of Cusco..."
BOOM BABY!!!
Yeah, when he dropped the name, insta "emperors new groove" flashbacks.
Lmao used to love that show
I just watched emperors new groove i just love that movie
Samuel Appiah show?
+CHROME BONES
Emperor's New Groove had a show, "The Emperor's New School".
It was fun.
Fun Fact: There are a lot of parallels between the Inca and Roman Empires, including syncretism, diplomacy and nationwide road network building efforts.
Also the fact they both comprised of human beings!
Absolutely! In fact, when the Spanish arrived, some of them made that exact comparison themselves.
Yes, exactly. Such a shame.
"All roads lead to Qusqu!"
Also, barbarians helped cause the downfall of their empire!
@@lyly_lei_lei *Cusco but ye
I'm always sad that the Inca empire doesn't get as much praise as the Mayan and Aztec just because their writing system of knots is basically a dead language. Quechua has, linguistically, been changed dramatically by the Castilian (Spanish) spoken by the conquistadors. So the oral stories were lost all that much faster.
When you think about it they had the largest empire (or at least almost the largest) on both American continents that used trade, agriculture, diplomacy, and multi-ethnic groups of people to serve in that empire in service to the Emperor, it's people, or their army.
PS: Their army was awesome! They had some of the best terror tactics against their enemies. And your direct superior ALWAYS spoke YOUR native language. People that could speak multiple languages had higher governing power than those that couldn't. AKA: smarter people were always the heads of government, military, and trade.
Quechua is still spoken, in fact you can learn quechua at the national university of Córdoba, Argentina. And eventhough it was changed by spanish, the spanish spoken in the region is also strongly influenced by quechua.
@@Flantomas Oh I know that. My grandmother's native tongue was Quechua, her family were descendants from the indigenous Inca that lived in Bolivia. Actually a good portion of political backing in Peru has reignited teaching Quechua as a second language.
Considering that a large number of rural South Americans (Inca regions, like Peru, Bolivia, Chile, etc) speak Quechua; it is good to see political backing to keep old cultural languages alive. Especially since Quechua was seen in a "second class citizen" light, or at least that's how my Mother's family (all indigenous to South America) explained it to me when asked why Grandmother never taught Quechua to her children.
Maya and Nahuatl is not a dead language
Quechua is an ethnic group tho, the Incas were the dinasty of said ethnic group, but that doesn’t mean they were the same. Besides you seem to romanticize quite some things, according to Chachapoyas the Incas just gave positions due to affinity, which pissed off many of the nobility of the conquered kingdoms.
Its more of a case of not having as much to say about the inca because we dont get to see their history from their perspective.
Damned conquistador they threw off everyone’s groove
Kurt Rustle good riddance to Spain
Kurt Rustle I don't care, our culture lives on too, Spain can smd
Was this an Emperor's New Groove reference?
Stephan Stefanus Yes it was
@@joholland8568 nice.
It should also be mentioned, that the people that formed these civilizations are still around. Nahua, Maya and Quechua people still live in Central and South America and number in the millions (these three alone combined at least 20 million and there are many more like Zapotec or Aymara). They're not "gone" like Hittites or Gauls or whatever.
Wolfsgeist the people that formed those civs are dead, but their descendants are still around, like the descendants of the hittites and gauls (though they are not called that anymore).
Even so, much of their culture has been lost. The indigenous people often are considered 2 class over there
Pretty much. Almost all of my family still speaks the local Western Tlacolula dialect of Zapoteco. I think almost all of the residents of the city of Tlacolula are descendants of the original inhabitants of Yagul, which is now an archaeological site. Same with San Pablo Mitla and places like Santa Maria Atzompa and Villa de Zaachila in the Zaachila-Zimatlan Valley. Everyone of us is Zapotec, but there is a sizable population of Mixtecs from the (really fucked up) Mixteca Region.
Wolf gauls are still in France and celtic nations next door
Yes but not my beloved aztecs... 😤😑😒
"first we were able to translate numbers in the mayan calendar" *shows the aztec calendar*
YOU... FIEND...
I was just about to comment this, almost word for word.
Hahahhahahahaha indians did it way before
that's technically called the sun stone
Almost identically the same calendar
Maganda po ang mga napanood ko sa you tube kabihasnang aztec olmec at inca
feels nice having u guys explain part of my history (girl from Peru and Venezuela here so I love learning about the incas)
I really want Red to talk about the inca myths, I think she might enjoy some since she seems to enjoy the aztec ones.
@•Otaku Mason• Lol
As a historian i think you did a decent job of an abridged description of each empire, as a Mayan myself i think there should have been more details that distinguish these empires since many think of them as sisters when it is more comparable to think of Maya as Greeks, Aztecs as Roman, and Inca as well tbh i dont think they have an old world equivalent. but thank you and i hope you go into pre-Columbian history more on this channel.
