Ancient Mayan City May Have Used A Modern Filtration System

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https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/tikal-had-sophisticated-water-filtration-system/

It is not that the Mayans had a "sophisticated" water filtration system, as it is that most modern-day water filtration systems are really rather primitive.

How do we make it advanced?

porous ceramic water filtration systems with terracotta pipes were also used in ancient southern India.
https://www.deccanchronicle.com/nation/ ... ainer.html

Much of the insfrastructure used in ancient India was destroyed by invading pastorial nomads whom the British later attributed bought civilisation to India (to advertise the benefits of their own colonisation). This narrative was never supported by archaeology but is continued to be taught in Indian highschools as a legacy of British colonisation.

Not surprisingly to this day Indian archaeology is classified as forbidden history unlike Mayan, Greek or Roman or Egyptian

Well if it is indeed "primitive" then the western world was some adjective that means something even lower than "primitive" because Europe didnt use that system until 2000 years after the Mayans hit upon it.

It might cause offence to point out, but you hit they nail on the head that they were incredibly primitive in many regards - but they had lots of guns and decent ships which allowed their backwards civilization to conquer the world.

Use reverse osmosis.  A process of osmosis through semipermeable membranes was first observed in 1748 by Jean-Antoine Nollet.  For the following 200 years, osmosis was only a phenomenon observed in the laboratory.  In 1950, the University of California at Los Angeles first investigated desalination of seawater using semipermeable membranes.  Researchers from both University of California at Los Angeles and the University of Florida successfully produced fresh water from seawater in the mid-1950s, but the flux was too low to be commercially viable.

Here in Britain water filtration is not new. Various ways. One way also dealt with sewerage via reed filtration beds. Romans knew a thing or two but they grew in knowledge through the other tribes they conquored.
Carnarfon Castle had hot and cold running water piped into a few of their rooms a good 800 or more years ago.
What interests me is pre flood technology. From descriptions in the Bible they were quite advanced, describing the forging of metals that we assumed have only been forged in recent times.. But going back to around 2000 years ago and before, chariot wheels may have looked simple but were more advanced then we may think, as they were not just nailed together. There was a lot more to it. They also were built with a bit of "Give" so they would not fall to peices when they hit a bump.
Certain technologies have been lost. I know of at least one which is no longer done within the bicycle trade, and a few which are no longer done when my Dad started the carpentry trade, as when he started, part of the trde was to supply and make ones own polish and each carpenter had their own adapted formula which was passed on and further refined to his apprentice which is just one lost aspect of carpentry we no longer have. Wood stains and the like were also part of the carpenters knowlwdge, as there was a time when such things could not be bought and had to be made by the carpenter.
My Dad was popular as he developed a way to replace the chords in sash windows in less then 15 minutes, which the normal method used took a good carpenter around 45 minutes to do. My Dad did not let on that he had found such a way, as it meant he could take a 30 minute break and get paid for it! Little things like this are lost with time because when he died, the knowledge died with him. A few years before he died he blew himself up when he got the mixture wrong when experimenting while making a few batches of polish. I remember him coming into the house after hearing a loud bang, and his face was black, his hair was still smoldering! The shed lining used to have white panneled wood, but it was not white anymore after that event!
But how many carpenters today make their own tools and other items they need? How many bicycle mechanics build wheels or bend frames and forks back to shape, or even build frames? (I have never built frames but I have been taught the rest. Probably the job I dreaded the most was fitting a helicoil insert into a steel crankarm as it was quite a job, or cutting to length and threading a set of spokes...(Time consuming. Not a difficult job but it was always done when the customer wanted it "Now" so it was a rush of a job to do. Once the thread rolling tool became so hot with me rushing to thread 72 spokes for a customer, that the handle of the tool melted and broke off in my hand!)

Technology doesn't follow a linear evolution, as civilisations rise and fall knowledge is often lost.

