WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.600 Imagine you're this prominent antiquities collector, 00:00:02.759 --> 00:00:05.360 right? It's the mid -1960s. OK, I'm picturing 00:00:05.360 --> 00:00:07.900 it. Lots of tweed. Maybe a magnifying glass. 00:00:08.119 --> 00:00:11.119 Yeah, exactly. And you are approached by two 00:00:11.119 --> 00:00:12.839 mysterious men who tell you they have something 00:00:12.839 --> 00:00:15.759 incredible. But the catch is you have to come 00:00:15.759 --> 00:00:17.820 with them right now. Oh, that doesn't sound sketchy 00:00:17.820 --> 00:00:20.219 at all. Right. So they put you on this tiny rattling 00:00:20.219 --> 00:00:23.989 light plane. And mid -flight, They literally 00:00:23.989 --> 00:00:27.210 throw a cloth over the plane's compass. Wait, 00:00:27.390 --> 00:00:29.969 they covered the compass? Yeah. So you have absolutely 00:00:29.969 --> 00:00:32.390 no idea what heading you're taking into the Mexican 00:00:32.390 --> 00:00:34.770 jungle. Wow. I mean, that is straight out of 00:00:34.770 --> 00:00:36.929 an Indiana Jones movie. It totally is. So you 00:00:36.929 --> 00:00:39.350 eventually land on this remote dirt airstrip 00:00:39.350 --> 00:00:41.530 somewhere in the foothills of the Sierra Madre 00:00:41.530 --> 00:00:44.369 near Tortuguero and Chiapas. OK, middle of nowhere. 00:00:44.570 --> 00:00:48.490 Exactly. And there, these looters present you 00:00:48.490 --> 00:00:51.049 with a wooden box that they pulled from a dry 00:00:51.049 --> 00:00:53.409 cave. And what's in the box? Well, it's a wild 00:00:53.409 --> 00:00:56.270 mix. There's a turquoise mask, a knife handle, 00:00:56.750 --> 00:01:00.969 a child's sandal, some ancient rope, and blank 00:01:00.969 --> 00:01:04.090 pieces of ancient pre -Columbian fig bark paper. 00:01:04.250 --> 00:01:06.409 OK, that's quite a haul. But the centerpiece 00:01:06.409 --> 00:01:09.250 is this painted, screen folded book. Oh, wow. 00:01:09.590 --> 00:01:12.250 I mean, as an expert, if you hear that narrative, 00:01:12.890 --> 00:01:15.129 every single academic alarm bell in your head 00:01:15.129 --> 00:01:17.269 should be ringing. Right. You'd immediately assume 00:01:17.269 --> 00:01:19.569 you're being pitched a very elaborate black market 00:01:19.569 --> 00:01:22.370 scam. You'd have to. It's the ultimate sketchy 00:01:22.370 --> 00:01:24.969 origin story. Well, welcome to today's deep dive. 00:01:25.200 --> 00:01:28.000 We're taking a massive stack of research, including 00:01:28.000 --> 00:01:31.299 this really fascinating Wikipedia article, to 00:01:31.299 --> 00:01:34.359 unravel the mystery of the Maya Codex of Mexico. 00:01:34.760 --> 00:01:37.120 It's such a wild ride, this story. It really 00:01:37.120 --> 00:01:40.640 is. Our mission today is to track the unbelievable 00:01:40.640 --> 00:01:43.659 journey of what turned out to be the oldest surviving 00:01:43.659 --> 00:01:46.400 book of the Americas. Which is just staggering 00:01:46.400 --> 00:01:49.700 to think about. Yeah, because for decades, literally 00:01:49.700 --> 00:01:51.780 the smartest historians in the world dismissed 00:01:51.780 --> 00:01:54.879 this book as a clever modern forgery. They looked 00:01:54.879 --> 00:01:57.079 at that blindfolded flight and just laughed it 00:01:57.079 --> 00:01:58.879 out of the room. And you can't really blame them, 00:01:58.920 --> 00:02:01.819 right? No, totally. But modern science eventually 00:02:01.819 --> 00:02:05.200 stepped in and proved its astonishing 1 ,000 00:02:05.200 --> 00:02:07.579 -year -old truth. And I think for you listening, 00:02:07.640 --> 00:02:09.439 if you find yourself constantly trying to figure 00:02:09.439 --> 00:02:12.280 out what is real and what is fake in our current 00:02:12.280 --> 00:02:16.020 information age, this story is