For thousands of years.
Southeast Mexico and Central America
sheltered the Maya culture
one of humanities richest and most original
Here without metal tools or the wheel
the Maya built majestic cities
In nearby caves descendants of the ancient Maya
pray to the gods they have worshipped
for more than 100 generations
Many of the cities were abandoned
in the late ninth and early tenth centuries
Since that time the forest has been the silent guardian
of the mystery of the Maya
Today, these ruins are the inheritance
of the Maya people
The drawing if the glyph you asked me for is finished
Well, let's go see
what the experts in writing can tell us
You know what my ancestors wrote with this glyph?
Interesting question
That's been a mystery for hundreds of years
You're very much interested in our work
Yes!
Principally we archaeologists
are dedicated to digging up the past
to save the mystery of the Maya
It's like a puzzle that is solved piece by piece
Only here in Chichen?
No, no. We've been working
In different sites here, there
We've been studying for more than a hundred years
During the early 19th century
reports of ancient monuments hidden in the jungle
circulated round the world
Explorers who occasionally came across these ruins
tried to explain their mysterious presence
with fantastic theories
Tales of these lost cities
attracted North American John Lloyd Stephens
an explorer who had published books about his travels
In 1839, Stephens organized an expedition
to Central America
accompanied by the talented English artist
Frederick Catherwood
He wrote of the respect
he came to reel toward the people who guided him
and of the surprise at what he found
He recorded all the details of his explorations
with great elegance
For the first time we came to a building
constructed long before the Europeans
knew of the existence of this continent
I was filled with amazement and admiration
for the beauty and solidity of the architecture
Here was a true palace with royal apartments
surrounded by magnificent courtyards.
The walls and pillars were richly ornamented
with reliefs and figures so beautifully created
that it was easy to see the artistic ability
of the Maya people.
With the aid of a camera lucida
Catherwood made many drawings.
Historians say America was peopled by savages
"but savages never rained these structures
"Savages never carved these stones.
"Their accomplishments were worthy
to stand beside those of Egypt, Greece and Rome."
In 1841, Stephens published his book
illustrated by Catherwood
and contributed important information
toward the knowledge of the Maya cities.
Stephens recognized the native origins of the ruins
and admired the beauty of the cities.
Alfred Maudslay was one of the first
to study the ancient Maya cities with a scientific approach
Maudslay drew derailed plans
and made sketches of the monuments
In this manner he established a base
for later archaeological studies
He carefully analyzed the sculptured motifs
which decorated the walls of the buildings
His attention was caught
by the frequent representation of the serpent
The molds of reliefs and glyphs which he made
enabled the study of the inscriptions
The best of my tools was the camera
The dry gelatin negative had just been invented
and this enabled photographers to work
in previously inaccessible places
The major contribution of Maudslay was his photographs
which have since been used in the restoration and preservation
of many objects believed to have been lost
to erosion, vandalism and theft
Some of the monuments photographed by Maudslay
reveal the richness of design carved in stone
For many years, it was thought
That these carving represented gods and priests
and that the glyphs
were concerned only with the calendar
Much later, we came to know their real significance
Some of these designs were also found
in the Maya books we call codices
Only four of these have survived
They contain glyphs
We must send yours away for deciphering
Most of the knowledge we have of ancient Maya life
comes from the writings of a Franciscan-Diego de Landa-
a monk who came to Yucatan in 1549
He used to observe the Maya and noted their use of glyphs
and later, tried to translate them into Spanish
In his writings
Landa established the base for deciphering the glyphs
which were a mixture of syllables and words
They wrote in their books about their sciences
The sciences they taught
were the counting of days, months and years
festivals and ceremonies
cures for illness
and the art of reading and writing
We found a great number of such books
Since they contained nothing but the words of the devil
we burned them all which caused them much grief
In his attempt to convert the Maya to Christianity
Landa destroyed their religious possessions
burning many of the codices
What happened to the writing if the books were destroyed?
Fortunately, the Maya wrote not only in books
we find writing on their stone monuments
and on pottery
as on this plate found in the Yucatan area
It's a passage
from the "Popol Yuh," a Maya legend
The glyphic writing was forgotten
After the burning of the codices
50 years after Maudslay's photos were published
they were also used by scholars to study the glyphs
and inspired many expeditions to the region
As the first glyphs were decoded
it was believed that all the texts were religious in nature
concerned with the passage of time
and the observation of the stars
It was thought the Maya were peaceful people
living in harmony with nature
scattered in the jungle
In 1946, a discovery was made
which cast more light on the mystery of the Maya
The theories were about to dramatically change
Photographer Giles Healy was making an expedition
to jungle in habited by the Lacandon
I spent more than two years
In the region with the Lacandon Indians
filming their daily life
I noted that from time to time
the men would disappear for a couple of day
They were making a pilgrimage to a temple
but it was impossible to follow them
so I gave them shotguns with a smell amount powder
and left for a month two
When I return they said
"We like your guns, but we're out of powder"
So I said "I'll give you more powder"
if you'll show me more temples
I'll never forget being guided to Bonampak
They looked to the temples with much reverence
conducting a ceremony as we arrived at each one
As my was become accustomed to the dim lamplight
I saw that each room
was painted with frescos
that showed a file of Maya chiefs in full regalia
These paintings changed many of ideas
which were held about the Maya
Never before had we seen scenes of battle, slavery and torture
painted of the Maya themselves
Ah, here's the response
So rapidly?