Thank you! The goal for this minimum was, at an absolute bare minimum, to distinguish them from each other for people who (like me a month ago) couldn't describe the differences. Without making this into a giant 3 part series with 20-minute videos apiece (*cough cough* Abrahamic religions), this was the best I could do. It's very much just a *start*.
Of course, I just appreciate the fact that you decided to talk about this subject at all, I know this is a bit outside your comfort zone, I also hope you had fun researching this subject and this inspires you to do more videos on Latin American people, Indigenous or otherwise. Anyways keep up the good work I love everything you and red doing so far.
Mayan? Where are you from?
@Peter Geramin well my mom's side of the family is from Guatemala but I am not full mayan since my dad is 3rd gen American
I will be honest, the Incas were more of Romans, roads, empire, vasal system, eficient, disciplined army. The azteks and maysn would be more of like similar hellenic states, kind of like the seleucids and the macedonians.
I'm so excited you did a video on Mesoamerica! The Mayas and Incans have some of the most interesting history in my opinion; I was horribly upset when our school cut the unit in favor of one on the foundings of Judaeo-Christian religeons. I do have a few facts you might like.1) the Incans did have wheels, but the mountains were so steep that they found them more trouble than they were worth.2) a lot of Mayan writing was initially decyphered by one teenage boy who was at the sites a lot because his father was an archeologist.3) the Aztecs had books, but the Spanish banned them as devil worship and actively destroyed them and anyone who tried to preserve them. They also had libraries.4) the Mayan calendar was actually more acurate than any contemporary European one. They highly valued math and science and in some cases put contemporary Old World math to shame.5) cocoa was a valuable commodity and in Aztec culture reserved only for nobility. Traditional hot chocolate was unsweetened and mixed with peppers, and since cocoa beans were used as currency on occasion it was literally eating money. In Mayan culture cocoa was considered sacred and they even had a cocoa god.The cocoa stuff might be a little shaky because it's been a while, but I'm sure about everything else.
I started working at a Peruvian restaurant and after looking into Peru the amount of Incan language and traditions that still exist is amazing
Now you talking from your ass
"It incorporated people through diplomacy as well as outright conquest."
Well, that's a generous way to say 'ultimatum'.
Like Alexander the great?
Joel Neumier Yeah, 'white' people have an amazing ability to use double speak and semantics.
i mean, kind of, but not really. i'm not totally sure about this, since i learned this at school a few years ago and haven't checked it since, but the incas were known for being a good empire. no mass murdering or anything- just taking hold of the territories in the most effective way possible, talk or fight. they even let people still worship their gods and keep their authorities, as long as they were loyal to the inca, paid tribute to the empire (in food and labour) and worshipped the sun god, Inti. as far as i know, they never were overtly violent. really, their fall happened because of outside threats, illnesses and the spanish, otherwise, they would have kept on going strong (maybe, if they toned down the incest). they were always my favorite of these big three.
@@9990zara they were almost entirely built on forced labor. Benevolent forced labor but still forced labor.
@@9990zara Actually Inca Diplomacy worked this way...if you were to be conquered, you would be invited to join the confederacy and as ruler, you would become a nobleman and your people would have all the benefits of being part of the empire as subjects. If not, military forced would be used to subdue you and then you and the entire surviving population would be relocated to a different part of the empire.
lets not forget that the mayans built what they had WITHOUT pack animals.
Western Warden your talking about incans
@@nathanj1474 ohhhh yea duh
@@nathanj1474 nope, the Aztec and Mayans as well. The only animals that could be "tamed" in meso and South America are alpacas. Horses weren't avilable until the Old World brought them. They all did almost everything by hand
@@kylemaycock By our stories where I live. We have stories about how horses used to exist at one point.
@@saber2802 Interestingly, from paleontology there were supposed to be prehistoric horses (or related animals) in the Americas but they eventually went extinct. Later modern horses were brought over with Europeans. The stories you have may come from very far back ancestors which is really interesting!
the Aztec empire was basically the America before America, they had drafts, taxes, legally required education, they even had unpaid interns
america is a continent
@@josue-he5kh yeah i know, i meant the united states. Its just that a lot of people just call them america and at the time i thought it was easier...looking nack now i thunk i could just jave said the US instead of america...oh well
...and were also murdering a bunch of native people, also in line with the US. and they also had seasonal wars lol.
@@9990zara Identical
@@lossecretospublicos1528 how
0:12-0:24
In the words of a great man:
"It's the Mahajapit. X
Majahapit. X
Mapajahit. X
Mahapajit. X
Mapajahit. X
Majapahit. !!!!
