Individual kingdoms within the Mayan empire might rise and fall, but collectively, the Mayans prospered, their temples reaching up to the heavens from under a sea of green.
Built on the foundations of the first great society to inhabit this region, the Olmecs, the Mayans quickly adopted social institutions that organized their world along the lines of classical Greek city-states. As early as the second century BCE, a recognizable Mayan culture was flourishing in the Yucatán rain forest.
