Did the Aztecs or Mayans build pyramids?

The Pyramids in Mexico Mexico is home to some of the most impressive pyramids in the world, built by ancient civilizations like the Aztecs and the Mayans. Though much about them is still shrouded in mystery, historians believe the Mexico pyramids were used for religious or ceremonial purposes.



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The Maya are perhaps most known for their many majestic pyramids. They built two kinds of pyramids. Both types of pyramids were similar in many ways. They each had the familiar pyramid shape.

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The pyramids of the Aztecs were very similar to those of the Maya. The main difference was that the Aztec would sometimes build more than one temple on the top of a pyramid. Many times new pyramids were built on top of old pyramids. Archeologists have found several more pyramids inside and under existing pyramids.

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The Mayan pyramids were built mostly between the 3rd and 9th century AD by the Maya, a Mesoamerican civilization that arose around 1500 BC. These pyramids are located in eastern Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador and they vary in style and design.

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The Maya Indians were so short that some scholars called them the pygmies of Central America: the men averaged only five feet two, the women four feet eight.

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Who built the pyramids in Mexico? Pre-Columbian cultures like the Olmecs, Mixtecs, Toltecs, Zapotecs, Aztecs (or Mexica), and Maya created these impressive structures. For the most part, each civilization had a specific building style, although they all used materials like clay, stone, and mortar.

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“The Maya did not use the wheel nor draft animals, so they transported the building materials using person-power from the quarries to the building site,” Tulane Professor of Linguistics and Anthropology Judith Maxwell said of the Maya method for transporting heavy materials. Large building blocks were rolled on logs.

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Archeologists say there are a variety of factors at play, including soaring population growth, climate change and political strife. “The overwhelming information was that there was climate instability,” says Charles Golden, an anthropology professor at Brandeis University.

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Civilizations like the Olmec, Maya, Aztec and Inca all built pyramids to house their deities, as well as to bury their kings.

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