Hasan Tahsin Mayatepek was a Turkish diplomat. He got his surname from his position as Turkish ambassador in

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

(31 March 1935 – 7 March 1938) where he concluded that the

Mayan Mayan most commonly refers to: * Maya peoples, various indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica and northern Central America * Maya civilization, pre-Columbian culture of Mesoamerica and northern Central America * Mayan languages, language family spoken ...

word for 'hill' () was the same word as in Turkish (''tepe''). His son Huveyda Mayatepek married to

Enver Pasha İsmâil Enver (; ; 23 November 1881 – 4 August 1922), better known as Enver Pasha, was an Ottoman Empire, Ottoman Turkish people, Turkish military officer, revolutionary, and Istanbul trials of 1919–1920, convicted war criminal who was a p ...

's daughter Turkan Mayatepek. Diplomat and businessman Osman Mayatepek is his grandson.

Career

Mayatepek wrote for years about the civilization of the

Maya Maya may refer to: Ethnic groups * Maya peoples, of southern Mexico and northern Central America ** Maya civilization, the historical civilization of the Maya peoples ** Mayan languages, the languages of the Maya peoples * Maya (East Africa), a p ...

, after which he was sent to Mexico in 1935 for three years by Atatürk as the new ambassador of Turkey to Mexico. At the request of Atatürk he continued his research and focused on the similarities of the Turkish language and the language of the Maya. When Mayatepek noticed that the Mayan word for 'hill' ('') showed great similarities with the Turkish equivalent ('tepe'), he wrote a report for the Turkish president Atatürk. This report became great news in Turkey and people began to believe in a common ancestor of both the Mexican Maya, and the Central Asian Turks. As a reward, Hasan Tahsin was granted the surname 'Mayatepek' (or 'Maya hill') from Atatürk himself. Afterwards Atatürk asked Mayatepek to also focus on other North American native languages like that of Inca, Aztecs and to see if a common languages was plausible between these languages and Turkish. After the fourteenth report of Mayatepek, Atatürk suspected Mayatepek of sending more of the same arguments to support this theory in order to prolong his stay in Mexico. Mayatepek was soon recalled from Mexico and no new ambassador was appointed until September 29, 1947.

Influence

Mayatepek laid the foundation for Mexican-Turkish relations and had a great influence in the way Mexico, and its indigenous peoples like

Mayans Maya () are an ethnolinguistic group of Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica. The ancient Maya civilization was formed by members of this group, and today's Maya are generally descended from people who lived w ...

Aztecs The Aztecs ( ) were a Mesoamerican civilization that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the ...

, and

Incas The Inca Empire, officially known as the Realm of the Four Parts (, ), was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The administrative, political, and military center of the empire was in the city of Cusco. The Inca civilisation rose fr ...

are seen in Turkey.

References

20th-century Turkish diplomats Ambassadors of Turkey to Mexico Year of birth missing Place of birth missing {{Turkey-bio-stub