Imagine you're this prominent antiquities collector,
right? It's the mid -1960s. OK, I'm picturing
it. Lots of tweed. Maybe a magnifying glass.
Yeah, exactly. And you are approached by two
mysterious men who tell you they have something
incredible. But the catch is you have to come
with them right now. Oh, that doesn't sound sketchy
at all. Right. So they put you on this tiny rattling
light plane. And mid -flight, They literally
throw a cloth over the plane's compass. Wait,
they covered the compass? Yeah. So you have absolutely
no idea what heading you're taking into the Mexican
jungle. Wow. I mean, that is straight out of
an Indiana Jones movie. It totally is. So you
eventually land on this remote dirt airstrip
somewhere in the foothills of the Sierra Madre
near Tortuguero and Chiapas. OK, middle of nowhere.
Exactly. And there, these looters present you
with a wooden box that they pulled from a dry
cave. And what's in the box? Well, it's a wild
mix. There's a turquoise mask, a knife handle,
a child's sandal, some ancient rope, and blank
pieces of ancient pre -Columbian fig bark paper.
OK, that's quite a haul. But the centerpiece
is this painted, screen folded book. Oh, wow.
I mean, as an expert, if you hear that narrative,
every single academic alarm bell in your head
should be ringing. Right. You'd immediately assume
you're being pitched a very elaborate black market
scam. You'd have to. It's the ultimate sketchy
origin story. Well, welcome to today's deep dive.
We're taking a massive stack of research, including
this really fascinating Wikipedia article, to
unravel the mystery of the Maya Codex of Mexico.
It's such a wild ride, this story. It really
is. Our mission today is to track the unbelievable
journey of what turned out to be the oldest surviving
book of the Americas. Which is just staggering
to think about. Yeah, because for decades, literally
the smartest historians in the world dismissed
this book as a clever modern forgery. They looked
at that blindfolded flight and just laughed it
out of the room. And you can't really blame them,
right? No, totally. But modern science eventually
stepped in and proved its astonishing 1 ,000
-year -old truth. And I think for you listening,
if you find yourself constantly trying to figure
out what is real and what is fake in our current
information age, this story is basically a master
class in authentication. Whoa, 100%. We are going
to look at how deep -seated academic biases can
completely blind us to the truth. and how raw,
unyielding material evidence eventually forces
that truth into the light. It's this crazy blend
of messy human history with rigorous material
science and ancient astronomical math. Yeah,
the math part is mind -bending, but let's play
devil's advocate for a moment regarding that
messy history. Okay, let's do it. The collector
on that plane was Dr. Josue Science. In 1965,
he brings this book out of the jungle. Right.
And honestly, reading about this blindfolded
flight, I completely side with the experts who
called it a fake. Oh, absolutely. I mean, the
antiquities market in the 1960s was notoriously
flooded with brilliant forgeries. Why did science
or anyone else really give this thing the time
of day? Well, context is the bedrock of archaeology.
Without knowing an object's precise provenance,
like the exact soil layer it was buried in, the
surrounding artifacts, the exact geographical
coordinates, you lose the vast majority of its
historical data. Right. It's just a thing out
of context. Exactly. A looted object is essentially
a mute object. And the first antiquities expert
science consulted looked at the codex and flat
out declared it a fake. Just right away. Right
away. But science bought it anyway. He negotiated
a deal where he could take the items back to
Mexico City to examine them. Something in his
gut just told him the book was genuine. But his
gut feeling obviously wasn't enough for the academic
establishment. No, not at all. Because you have
the famous English Mayanist J. Eric S. Thompson,
and he was basically a towering Tweeten in the
field of Maya studies at the time. Oh, he was
the guy. If Thompson said something, that was
the law. Right. And he publicly heavily doubted
its authenticity. And the kicker is he cast this
massive shadow of doubt in 1975 without ever
even seeing the manuscript in person. We never
saw it. Never saw it. He based his dismissal
entirely on the absurd story of its discovery
and like a few photographs. That is wild. But
Thompson's influence was immense. When a figure
of his stature declares something a hoax, the
rest of the academic world tends to just fall
in line. Yeah, nobody wants to go against the
titan. Exactly. But despite the overwhelming
backlash, science did allow the archaeologist
Michael Koh, who was one of the very few early
believers, to display the Codex at the Grolier
Club in New York in 1971. Oh, okay. That makes
sense. That exhibition is why the document was
known for decades as the Grolier Codex, right?
