When the Spanish conquered the Maya empire in the 16th century, they forced their new subjects to convert to Christianity and speak and write in Spanish. But long before the Maya used the Roman ...

Why did Maya writing remain undecipherable for so long and how was it finally cracked? Find out how this long enigmatic script was finally deciphered and how centuries of recorded Maya history were ...

NARRATOR: Imagine explorers arriving to find our cities deserted; our books have perished in some unknown catastrophe; all that is left to speak for us are the written words we have carved in stone.

History of decipherment -- The basics -- Introduction to the calendars : numbers, initial series, and long count -- The calendar round -- The supplementary and other series -- Period endings and ...