Indonesian
Haha Bill Wurtz!
Mahajanpada
I possibly could say:
Aztecs Sparta (Perfectly disciplined warriors)
Mayas Athens (Great advances in science and mathematics)
Incas Rome (Advanced political organization)
Do you have a better comparation?
I would like you to tell me it.
Nice comparisons
Mayans = Greeks in general, a group of independent city-States with shared culture but no shared government.
@@lordlammi1562 ¿so what about the Aztecs?
I’ve heard the Maya compared to Classical Greece (a collection of independent city-states with a largely shared culture but fierce political/military rivalries) and the Aztecs to Rome (a conquering empire with a huge capital city, advanced feats of engineering, and extreme wealth). In theory I suppose the Inca could be compared to Rome as well.
@@Hallows4 So in America there were two Romes, that sounds much better
Not everyone died. We are the aftermath.
Mexica is pronounced Me-shee-ka.
Pronounciations differ from language to language.
Sounds like Mochica (an old culture in Perú)
Mesheeka is where the word Chicano derives from, it's important to get it right. When you're talking about post colonial Mexico, then it's appropriate to use the English or Spanish pronunciation, but not in this case.
Wait me shee ka and Mochica in Arabic Mosiqa means Music isn't similar ?
Qais Shokfe no it isn’t similar
I NEED A VIDEO WHERE BLUE AND RED DO MYTHOS AND HISTORY TOGETHER!
You mean porn?
Sebastian D. Nuuuu D:
Sebastian D. Hello 911...
There is a lot of myth/history records. The most well known is the Trojan War which probably did happen but probably not in the way that it was mention in the Iliad. Since they've already covered that thoroughly I would say the Chinese Romance of the Three Kingdoms tale would be cool.
Kit Cat Watch their video on The Journey to the West. I believe Blue does a speaking role or two
I asked my mother in law her family history and she said Azteca. I asked her more about it and she said, I have to be an Aztec because we are all from Guadalajara. It is strange how people from Mexico really do not give their ancient roots much thought.
"[The Olmecs] are still decently mysterious" we don't even know the name they gave themselves, the word Olmec means people of the land of rubber, but was given by the Náhuatl people that inhabited the lands later on.
So..
Aztec: the road to el do rado
Inca: the emporers new groove
Maya: whatever heart sacrifice Mel Gibson tried to portray
?
Actually the road to el Dorado is probably Mayan. but it's said the Dorado is in South America rainforest, and the Incas controlled a part of the amazones , so I guess the Dorado would be Incas , but because of the ball games and sacrifices it's a reference to Aztecs, idk it's quite a mess...
nah switch aztec and maya mel gibson tried to show maya but it was essentially just aztecs
Deshone Robinson, c'mom, no they won't! All these natives that met with the Europeans were from the same ethnicity as the Inuit people in Alaska & northern Canada.
Deshone Robinson false theirs a mixture of African and Aztec etc
@Deshone Robinson Nope, they were Native Americans and had slight differences in complection even then. Currently those called Hispanic/Latinos are mostly mestizo or mulato, aka so damn mixed we can't even tell.
I’ve been to Machu Picchu and some of the Inca sites in Peru and they are huge!!! Seriously Machu Picchu is huge and super cool to walk around. I was in awe. Also their stone walls are super cool and super well built. Also if you go to Peru I’d reccomend to try alpaca
Alpaca the animal?
@@tomboyraider1015 yes, its tasty too
How dare you eat such precious animal!
@@leyslawAlpacas are pretty expendable here in Peru along with the llamas. Beautiful animals but also very good source of nutrients. The vicuña is our precious animal, which id you touch you either get a huge fine or kicked out of the country.
I love the Age Of Mythology background music :>
OKAY!
Prostagma
@@SantiagoAntonAlonso Etimi
Does this mean we get more Central American myths? Because that would be AWESOME!
Central America??????? I'm sorry man but Mexico isn't Central America, is part of North America with Canada.
Akane Tsunemori the video doesn't just talk about mexico though, a big part of mayan lands were in central america and in modern day cultural central america
Yandere-Kun in your closet this video IS talking about mexico, 3 civilizations named here were in mexico and those were the -aztects -olmecs and mayans didn’t you hear the “Yucatán peninsula” throughout the whole video and you know where the Yucatan peninsula is? It’s in mexico
jayblade2000 Mexico is not Central America you dumbshit it’s like saying Russia is the US that’s how offensive they find it
hmmm nope there are ruins all over Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador so it all comes from parts of Mexico AND parts of Central America, in other words you all people are wrong
As a Mexican, I congratulate you and thank you for such a professional high quality video on this subject that is often neglected. I just have one suggestion: it's been proved that the famous Aztec headdress exhibited at the Weltmuseum of Vienna was not owned by Motecuhzoma (which is a popular misconception). Rather, Aztec rulers used to wear the xiuhuitzolli, a turquoise mosaic diadem (which would look much more elegant than a feather headresss, in my opinion) as a symbol of their imperial power, while the feather headdress was reserved for battles and war.
