Breaking the Mayan Code, NOVA ,2008 (grade B+)

From the PBS SERIES NOVA --here is a winner.

sez says: This subject is fascinating all by itself--that is how do you break a code and learn to read a language that is near dead, etc.  But add to that, the history of why we knew so little for so long, and a new importance is added --that is to see how we, as humans, stumble all over ourselves creating, and destroying and struggling back to understanding.  What I didn't know in its entirety is that Europeans--by way of the Catholic Church--burned libraries in the effort to destroy the Mayan culture and language. I knew they had engaged in torturing people to convert them to Catholicism, and that they may have made the violence that the Mayan people themselves practiced, look tame in their rampage against all things Mayan. But the loss of all of the written history I didn't know about.  But what they didn't destroy were all of the building that were hidden under the jungle's growth--and those building were covered with symbols/hieroglyphics.  Once discovered these markings ignited the curiosity-turned to passion--of multiple generations of people who worked to decipher the meaning of these markings.  Throw in the Cold War, which kept people from working together and toss that with human pride, a little one-ups-man-ship and a 12 year old genius and slowly, slowly we find our way back from the time of the original book burnings into the light of  some understanding about who the Mayans were. This is well worth watching--and while I'm not sure I really understand how they finally broke the code, I now know something about how it was done. (Grade B+)