Yes, exactly. But the controversy just relentlessly
followed it. So what happened after the New York
exhibition? Well, by 1976, the U .S.-Mexico Artifacts
Treaty was invoked. The Codex was seized, returned
to Mexico, and science eventually donated it
to the government. And then it just effectively
vanished into a vault in the National Museum
of Anthropology, right? Yeah, it sat there for
years, locked away in the dark, entirely because
the academic consensus deemed it too radioactive,
too likely to be a scam to even study properly.
That is so frustrating. But I guess traditional
archaeology and art history had reached a complete
stalemate. They really had. You had experts arguing
over stylistic interpretations, the shape of
the painted deities, the plausibility of the
looting story. It was just going in circles.
Right. So to actually uncover the truth, the
investigation had to abandon subjective observation.
They had to transition from the magnifying glass
to the mass spectrometer. Ooh, CSI Mesoamerica.
I like it. Exactly. So Mexico's National Institute
of Anthropology and History NIH, they coordinated
this massive barrage of scientific tests that
culminated in 2018. And they finally subjected
it to real modern testing. Right. They did rigorous
radiocarbon dating. And the results came back
conclusive. The codex dates between 1021 and
1154 C .D. Wow, so solidly the 11th or 12th century.
Yep, which officially makes it the oldest surviving
codex from Mexico and the oldest book in the
Americas. But detractors still tried to poke
holes in it, didn't they? Oh, of course they
did. Because earlier radiocarbon tests, like
back in 1972 and 2012, had also pointed to the
11th century. But the skeptics argued the ultimate
forgers loophole. Oh, right the blank paper Yeah,
they said remember that dry cave science found
blank pieces of ancient ma paper sitting right
next to the codex So they argued that a clever
mid -century forger simply took that blank 1
,000 year old paper and painted fresh beaties
on it to fool the carbon dating Which honestly
is a pretty good argument if you're a skeptic
and they pointed to the physical damage on the
pages to support this how so well they They looked
at the crisply cut edges of the codex, and they
argued these edges were obviously sliced with
modern scissors by a 1960s scammer who was trying
to clean up the ancient paper. Oh, I see, like
trimming the frayed edges. Exactly. But the Mexican
scientific studies brought in entomologists to
look closely at those edges. Bug experts. Bug
experts. And they found out those crisp limes
weren't from scissors at all. They were the result
of tiny arthropods chewing on the edges over
centuries. Wait, really? Yes. World -class experts
literally confuse microscopic bug bite patterns
with a pair of office scissors. That is just
incredible. It's confirmation bias in action.
Totally. If you already believe it's a fake,
you look at a straight edge and you just see
a scissor cut. But a forger does not leave microscopic,
century -spanning termite tracks. Exactly. And
beyond the bug bites, the material science dismantled
the forgery theory layer by layer. Let's talk
about the paper engineering because this isn't
just fly— bark. Right, it's highly engineered.
Yeah, it's three -ply amit paper. Meticulously
engineered to be folded like an accordion into
a screen fold format, and both sides of the paper
were prepared with a foundation of gypsum. which
is calcium sulfate. To make it smooth. Yeah,
they applied a layer measuring just 0 .2 to 0
.3 millimeters thick. Oh, wow. So it's essentially
ancient drywall compound spread incredibly thin
just to create a perfectly smooth white canvas
for writing. That's a great way to put it. But
the thing that truly destroys the forgery theory
is the ink. The ink is the smoking gun here.