In francee we had an absolutely amazing animated serie called "the mysterious cities of gold" where you follow three kids and three spanish men crossing inca and maya countries to find the cities of gold and it s a real wonder of adventure, epicness, accurate cultural depiction of the incas and mayas and even sci fi
Saw this as a kid
FYI accurate culture depiction and scifi don't go together
I'm gonna be honest... every time I hear about the destruction of these old civilizations, it just makes me angry, and sad, knowing what could've been.
Looks at the blood sacrifices. Um. Um...UMMMMMMM.
@Alejandra Martinez That doesn't make it any better...and they had a whole culture built around a blood cult.
keith brannon
That’s the Astec. The Inca didn’t have a barbaric culture like that and the Maya way less.
@@Sul_Haren Fair point, still it was considered a cultural norm at the time, being less murderous isn't exactly a good thing...
@@keithbrannon251
How do you mean that?
The Inca did not have a human sacrifice culture. They fought wars of course, but that can be said about every human civilization
Probably, nobody is going to notice my comment, but I was wondering if Red would make more myth videos on South American cultures?
age of mythology soundtrack
vulome ?
prostagma?
metalefs
I know I heard it in one of those games! I narrowed it down to Age of Empires and Age of Mythology, but couldn't make sure which one.
My childhood
Was totally loving this video and super eager to show this to my class until the 2:26 mark. Love everything else though!
Can you make a video about Tibetan myths cause no one talks about it but is very interesting
I would like to hear about that too.
Tenzin Yengsel as would i
I Ti- Bet it is interesting.
Don't call the comedy police. I can't go back.
tibet is not so old like native americans
@@Mtrl-new yea but the only thing that matters is my Latin dick is bigger than theirs!!
I am very dissatisfied with the lack of references to The Emperor's New Groove and Road to El Dorado. Eh, I guess that would be more under Red's jurisdiction.
are jew latina?
Loved road to el Dorado
2:56 actually there were many native and mestizo chroniclers that documented many of the beliefs, traditions and way of life of their people, at least in the case of the incas. The only problem is that most of these chronics were not translated to other languages, being many of them just available in spanish or quechua.
Show me the evidence please in a not snarky way
@@savyskunk6683 los comentarios reales de Los Incas by garcilaso is widely regarded as one of the best accounts of the empire, as the author had ties both to Spanish nobility and the incan empire (and there are English translations available).
But, really, if you did a few seconds of googling you'd probably realize that this massive empire that existed for generations does indeed have a lot written about it in the native languages of the people who experienced it.
The creator of this video does not know about the Incas, or Peru, or Mestizaje, or the civil war of Huascar and Atahualpa. In fact, since it summarizes the whole story that the Spanish were bad and decultured, I lost any seriousness to this video.
I hate it so much when people put Incas together with the Mayans and the Aztecs. That's like grouping together Russians, Spaniards and Frenchmen.
I used to lump the French and Spanish together when I was a kid because I was dumb.
Moarice Incas were from south but as someone from there too, the visible diference between them is almost un-existant.
It really doesnt matter where are them from they are too similar to care
They may be part of the same broad ethnic group, but their cultures were hugely different, and that difference is important. The Maya and Aztec were similar to each other, but the only things the Inca had in common with the others were large cities and being in the Americas.
Crazael wich was enouth for everyone that didnt know them well to put them in the same group.
The only notable diference is that they didnt fight cuz they didnt have rivals and stuff
Russians, Spaniards, French all fall to glorious Ottoman Bombards. In Yukon. Age of Empires 3 is a blast.
Wait, wait one sec? Are you telling me Emporer New groove was an Inca empire?
Yeah I'm pretty sure that's what it's based on.
Makes the movie all the greater
Ok, if it isn't clear already, that emporer's was "Cuzco". . . . So they is that ..... And that fact that llamas aren't found outside of mountains South America.....so yeah
Ok so Cuzco is a city in Peru and there was a Emperor name Cuzco but they didn't name the city based out of him. The name has a meaning to it and it's also called the puma city. Which is Cusco no Z but supposed to be spelled with a S. The meaning of the name is 'dried up lake bed' I'm a Peruvian and I've recently went to Peru and got to go to the Sacred Valleys and the well known Inca Empire which was Machu Pichu so you learn new stuff their if you go there someday :)
Yay! People are learning!
0:01- Introduction.
0:22- The three great civilizations: Aztec, Maya and Inca.
0:28- What’s the difference between them?
