Cracking Maya Code Cracking the Maya Code

In the early 200's A.D. The area around Southern Mexico and Guatemala was the home to a civilization that rivaled any on Earth. They built enormous stone buildings, carved with images and writing, and thrived for centuries. However, in the 9th century they inexplicably abandoned their cities and their civilization was lost to time. While much of their culture disappeared, they still maintained some semblance of traditional Mayan culture up to the time of the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th century. But the arrival of the Spanish brought with them the Catholic Church who sought to convert the natives of the Americas to Christianity by any means necessary. One such zealot, Diego de Landa, viewed the Mayan Hieroglyphics as tools of the devil and an impediment to his conversion of the Mayan people....

The Mayan insistence on worshipping their traditional gods caused a major crackdown by de Landa who not only punished those who refused to accept Christianity, but also set out to destroy all traces of Mayan culture. This resulted in the destruction of hundreds of ancient Mayan books and the annihilation of the Mayan writing system. In fact only four Mayan manuscripts survived the Spanish devastation.
It wasn't until the early 1800's when Spanish explorer, Jose Calderon, discovered the ancient city of Palenque and the large stone tablets with figures and hieroglyphs carved on to them, that interest in Mayan culture was reignited. As the news of this discovery spread, beginning in 1832 many researchers came to Central America to sketch these inscriptions but their misunderstanding of the symbolism caused most to copy many inscriptions wrong.…