Red Rock Film Festival 2008

There are over six million Maya today. They have a rich and vibrant culture, and have guarded their traditions with great care. But for four centuries they have been a people cut off from the written record of their own extraordinary past.For almost 2000 years, the ancient Maya recorded their history and ideas in an intricate and beautiful script. Then, in the 16th century, Spanish invaders burned their books and ruthlessly extinguished hieroglyphic literacy. By the 18th century, when stone inscriptions were discovered buried in the jungles of Central America and bark-paper books began to surface in the libraries of Europe, no one on earth could read them.Breaking the Maya Code is the story of the struggle to unlock the secrets of the hieroglyphs, arguably one of the most complex writing systems ever created. It is based in large part on the book by archaeologist and historian Michael Coe, himself intimately involved in the decipherment story. His book has been called by the New York Times "one of the great stories of twentieth century scientific discovery". This is a detective story filled with misunderstandings and false leads, rivalries and colliding personalities. It leads us from the jungles of Guatemala to the bitter cold of Russia, from ancient Maya temples to the dusty libraries of Dresden and Madrid.Through one of the great intellectual achievements of the past 200 years, the words of the ancient Maya scribes have begun to speak once more.