Yes. Let's see what it says
"This is a glyph of fire, and this is a rodent
"Haleb"in Maya or 'tepescuintle'
"but we can't know the full meaning
without the missing portion."
That translation looked easy
But is was the work of people
of many countries over many years
The first clue to the Maya writing was the numbers
The Maya established their units
based on man's 20 digits
They were one of only four civilizations
to develop the concept of zero
Numbers were put in different positions
Dots were worth one
One, two, three, four
and five was a bar
15 is three bars
19 is three bars and four dots
20 is one dot in a higher position
with a shell for zero below
A dot above with a dot below is 21
A dot above with a bar below is 25
Two dots above means two 20s, or 40
A bar in the upped position means five 20s-100
A dot with two zeros below is 400
A dot with three zeros below is 8,000
8,421
The Maya were great mathematicians
and astronomers
They calculated the length of the solar year
with an error of only 23 seconds
the cycle of Venus with a margin of error
of only one day in 6,000 years
Some of the buildings of Chichen ltza
were so constructed
as to mark the equinox and solstices
They also knew the cycle of Mars, Jupiter
and Saturn
and were able to calculate eclipses of the sun
33 years ahead
All this was recorded in their books
and fortunately on stone, too
In 1921
the decoding of the tablet of 96 glyphs at Palenque began
By 1935, Enrique Palacios had accomplished the deciphering
of the first few
Eric Thomson solved others in 1944
while the linguist Yuri Knorosof
discovered phonetics in the Maya writing
By 1958, half the glyphs could be read
in the '60s, Heinrich Berlin and Tatiana Proskovriokoff
In the '70s Linda Schele
and Floyd Lounsbury with Peter Mathews
discovered title glyphs of the royal family
Finally, in 1990 the whole panel could be read
The panel told the history of royal family of Palenque
their wars, and the transmission of power to young kings
Among these was Pakal ruler of Palenque
king from the age of 12 and governing until 80
It was ceremonies such as this
Which were recorded in stone in all the Maya cities
Plaenque was studied intensively by
the Mexican National Institute of Anthropolgy and History
In 1949 the Mexican archeologist
Alberto Ruz
decided to investigate the temple of the inscriptions
to see if it had been built on top of another building
Ruz noticed that the wall of the temple
did not finish at the floor but appeared to continue below
Intrigued, he discovered that one of the huge stone slabs
had plugs which enabled it to be moved
As the slab was moved a narrow opening was revealed
a secret passageway
As we cleared the passage several steps appeared
I immediately resolved to follow the stairs to its end
in spite of the exhausting work this implied
During the next three years
The work progressed painfully slowly
400 tons of rubble was removed by hand
By the end of the third season we had not found a single clue
I imagined that the stairs had been deliberately sealed
to conceal their original purpose
but I had no idea what this purpose was
In 1952, while working deep inside the pyramid
we found a room which seemed to have no exit
The floor was completely covered
by a monumental slab of carved stone
This slab was supported by an immense block
with carved reliefs
Oh, fantastico
Extraordinario
As the stone was lifted centimeter by centimeter
my excitement grew
A smaller lid was hidden beneath
We had discovered the tomb of a king
the first to be discovered in a Maya pyramid
The buried king was Pakal
The scene carved on the lid of the sarcophagus
described the descent of the king
on his journey to the world of the dead
the Maya still worship the gods of the underworld Xibalba:
The place of fright
When the sun slides below the horizon
the sun god ltzamna becomes jaguar
god of the underworld which has nine levels
each with its respective god
The sky has 13 levels
The earth is flat and ruled by Chacs, gods of rain
The physical and supernatural worlds are interwoven
The work of archeologists, epigraphers
and scientists continues
The archeologists use the latest technological advances
to assemble the jigsaw puzzle of the ancient civilization
The remains of buildings
from thousands of years ago can be traced
and maps of them produced with the help of computers
There are many sites which have been studied
And contrary to what was thought for a long time
these were not only ceremonial centers
but real cities-some enormous and densely populated
Look, let me show you
The Maya built many huge cities
some with populations of about 40,000 inhabitants
ruled by supreme governor the divine Ahau
The buildings were brilliantly colored
and covered with symbols
These marvelous cities were abandoned
In the ninth and tenth centuries
Why, remains a mystery
The culture of the ancient Maya
builders of the majestic cities disappeared
But the Maya culture, knowledge and artistry is still present
in the life of today's Maya
who link the past the present and the future