Lost Civilization Maya 2 of 6

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Stevens understood this exotic

civilization had not been developed

elsewhere by others and brought across

the Atlantic the Maya he suggested were

unique his writings marked a turning

point a new era of exploration had

begun adventurers and eccentrics came

from all over the

world one French explorer arrived in

Mexico with 4,000 lb of

luggage and there was only one way to

carry

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[Laughter]

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it not even the dense and dangerous

rainforest deterred them more than the

promise of buried treasure LED these men

into the unexplored reaches of Central

America they were seeking answers to the

riddle of A Lost

Civilization they found treasure in

abundance but an understanding of the

Ancient Maya proved

elusive archaeologists probed the jungle

for decades discovering great monuments

in astounding

profusion most intriguing of all

hundreds of pyramids that like sacred

mountains reared up from the jungle

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floor but the purpose of these pyramids

remained a

mystery then in 1957 it would all

change the place was the classic Maya

city of pen

the great Mexican archaeologist Alberto

Rose had spent four years Excavating the

most impressive pyramid at the site the

Temple of

inscriptions now he stood at the

threshold of

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Discovery I entered the mysterious

chamber with the strange sensation

natural for the first one to tread the

entrance steps in a thousand

years I wanted to eff face the centuries

and hear the vibrations of the last

human voices beneath these massive

vaults across the impenetrable veil of

time I sought The Impossible bond

between their lives and

ours in the center of the burial chamber

was an enormous Stone

tomb his men worked feverishly to raise

its massive Li

I was gazing at the death pH of him for

whom all the stupendous work the Crypt

the stairway the Great Pyramid with its

crowning Temple had been

built this rare film shows Roose moments

after his dramatic Discovery but a

ruined skeleton and a precious Jade mask

only raised further questions that

nobody not even Roose could

answer who was

he what happened in his life that his

death warranted such ceremony

who was the man behind the jeweled

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mask the Maya did leave Clues but they

are cryptic coded and

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opaque only by deciphering this evidence

can we understand the meaning of their

sacred temples the personality of the

men and women who built them and the

reason for their sudden disappearance

from the cities they

abandoned a century and a half ago John

Lloyd Stevens predicted that the strange

indecipherable Engravings on their

Monument walls held the key to the

mystery of the

Maya he was right but only now after one

of the greatest codebreaking Feats of

all time can the secrets of these silent

Stones finally be

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revealed the sacred world of the classic

Maya should never have become a

mystery they left after all an abundant

written record

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an independently invented writing system

incredibly one of only five produced in

the history of the

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world these were texts imbued with

magical power descriptions of their

Cosmos Chronicles of their dreams

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beautiful fragile documents they were a

truly remarkable

achievement a unique and totally

original written language as momentous

as the hieroglyphs of ancient

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Egypt they bear witness to the birth of

the first written langage anguage in the

new

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world the importance of these texts was

recognized by the first European

Invaders centuries

ago in 1562 a devout Catholic priest

named Diego danda convinced one of the

last surviving Maya scribes to translate

the Spanish alphabet into Maya Landa

fervently wanted to bring Christianity

to the

Maya he felt learning their language was

his best hope of reaching the people he

yearned to

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convert Landa dedicated his life to

understanding the Maya and to saving

their

souls still his memory memory is not

revered rather it is

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reviled L was distraught I think maybe

even destroyed when he discovered that

people that he believed and had come to

know had been converted to Christianity

and he found them continuing to practice

Pagan rituals he just he lost it he went

absolutely crazy and he began to try to

root out and extrap any remants of

ancient

religion in a single night this man of

God burned hundreds of precious books

books containing their science their l