It really is. They didn't just test the paper.
Physicists from the National Autonomous University
of Mexico used non -destructive ion beam techniques
to identify the exact chemical makeup of the
colors. And non -destructive testing is so vital
here. You can't just scrape pieces of pigment
off a fragile, priceless artifact. Right. You'd
ruin it. So the ion beams literally bounce off
the material and tell us the chemical signature.
That's so cool. What did they find? They found
hematite for the reds, lamp black for the outlines.
and a brown made from crushed kookneel insects.
Crushed bugs. Nice. Very standard for the time.
But most crucially, they found genuine Maya blue.
And that is the nail in the coffin. Because a
1960s forger wouldn't know how to synthesize
genuine Maya blue. Exactly. It is a highly complex
pigment made from indigo dye. and a very specific
clay called polygorsky. Making Maya blue isn't
just like mixing a blue paint with a white paint
on a palette. Well, not at all. It requires chemically
baking the indigo into the clay so they lock
together at a molecular level. A molecular level.
Wow. Yeah, think of it like putting a letter
into a heavy steel safe rather than just slipping
it into a paper envelope. That molecular bond
protects the color from degrading over time.
Which is why it's still blue a thousand years
later. Right. And a mid -century scammer simply
did not have the combination to that safe. They
didn't understand the complex thermal chemistry
required to bind those materials the way the
11th century Maya did. That's amazing. And the
pigment degradation also perfectly matched centuries
of environmental exposure. Oh, because of the
cave. Yeah, the cave wasn't perfectly dry its
whole life. The Codex survived at least three
distinct periods of extreme high moisture. and
you simply cannot fake a thousand years of humidity
cycles in a basement art studio. You really can't.
So, the fact that a scribe went to the immense
trouble of engineering three -ply paper, coating
it in microscopic gypsum, and synthesizing Maya
Blue at a molecular level, it tells us this wasn't
just casual artwork. No, definitely not. The
subject matter had to be of vital, existential
importance to their society. And when we look
at the actual pages, we see exactly why. I mean,
this wasn't a storybook. It was quite literally
a matter of life and death. Well, let's break
down what's actually on these pages. OK, so the
Codex originally had 20 pages. The first eight
and the last two are missing, leaving 10 surviving
pages. And only the front, the recto side, is
painted. So it's very structured. Highly rigid.
Every single page features a standing deity facing
left. Down the left -hand side is a column of
13 repeated day signs. Across the top are these
mathematical markers called ring numbers. And
what are those numbers doing? They are spelling
out a terrifying apocalyptic countdown clock
based on the movements of the planet Venus. Venus.
Really? Yeah. I mean, it requires a major shift
in modern perspective to understand this. Today,
you know, we associate Venus with the Roman goddess
of love and beauty. Right. It's romantic. But
Mesoamerican culture has viewed Venus as an incredibly
dangerous, aggressive, and warlike celestial
entity. Well, warlike planet. That's so different.
Completely different. They believe the movements
of the stars and planets directly dictated earthly
events. Things like warfare, the spread of disease,
the failure of crops. And they were specifically
terrified of its heliacal rise. The heliacal
rise. Yeah. That's when Venus first becomes visible
in the morning sky after a period of absence.
Its light was perceived literally as spears or
arrows striking people down. Oh, wow. So the
light itself was dangerous. Yes. And because
the threat was so severe, they needed an to track
it with absolute unforgiving precision. Which
is what the Codex is. It tracks Venus's 584 -day
synodic cycle. Let's explain what a synodic cycle
is for a second. Sure. It's simply the time it
takes for a planet to return to the exact same
position relative to the Sun as seen from Earth.
Okay, got it. And the Maya broke this 584 -day
cycle into four highly specific phases based
on what they could actually observe in the sky.
And the math here is just mind -bending for a
society working without modern optical telescopes.
