A fascinating report about ancient Mayan culture notes, “The “Star Wars” were periods of intense conflict between rival polities or city states within the Maya civilisation [civilization].”
The article goes on to share the following details:
Warfare was mainly for political control/influence, or for gaining new resources and territory between city states. The goal may also have been to acquire sacrificial victims to legitimise the ruler of a polity, or to intimidate rivals into submission and tribute.
In some instances, conflicts would escalate to a “Star War”, resulting in the fall of a dynasty, or the complete dominion of one polity by another. An inscription from a monument found at Tortuguero (dating from AD 669) which describes the aftermath of a “Star War” states: “the blood was pooled; the skulls were piled”.
There were 13 known “Star War” incidents, beginning with a conflict between the populations of Caracol and Tikal in AD 562 — Tikal ultimately lost the war, entering an unfortunate period of cultural ruin known as the “Tikal mid-Classic hiatus”.
The report notes the following:
Subsequent “Star War” events have been documented up until AD 781, including:
• Calakmul/Caracol (winner) and Naranjo (loser) in AD 631 • Caracol (winner) and Naranjo (loser) in AD 636 • Tortuguero (winner) and an unnamed polity (loser) in AD 644 • Dos Pilas (winner) and Tikal (loser) in AD 670 • Palenque (winner) and anunnamed polity (loser) in AD 672 • Tikal (winner) and Dos Pilas (loser) in AD 672 • La Corona (winner) and Tikal (loser) in AD 677 • Naranjo (winner) and Caracol (loser) in AD 680 • Dos Pilas (winner) and Tikal (loser) in AD 705 • Tonina (winner) and Palenque (loser) in AD 711 • Dos Pilas (winner) Seibal (loser) in AD 735 • Piedras Negras (winner) and an unnamed polity (loser) in AD 781.
After much debate, the team behind the Star Wars universe eventually settled on a Tunisian desert as their filming location. As it turns out, however, tensions between Tunisia and neighboring Libya were running high in the 1970s — and Jawa Sandcrawlers look an awful lot like real military vehicles.
A report on the near-international conflict shared these details:
Matters reached high intensity when Libyan made a demand that Tunisia immediately cease its provocative deployment of a massive military vehicle near the border. Gaddafi warned that conflict was inevitable if Tunisia did not comply with his demands at once.
The offensive military vehicle in question was a Jawa Sandcrawler. If the demands had come after Star Wars was released, Lucas might have been in a better bargaining position. Since the release of the first installment in the series, Star Wars films have generated more than $10 billion (adjusted for inflation) worldwide. At the time, however, Lucas was more interested in getting the first movie done than he was in taking the battle of good and evil directly to Gaddafi. He quickly agreed to move the Sandcrawler to a less-provocative location.
Credit: National Geographic