0:40- Human sacrifice and smallpox
0:46- The societies (Before the Spanish conquest).
0:53- The Mayans in the Yucatan Peninsula (Before the Spanish conquest)
1:03- Where is the Aztec empire?
1:14- Where is the Inca empire?
1:31- Archeology in these civilizations
1:37- Pictographic writing (Mayan and Aztec)
2:18- Why were these scriptures burned?
2:45- Inca writing method (“The khipu”)
2:56- The stories of these civilizations (After the Spanish conquest)
3:38- Olmec Civilization
3:50- Olmec art
4:08- The pyramid of the sun
4:40- Yucatan peninsula
5:03- How was the Mayan agriculture?
5:20- Cenotes.
5:45- The Mayan death beliefs.
6:11- Why were they pulling towards the north of Yucatan?
6:51- The history of the Aztecs of the northwest.
7:15- The Aztec empire expands and conquers its neighbors.
7:58- The mayan game: Polka.
8:15- Spain arrives in America and the Azteca rebellion.
8:46- The Spanish debate.
9:28- The Inca empire.
9:45- The Inca government.
9:57- The construction of the Inca cities.
10:36- What the Incas discovered.
10:45- What the Spanish people brought and took away.
11:07- Conclusion and fired.
I knew more about a historical empire than Blue? Eew, this feeling is weird!
They taught us about the American Empires all the time in my history classes in Florida. Particularly these big three. Of course, after the tests most of us remembered the Aztec, Mayan, and Incan Empires as "The Bloody one on a lake", "The Mysterious disappearing Yavin IV Guys", and "The ones that liked mountains and roads but not wheels" respectively.
On the incas defense, have you ever tried to use wheels on mountains?, fucking useless.And they lacked bulls or horses to carry anything around.
What about the Tehuelche people of Patagonia?
@@eeeecccc Those weren't an empire.
@ What variables define "empire"?
@@eeeecccc I would guess it's following requirements:
1. Rulership over several nominal kingdoms.
2. Self-proclamation of imperium. (couldnt word it better)
Third. I've never clicked on a notification this quickly. Blue, if your still online, you and Red are awesome! You helped me in history class, so, thanks.
Aztec - Domination and murder
Inca - Deplomacy
Maya - Survival
It's not murder if the victim likes it :^ )
Blue, I love your videos! I enjoy all of your history videos (especially the one with Shadiversity and the one about Africa) and how nuanced your explanations are. you introduced me to new and fascinating subjects like the Samurai and the Rise of Islam. This one is particularly interesting to me since this is *very* close to home (Mexico).
Now, I think a little bit of clarification is necessary:
1) 1:45 that's the Sun Stone (here we call it Piedra del Sol), is Aztec, not Maya. This is a frequent mistake.
2) at, 11:17 that wasn't Meso-America. The Olmecs, the Maya and the Aztecs *are*, but the Inca are a different cultural area (I think it's callen Andean, because of the Andes, but I'm not sure. The point is, the Inca are a different group). Mesoamerica covers about the southern half of Mexico, all of Guatemala, Belice and El Salvador, and the western parts of Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica.
Oh, and it's me-SHEE-ka :)
Thank you for your clarifications! No matter how much research I do, I'll never get *everything* right, so I appreciate your comment!
(Right you are about Andean vs Mesoamerican. I wish I had a better term to use in the video itself. "American" sends the wrong message, and "Mesoamerican" is too narrow. There isn't really a proper umbrella term for it.)
-B
+Overly Sarcastic Productions can you do persia next?
Also the Norte Chico (or Caral) civilization is considered the oldest in the Americas (located not far from Lima, Peru).
Furthermore the Inca are somewhat of a successor state to the Wari and to a lesser extent the Tiwanaku. (These started the road networks, terraces, the religion, etc).
But isn't the Aztec Sun Stone a depiction of the Aztec calendar, which was appropriated from the Maya?
Mog of War saying that the Sun Stone is Mayan just because it came from the Maya (arguably, since there’s a chance it came from the Olmecs) is like saying that Christians are Jews because Christianity is an offshoot of Judaism. So, no it is is own thing.
Thank you so very much for doing this. I'm Mexican, and hearing about part of my culture always excites me.
Ronin Elenion same
Ronin Elenion i had to watch this for school 😞
U dirty Spaniard
Its good your learning more about your culture most Mexicans just like to say they are Mayan but know nothing about them but hey they get tattoos of the Inca calendar...
Age of mythology music. MY DUDE
Were you listsening to music or what
the video was speaking
Leje? Prostagma? Vulome. Orthos. Pame. Kalos. Isvoli!
@@MrAllmightyCornholioz predomos
Proseche. Eisvoli!
it took me way too long to find this comment
Everyone forgets about the toltecas.