Southern Europe was actually advanced and had access to advanced technology, science and writing from an early era due to proximity to ancient Egypt and the near east. After the fall of Rome this technology was temporarily lost then (ironically) returned to Europe in the form of art, architecture, science, astronomy, ceramics etc etc through trade and interaction with the Arab world.

Its somewhat silly to compare the Mayan's simple filtration system with modern technology

Even if similar systems are still in use?

Basic concepts/theories could be similar but execution isn't the same. Advanced modern technology might integrate filtration with electronic feedback providing performance data. In addition the concepts of reverse osmosis would not be understood at a chemical level till closer to the 19th century.

remember the Mayans were advanced on things that were important to them (including building and astronomy) but they did not understand the concept of the wheel. It's my contention they inherited or acquired certain knowledge from precursor civilisations such as the Olmecs which explain why they were advanced on some things and not others, but also since the Mayans are reminiscent of the ancient Egyptians in that the oldest strata show the most advanced technology indicating their (Mayan) civilisation is a relic or legacy of lost knowledge.

For example the mathematics/skills required to build the first pyramid in mesoamerica or Egypt is far more impressive than later structures which seemed like poor imitations or sloppy copies.

Another brilliant example is the original hindu builders from India who built Ankor Wat in Cambodia they created unbelievable intricate technologically advanced building design. When the Cambodians converted to buddhism they overlaid the structures with indigenous buddhist additions and you can tell the additional building were local because they lacked the design robustness of the original hindu builders.

Um yeah. Doesnt contradict what I said. Smart people exist in every race, and have come up with the same smart ideas independently of each other in different times and places. And a culture that is geographically isolated, like the Mayan in the Yucatan, can be oddly advanced in some ways, and oddly backward in other ways. While the civilizations of the Eurasian landmass are able to trade in ideas and in hard goods over long distances, and tended to evolve in tandem.

And civilizations do collapse. But it tends to be regional. As with the Mayan, and with western half of the Roman Empire.

The Romans has heated hot water and ducted sewage at the time of Christ, things that didn't make a re-appearance till the early 20th century. People were throwing slop buckets with night soil till the late 19th and even early 20th century in Europe.

But back to Mayans, isolation was one factor but the Mayans and later the Aztecs operated a military state so my guess is they acquired their technological know-how by enslaving more advanced but less militaristic civilisations like the Olmecs. This model is how the Indo-Europeans acquired technology as well
Egyptians, Persians and Pheonicians borrowed from Sumerians and Elamites
Greeks borrowed heavily from the Minoans, Phoenicians and Egyptians
Romans borrowed from the Greeks
Western Europe was reliant on Rome

The model is the same - semi-nomadic illiterate pastoralists form a warrior class who invade more advanced civilisations and they themselves are invaded and so it goes...

What do you mean decent ships? I'm pretty certain their ships could handle other ships of their time. It's interesting how the Mayans worked with Gold, but didn't work with Iron or Steel.

Which "their ships" do you mean? European, or Mayan? The Mayans were not much in the way of seafarers.

The Mesoamerican civilizations were kinda stuck at the stage that the old world was at during the Sumerian and early Egyptian times. Comparable to the early Bronze Age. But the Mesoamericans didnt even have bronze (alloy of copper and tin), but only had copper. And they didnt even use copper for most tools, but prefered obsidian and flint to make tools like knives. So technically they were still in the neolithic (late stone age). They did work wonders with gold and silver. But never even alloyed tin to copper to make bronze. Much less go on to smelt iron (which takes more heat).

Their childrens toys often had wheels. But the Olmecs/Mayans/Aztecs didnt use wheels on full sized vehicles. But thats somewhat understandable because they lacked non human beasts of burden. The old world had most of the domesticated animals including horses and oxen. So that pushed Eurasian civilizations in the direction of developing mechanical engineering-including perfecting the axel (the key invention which allows the wheel to be fully exploited for transportation).