So let's walk through those four phases. Okay.
First, Venus enters what astronomers call superior
conjunction. Superior conjunction. What does
that mean visually? It simply means Venus is
hiding behind the Sun from our perspective on
Earth. The Sun's mass blocks it entirely, which
is why the planet vanishes from the sky for 90
days. OK, so 90 days of invisibility. Next, it
emerges from behind the Sun and appears as the
evening star for 250 days. Right. And then comes
the most terrifying phase, inferior conjunction.
Why is that the terrifying one? Because inferior
conjunction occurs when Venus crosses directly
between the Earth and the Sun. It disappears
again, this time lost in the Sun's blinding glare,
for a brief window of just eight days. Only eight
days? Yeah. And symbolically for the Maya, the
planet has descended into the underworld during
those eight days. Oh, creepy. So finally it bursts
out of that glare and emerges as the morning
star for 236 days, shooting its dangerous rays
down at the earth. Exactly. So you add those
phases up 90 plus 250 plus eight plus 236 and
you get exactly 584 days. That is incredibly
precise. It gets better. The ancient astronomers
took the math even further. They linked the Venus
cycle perfectly to the solar calendar. Wait,
how does that work? Well, five of these 584 -day
Venus cycles equals 2 ,910 days. OK. Eight solar
years of exactly 365 days also equals exactly
2 ,920 days. Oh, wow. Right. It is an elegant,
deeply complex mathematical harmony connecting
this dangerous planet to the life -giving sun.
That is just beautiful math, and the Codex calculates
these exact days using a hybrid numbering system.
A hybrid system. Yeah, it mixes traditional Maya
bar and dot numeration with the single dots used
in central Mexico. So on page seven, for example,
a priest could use those ring numbers to count
exactly eight days from a specific date. Ah,
calculating that exact eight -day window of inferior
conjunction. Precisely. They knew exactly when
Venus would rise at the morning star so they
could prepare for the cosmic danger. And, you
know, the visual iconography on the pages perfectly
matches that intense dread. The descriptions
of the deities are absolutely brutal. Like, page
one depicts the god Kaolwil taking a human captive.
Right out of the gate, human captive. Yeah. Page
2 features the Death God, known to the Maya as
Kimi. Page 5 shows a solar deity literally setting
a temple on fire using a dart launched from an
atlat. An atlat of being an ancient spear -thrower.
Yep, a spear -thrower. But page 6 is perhaps
the most striking visual of all. Oh, describe
page 6! It illustrates another Death God, likely
La Huizcal Ponticutli, who is the central Mexican
god of the Morning Star. Okay, so the Morning
Star god himself. Right. And this Dee Dee Dee
is wielding a massive knife, he holds a decapitated
god by the hair, and he actually has a jagged
flint blade shoved violently into his own nasal
cavity. Oh my god. That is horrific. It's very
intense. It's just a relentless parade of aggression.
Page 7 features a deity standing in front of
the Shiner Tree, which researchers believe might
be issuing Radiant Jade Disks. Okay, slightly
less bloody, but still intense. Right, but then
on page 10, a skeletal death deity throws a dart
into a body of water to spear a snail -like creature.
I mean, every single image reinforces warfare,
sacrifice, and cosmic threat tied directly to
Venus. Which makes perfect sense when you consider
the historical context. This hyper -precise tracking
of doom didn't happen during a peaceful golden
age. No, it definitely didn't. The radiocarbon
dating placed the creation of this book right
in the early post -classic period, around the
1021 to 1154 CE. And the context of that era
perfectly explains the intense anxiety radiating
from the Codex. Because the early post -classic
was an era of massive instability. Massive. The
great classic Maya cities had already collapsed
centuries earlier. And by the 11th century, even
the later power centers like Chichen Itza in
the Yucatan and Tula in central Mexico were rapidly
waning in power. So the whole region is just
falling apart. Exactly. Trade routes were fracturing.