The tolteca blend with the aztec people
No man, but he already had to make it short, if he mentions toltecs, the he had to mention tlaxcaltecas and if he mentions tlaxcaltecas cas then zapotecas and so on and on, it was a decent job
he missed over like 90% of the civilizations in mexico alone
Or the Olmec
Zapotecas...
It really annoys me whenever a foreigner refers to Mexico as if it was in South America
It's South...of America.
...OK, I'll pack my things and leave now.
It's even worst when people IN South America believes that Mexico is part of South America.
Well it's not part of the USA. So it's more like.... middle America
@@marvelforpresident1342 Canada is America too, it's all North America u dingus
It's central America
I just think of the Eldorado movie and The Emperor's New Groove.
Akash Adrian Mehta El dorado, though (the golden city)
if you're interested, the actual stories are extremely dramatic. like, soap opera levels of drama.
@@JohnSmith-kv3eo "El Dorado" means "The Golden" literally, the golden city would be "la ciudad dorada", since "ciudad" is a female noun.
@@9990zara alright.
Fun Fact!
The Emperor's New Groove takes place in an alternate universe where The Incan Empire were never conquered by The Spanish, and instead survived through the modern ages, and not just a parody of the modern setting like in The Flintstones.
Actually the Olmec Civilization ended around 400 BC not AD.
Also the Maya have been around since 2000 BC, making this their 4th millenium
I have never seen drunk UA-cam before, so this makes me strangely excited. No views, 5 likes
About the aztecs:
They sacrificed the one who won the game. It was a great honor for the one being sacrificed
yeah, their human sacrifice was a lot more brutal than most people want to believe because the idea of an innocent civilization being destroyed by a foreign invader is a lot more emotionally evoking story than a super murdery and universally hated civilization finally getting what it deserves
Cool af
Well, The Emperor's New Groove and The Road to El Dorado suddenly make a new huge sense.
Back in the ancient fimes
"Billy where's your homework"
Points towards the stairs
"Hmm ok"
Great choice of music, made me feel building the civilization and explore, I was totally digging it. Now, I think every historical video like this should add this music, it would make it so much interesting.
Spanish stoking rebellions isn't quite accurate. Many tribes already hated the aztecs because they were constantly under threat by them so Cortes found natural and willing allies with them.
um.. that's called stoking rebellions
Sir Aroun the aztecs encouraged rebellions because it gave them easy targets for human sacrifices.
Sir Aroun That's called alliances. Or if you're fond of Sun Tzu "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." Stoking rebellions would involve spreading propaganda or encouraging riots among a mostly complacent/obedient population to destabilize the government.
It is a shame both the young empires didn't have enough time from the Spanish. I would have loved to see them battle it out over time and expansion. My money was firmly on the Inca :)
They were great diplomats and Aztec was rife with unloyal city states. And on top of the fact they were big enough to take and give anyway militarily.
@fish4man61 The problem is smallpox and other infectious disease would have devastated any new world empire. How can you successfully fight back against the Spanish when half your citizens are dropping dead and everyone thinks it's because you've angered the gods or some other nonsense.
Something really awesome about the Pyramid of the Moon at Teotihuacan is that they built it with amazing acoustics in mind. The Aztec used the first platform for announcements and religious purposes and when someone is standing on it you can be way at the opposite end of the plaza in front and still hear them as if you are standing side by side. It's essentially a built-in megaphone. Really cool to experience by the way.
Blue: "Let's talk the Inca."
Me: "CUUUZCOOOOOOOOOO!"
"with Mexico covered"? The territory of the Mayan spans from Mexico to Honduras but mainly Guatemala
Forget about that: he blatantly ignored the existence of all Central America. I think, with these documentaries about America, we should really forget about the idea of seeing a documentary about non-popular Mesoamerican civilizations at all.
Los mayas tenía un reino muy extenso, constaba de más de 60 pequeños reinos, la mayoría de sus ciudades más importantes están en Mexico Palenque, Bonampaq, Uxmal, also their main temple Chichén Itzá y Tikal me parece en Guatemala, pero estoy de acuerdo que hace un mal trabajo en omitir varios países importantes donde también se desarrolló la cultura
Georges Rojas dirás que los más importantes de los maya estaban en lo que es Mexico hoy en día? Aparte de Tikal, copan, punta de chamino, tres islas, el peru, aguateca, la Amelia, Naranjo, cancuen, caracol, uaxactun, cival, Chetumal, flores, dos pilas, nakbe, mixco, motul de San José, piedras negras, y tantos más que ni puedo recordarme de ellos en este momento.
Dude, the Sun Calendar was Aztec, not Mayan. You put it in the Mayan part.
