archaeologists again referred to landa's book. bishop landa said that, hey, these people are celebrating new year's day on 12 kan, zero pop, and that's july 16, 1556. and knowing that and knowing that an eclipse is mentioned on a certain date in the dresden codex we can begin to put all of those together and come up with a system that matches and is consistent throughout. keach: archaeologists could now place the maya in the context of world history. most maya inscriptions date from a.d. 300 to 900. but what had they written ? the meaning of the other glyphs remained a mystery. a bizarre picture of the maya was beginning to emerge. stuart: these texts were accompanied by figures, scenes. and since they didn't understand anything but the dates there was no way of telling who was depicted or what the scene was about. and thinking that perhaps the figures were priests and here was a gentle people obsessed with time and nothing else the maya began to take on a non-human aspect. here was the strangest race of people that ever lived --

landa only knew alphabets-- that's all that he could really imagine writing could be. and so he wrote down an a, b, c but he was writing down signs that made no sense as an alphabet. the glyphs were associated with maya religion directly. he saw thelyphs as a reflection of that idolatry that had to be destroyed. and so he's very famous, for gathering together these... these manuscripts and having a bonfire-- destroying them all. (narrator) only three or four codices survived-- manuscripts made from the bark of fig trees. cracking the maya code has been a long and painstaking process. scholars gradually have identified sentence structures and realized that the mayan language was far more sophisticated than any other mesoamerican language. it's a complex system based on more than 500 hieroglyphs. it has sentences. it has verbs. it has adjectives. just like any other language. and deciphering the individual sounds eventually has allowed us to read whole texts. (narrator) those texts have revealed the political history of palenque and the identity of the maya king buried i

and: a dangerous discovery landa pet the e-r. nee uncovers t stete you can take to avoioi scary y tutun. right now-- lanes of platte avenue a2e closed-- becausof a seris roll-ovevecras thappeneabout an hr ago pows evard. is is a live pturef th scenem- whwhe a a r is on s side. westbound d attetes osed... as sththsouthbound ramp om rs to westd platte. wororon injuries but policesay to avoid t t area. heheo and thanks for joining us for news five e ten. i'm rob quirk. d i'i'lisa lyden. 122-thousand. that's theumber of democra whturned out for c ccuses in colorado lght --a w rdbesting rnout fror 08 b2-thousand t the rnout and eneniasmsm during last night's s ucuses with tcucusystememn our parts.s. news 5's zach axton n s been partrttotoy. za, why e they so set? itit not j jt party ads that are upset -- it's voterstoo. consid a n-scienfic po taken by our denver r ster station last night -- a a opping 97- percent said they y ef a primary to a caus,nd now both partiti are askskto return to the prary system. vo#1 the turnrnt was incredi

in 1562, bishop diego de landa ordered them destroyed. "we found a large number of books in these characters, "and as they contained nothing "in which there were not to be seen "superstition and lies of the devil, "we burned them all, "which caused them much affliction." ironically, a book by bishop landa himself proved crucial to the understanding of maya writing. stuart: and in it is everything that he observed in yucatan

landa only knew alphabets-- that's all that he could really imagine writing could be. and so he wrote down an a, b, c but he was writing down signs that made no sense as an alphabet. the glyphs were associated with maya rigion directly. he saw thelyphs as a reflection of that idolatry that had to be destroyed. and so he's very famous, for gathering together these... these manuscripts and having a bonfire-- destroying them all. (narrator) only three or four codices survived-- manuscripts made from the bark of fig trees. cracking the maya code has been a long and painstaking process. scholars gradually have identified sentence structures and realized that the mayan language was far more sophisticated than any other mesoamerican language. it's a complex system based on more than 500 hieroglyphs. it has sentences. it has verbs. it has adjectives. just like any other language. and deciphering the individual sounds eventually has allowed us to read whole texts. (narrator) those texts have revealed the political history of palenque and the identity of the maya king buried in

landa only knew alphabets-- that's all that he could really imagine writing could be. and so he wrote down an a, b, c but he was writing down signs that made no sense as an alphabet. the glyphs were associated with maya rigion directly. he saw thelyphs as a reflection of that idolatry that had to be destroyed. and so he's very famous, for gathering together these... these manuscripts and having a bonfire-- destroying them all. (narrator) only three or four codices survived-- manuscripts made from the bark of fig trees. cracking the maya code has been a long and painstaking process. scholars gradually have identified sentence structures and realized that the mayan language was far more sophisticated than any other mesoamerican language. it's a complex system based on more than 500 hieroglyphs. it has sentences. it has verbs. it has adjectives. just like any other language. and deciphering the individual sounds eventually has allowed us to read whole texts. (narrator) those texts have revealed the political history of palenque and the identity of the maya king buried in

cntry thaad incredible perty, whermost ofof ouresourcesere c ctrolled om americacompanie where the landas notilled --as tied by thpeopleuthose people d not g g the rhes. ovements basiclyly a for soal jusce and f puing intohe centeof hiory the al protanist of thatistory, eryday m and women whouilt the country- the pele who s prai now but generly left behi and negcted and footten. istory, a ment in buvery imptant becse alnde was saying the wor, weo not neetoepress, iminate, sensoour versarie we d't ed to kl other pele in ord to have cial justic we can do is throu peacefu means. allend jns gandhand mart luth king anso many other wonderful people of history saying, there is a way of changing the realility, of changing everythining -- we do't have t to leave the world in the same way in whihich we fofound . we can create a different world ahead of us. and it was a wonderful experiment. it was an experiment that lasted 1000 days. but those 1000 days, wonderful things happen. amy: i want to go to today to the republican national convention to the former governor of south carolina, then the u.s.

those things early on, i think really does enhance the foundation that they will build on ultimately. landa brown-willie: we read every day, maybe three or four times a day, in between me coming from school and going to work. and then my oldest two daughters also read to him at night. so it's very important because he's getting ready to start kindergarten next year, so he really needs to know what he's doing. catherine parrish: it's a ry exciting thg who never owned a book before gave them one. i have moms who haven't learned to read themselves, who've gone to literacy programs after i started giving their children books. i have moms who have come back after three and four years in this program with their young toddler going to kindergarten reading, so excited that their children can read already. and it's just a very, very positive and rewarding thing and it's something we can do to give kids a step ahead in this urban community. but health professionals caution that the idea is to stimulate baes for normal development-- not to hurry them along. now, throw it to me. ck it up. throw it to m