Old political alliances were dissolving. The
entire Mesoamerican world was in a state of political
and social decline. And when societies are in
flux like that and populations are migrating
or just desperately seeking stability, cultures
inevitably mix. Yes, which perfectly explains
why the Codex features a hybrid artistic style.
Right, because it's not purely classic Maya.
No, it blends Maya mathematics with artistic
styles from central Mexico, Oaxaca, and the Mixtec
people. Even the proportions of the human figures
on the pages actually resemble the fine orange
ceramics traded during that specific transitional
period. It's kind of like the ancient equivalent
of globalization during a crisis. That's exactly
what it is. And looking at the physical workmanship
of the scribe. brings this history into incredibly
sharp focus. Yeah, the researchers noted something
really interesting about the underdrawings, the
initial sketches on the gypsum. They are remarkably
casual and rough. Rough sketches, huh? Yeah,
and when the scribe came back to do the final
painting, the painted lines actually deviate
significantly from the sketches. Oh, that's fascinating.
It's the exact same energy as a modern comic
book artist hastily inking over a rough pencil
sketch, because they are desperately up against
a publication deadline. Brushed. Researchers
like Michael Coe and Stephen Houston deeply analyzed
the brushwork and concluded we are likely looking
at the labor of a single highly competent scribe.
Just one person doing all this. Likely, yeah.
This scribe had to work rapidly but precisely,
switching between at least two different tools.
Two tools? Yeah, they used a thick brush to apply
the viscous pigments needed for the rigid, blocky
columns of day signs. And then they switch to
a much finer instrument to carefully handle the
detailed, violent imagery of the deities and
weapons. Just visualize that person for a second.
One scribe sitting in a deteriorating city, rapidly
switching between two brushes. They're hastily
sketching, yet expertly calculating the 500 -any
-four -day cycle of a killer planet. It just
strips away the myth and grounds the artifact
in sheer human labor. It really does. You can
feel the historical anxiety. Absolutely. Their
society is collapsing around them and they are
frantically calculating the movements of the
stars to find some sort of cosmic order or at
least a warning of what's coming next. It completely
humanizes the codex. It wasn't conjured by magic.
It was engineered by a human being living in
a terrifying era utilizing the absolute pinnacle
of their culture, science, and mathematics to
navigate a deeply dangerous universe. The journey
of the Maya Codex of Mexico is just... I mean,
it started as an apocalyptic survival guide in
a collapsing 11th century world. It ended up
shoved into a wooden box in a dry cave, looted
and flown blindfolded on a rattling light plane
into the hands of a collector. And then it faced
50 years of intense academic skepticism. It was
literally locked in a dark vault because the
smartest experts of the day couldn't look past
the chaotic nature of its discovery. But the
physical evidence simply weighed them out. It
really did. pre -ply amit paper, the molecularly
bonded Maya blue, the extreme moisture degradation,
and those microscopic bug bites, they all just
patiently waited for the mass spectrometers of
2018 to catch up and validate their truth. You
know, sometimes the most profound knowledge requires
us to suspend our immediate disbelief. We have
to look past the messy Hollywood heist narrative
of how something is found, strip away our preconceived
biases, and just let the raw material evidence
guide the way. I completely agree. And I think
if the oldest book in the Americas, which is
this mathematically brilliant, chemically complex
masterpiece, was almost completely lost to history
simply because its discovery didn't fit the neat
orderly rules of traditional archaeology, it
leaves us with a massive question to think about.
What else is out there? Oh, wow. Yeah. Think
about the countless artifacts sitting in private
collections, or currently gathering dust in the
deep forgotten basements of museums all around
the world. How many priceless pieces of human
history have been written off as crude fakes,
just sitting in the dark waiting for our technology
to finally catch up to their truth? That is an
incredible thought to leave on. Thank you to
everyone for joining us on this deep dive. Keep
questioning, keep learning, and we'll catch you
next time.