V XXIII The Mayans also used it. The Aztecs were influenced by the Mayans and other civilizations.
Mayans used the calendars before them because, you know, Mayans we’re here before and birthed the idea you idiot
Batmanindustries48 yes but they use different calendars
G3NTL3M4N6 86 Yes but they were both sun calendars he’s saying that only the Aztecs used sun calendars.
Online Profile even tho that’s false they used two a scientific calendar(tonalpohualli) and a religious calendar (xiuhpohualli)
I wish you went more into the Incan history, there was one Incan runner who learned Spanish and literally sprinted around the empire writing down as many things as he could before the people who knew them died. A ton of what we know about Incan culture and history comes from this person. Imagine just being a guys surviving through a plague with a 40+ percent mortality rate, a genocide, and forced labor jsut to run thousands of thousands of miles and feverishly trying to save your culture. That dedication.
Your videos background music makes me want to replay age of mythology
This! I still play it sometimes (I still have the CD-ROM lol) and omg the music is sooo distracting in this video because that's all I can think about, Age of Mythology, omfg!
Im Peruvian (mestiza). People speak as though the inca where one unit. But its not that simple(think rome) My ancestors are Quechua. Actually Inca was our word for king/royal. The people of Cuzco and surrounding areas that conquered the rest of the Andes where the Quechua. Its also the primary language. This vid is more informative than most textbooks but I’d wish theyd given each civilization its own vid, not mesh them together like amerian history class. But i digress. AMA.
Im so happy there’s videos like this, this one I think is extremely helpful for people who don’t have long attention spans but summarizes a lot of the history that you can’t still understand it and remember!
it seems we have listened the campaign briefing, I am ready for this Age of Mythology level.
Aka
“Lies”
I love you this channel so much. I really hope you get around to doing some Caribbean countries and stuff. I never hear anything about them from before colonization. It would be awesome. 😃😃😃
Bro, great job. I’ve only recently become super interested in Mesoamerica, but I have been consuming a whole lot of information on this topic lately. I think this is the best video I have seen on the topic so far. I could have saved myself several hours if I found this earlier.
As an engineer, the mention of Mayan fresh water sources all being down sink holes just blows my mind! The amount of effort to just survive with that challenge is incredible, and yet, they built huge cities... Maybe the tax rate was a little steep, but I'm sure glad it meant we can look back at it now to learn and wonder.
So that's where Disney took inspiration of emperors news groove.
Your videos are great, however, I cannot show them to my classes because of your language. I wish I could. Can you make classroom-friendly versions?
Incas: Finally I built a sustainable empire!
The Spanish: Yea no, I’m gonna stop you right there
I was brought to this channel last week thanks to Shadiversity, and I subbed instantly. I do not regret my decision in the slightest.
That's how I found (and subbed immediately to) Shadiversity, funnily enough.
Same here
Yay I got to watch you guys for my history class, the best class I've had in awhile.
Hey. The old world version of the new world is awesome.
I had to do a social studies project where we picked a group of people and had to learn about them. I picked the inca and it went decently; but I like your way of telling them Blue.
This is nice, I’m currently in Belize for a school trip and we checked out Lamanai yesterday and tomorrow we go to Xunantunich. Today we we to the xibalba cave. It’s good to get a brush up when our tour guides have a lot but I answer most of my own questions.
I WAS SINGING HAMILTON YOU INTERRUPTED ME SINGING HAMILTON BADLY!
its ok I'm addicted to this channel!
OMG I WAS LISTENING TO CONGRATULATIONS JUST BEFORE I WATCHED THIS!!!
Alexander Hamilton was the best president.
He was never the president.
Aeriosus he was the best president
Alexander Hamilton
Alexander Hamilton
Got yourself a problem, he can
Alexander handle it
Lost 150 pounds
Alexander damn he thin
Never lost a single fight
Alexander champion
Has a love for weird guitars
Alexander mandolin
Wishin he could go to sleep
Alexander Ambien
Lives in a department store
Alexander mannequin
Breath is smellin kinda whack
Alexander hand ya mints
Sees something he doesn't like?
He Alexander banning it
Loves The Office way too much
Alexander Pam and Jim
_Alexander Hamilton_
_Alexander Hamilton_
Recently became a saint
Alexander hasn't sinned
Favorite Sith lord in the world
Alexander Anakin
Has a very lovely smile
Alexander handsome grin
Transitioned to a woman, now he
Alexander man again
Knows 2 songs by Eminem
Alexander Stan and Kim
Totally skipped lunch, I want an
Alexander sandwich
What you want on your footlong?
Alexander ham and swiss
Yo he'd make a good president
Alexander candidate
Really needs some liquor now
Alexander hand me gin
Doesn't get enough sunlight
Alexander tanning bed
This costume cost a jillion dollars
Alexander damn he rich
Used to watch the old school Jack
Alexander Handypen
Elton John's his favorite artist
Alexander Candle Wind
I used way too much time to type all of that while listening to the song.
The Inca are honestly my favourite South American civilisation.
Mesoamerican civilization took forever to take off, but it's truly insane how well they persevered despite the harsh conditions and cultural upheaval. Despite the population being decimated and the empire falling, the peoples still survived and are around to this day and I'm proud to be part of the indigenous American people
6:13
So basically, the Priests were trying to Link the Fire to keep the Age going.
Well, you're not wrong. It was just as bloody
'I'm sorry sir, you've thrown off the Emperor's groove'.
Hey, I've known about you guys for a while, and today this video was actually used as material in my history class!
I'm starting to see a pattern where civilizations who unexpectedly come across large hordes of gold (Aztec, Spain, Zimbabwe) are doomed to non-relevance within 100 years of the discovery. It throws the balance of the economy into wicked turmoil, causes a huge vacuum between rich and poor which incites popular revolts, and then when the other powerful nations find out then you become a massive target for invasion by everybody else. So this leads to a question of "why is gold good?" as in why bother putting effort into amassing gold instead of covering up the discovery or throwing it into the ocean?
It's funny bc Incas didn't actually care much about gold, it mostly for ceremonial use and it wasn't largely mined. But then come the spaniards and well... the rest is history :)
Japan would be an exception. But as soon as they saw what the foreigners were doing, they shut off their country. Then again Japan has a geographical privilege these other civilizations did not which made their country easier to protect.
Mario Roy Incas didn’t have gold they had copper and made it into fake gold
except the native americans weren't like that. the white people brought over their greed
@@amykarr6163 That's not what the many subjugated people who welcomed the Spanish to help overthrow the tyrannical Aztecs said, lol.
i wish i saw this 4 months ago for the unit test
i am literally learning this in school right now, either youtube is a psychic or this guy is a psychic
I like really the Age of Mythology music in the background
Age of mythology/empire anthem
My teacher played this video not know it had the D word in it. As fast as she could she unplugged the whole computer
Kennedy Mack ours censcored it
also fix your grammar.
Fun fact: the Aztecs did not die out. They became Mexicans in the Spanish Empire and the Aztec Capital of Tenotitchlan became Mexico City.
@Stefan Dubois well yes becuse of the Spanish.
@Stefan Dubois the Aztec people did not dissapear, they imænterbread with europe ans and created the mestiso.
@Stefan Dubois see what you mean. if you thought i was danish becuse of my name im not, im Norwegian.
The fall of Meso America was sad but we can not change what has already happend. We can only learn from it.
@Stefan Dubois Dude even I can't tell Danish from Norwegian at time so No worries. I wish you well.
Eh!
We didn't became Geopoliticaly irrelevance in a century, we became Geopoliticaly irrelevance in **two** centuries (althouth our downfall started a century after the conquest).
And, on the karma thing. I'm not saying that our downfall wasn't karmatic (we did some fucked up things in the Americas), but you can argue that the fall of the Aztec Empire was as karmatic as the fall of the Spanish Empire, as the Mexicas were quite big fans of mass sacrifices (compared to the Mayans, who's human sacrifices were quite tame.) of their conquered subjects and enemies.
Thanks for doing this video, you cleared up a lot of things me!👍
I remember watching about this kinda civilization in the movie Apocalypto. The ending was so sad when the survivors saw some Spanish ship (Colombus'?) approaching. Their real misery was about to begin.
LONG LIVE FOR CUSCO AND MY ANCESTORS THE INCAS.
THEY DID HAD WRITING, WHEELS, SOPHISTICATED, ARCHITECTURE, VAST AGRICULTURE, INCLUSIVE SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT AND LOVE FOR NATURE...
bruh no need for all caps. also, eran bien incestuosos, asi que santos no son. eso sí, son mis favoritos entre las tres grandes civilizaciones.
@@9990zara en todas las civilizaciónes lo eran en algún momento de su historia
tu punto es?
Perfect. This video was exactly what I was looking for. Right length, great content, and it covered all three. Thank you!
Could you do a video on the Mississippians? Nobody seems to talk about these people whenever talking of advanced native societies
Probably because these were whole empires with millions of people
*Spain:* We're not irrelevant! We still have the Straight of Gibraltar, so we still have a massive say in trade in and out of the Mediterranean.
*Britain:* YOINK!
Que dijo???
big shout out to the choice of music as you yeeted my brain back to days of playing age of mythology my entire childhood due to my obsession with ancient history, myths and the like- worked wonders for my adhd brain to get hella invested in the topic more than I already was xD
Loving the age of mythology song ❤