basically a master 00:02:16.020 --> 00:02:18.919 class in authentication. Whoa, 100%. We are going 00:02:18.919 --> 00:02:21.919 to look at how deep -seated academic biases can 00:02:21.919 --> 00:02:25.689 completely blind us to the truth. and how raw, 00:02:26.069 --> 00:02:28.270 unyielding material evidence eventually forces 00:02:28.270 --> 00:02:31.150 that truth into the light. It's this crazy blend 00:02:31.150 --> 00:02:34.550 of messy human history with rigorous material 00:02:34.550 --> 00:02:39.229 science and ancient astronomical math. Yeah, 00:02:39.310 --> 00:02:41.590 the math part is mind -bending, but let's play 00:02:41.590 --> 00:02:43.409 devil's advocate for a moment regarding that 00:02:43.409 --> 00:02:45.199 messy history. Okay, let's do it. The collector 00:02:45.199 --> 00:02:48.740 on that plane was Dr. Josue Science. In 1965, 00:02:49.180 --> 00:02:51.159 he brings this book out of the jungle. Right. 00:02:51.400 --> 00:02:53.539 And honestly, reading about this blindfolded 00:02:53.539 --> 00:02:55.659 flight, I completely side with the experts who 00:02:55.659 --> 00:02:57.560 called it a fake. Oh, absolutely. I mean, the 00:02:57.560 --> 00:03:00.379 antiquities market in the 1960s was notoriously 00:03:00.379 --> 00:03:03.379 flooded with brilliant forgeries. Why did science 00:03:03.379 --> 00:03:05.680 or anyone else really give this thing the time 00:03:05.680 --> 00:03:09.199 of day? Well, context is the bedrock of archaeology. 00:03:10.079 --> 00:03:12.840 Without knowing an object's precise provenance, 00:03:12.960 --> 00:03:15.659 like the exact soil layer it was buried in, the 00:03:15.659 --> 00:03:17.979 surrounding artifacts, the exact geographical 00:03:17.979 --> 00:03:20.599 coordinates, you lose the vast majority of its 00:03:20.599 --> 00:03:22.759 historical data. Right. It's just a thing out 00:03:22.759 --> 00:03:25.639 of context. Exactly. A looted object is essentially 00:03:25.639 --> 00:03:28.919 a mute object. And the first antiquities expert 00:03:28.919 --> 00:03:31.879 science consulted looked at the codex and flat 00:03:31.879 --> 00:03:34.199 out declared it a fake. Just right away. Right 00:03:34.199 --> 00:03:37.199 away. But science bought it anyway. He negotiated 00:03:37.199 --> 00:03:39.099 a deal where he could take the items back to 00:03:39.099 --> 00:03:41.900 Mexico City to examine them. Something in his 00:03:41.900 --> 00:03:44.199 gut just told him the book was genuine. But his 00:03:44.199 --> 00:03:46.740 gut feeling obviously wasn't enough for the academic 00:03:46.740 --> 00:03:48.900 establishment. No, not at all. Because you have 00:03:48.900 --> 00:03:51.759 the famous English Mayanist J. Eric S. Thompson, 00:03:52.379 --> 00:03:55.479 and he was basically a towering Tweeten in the 00:03:55.479 --> 00:03:57.819 field of Maya studies at the time. Oh, he was 00:03:57.819 --> 00:03:59.500 the guy. If Thompson said something, that was 00:03:59.500 --> 00:04:02.849 the law. Right. And he publicly heavily doubted 00:04:02.849 --> 00:04:06.430 its authenticity. And the kicker is he cast this 00:04:06.430 --> 00:04:09.349 massive shadow of doubt in 1975 without ever 00:04:09.349 --> 00:04:11.509 even seeing the manuscript in person. We never 00:04:11.509 --> 00:04:14.550 saw it. Never saw it. He based his dismissal 00:04:14.550 --> 00:04:17.209 entirely on the absurd story of its discovery 00:04:17.209 --> 00:04:20.699 and like a few photographs. That is wild. But 00:04:20.699 --> 00:04:23.019 Thompson's influence was immense. When a figure 00:04:23.019 --> 00:04:25.639 of his stature declares something a hoax, the 00:04:25.639 --> 00:04:28.339 rest of the academic world tends to just fall 00:04:28.339 --> 00:04:29.959 in line. Yeah, nobody wants to go against the 00:04:29.959 --> 00:04:33.100 titan. Exactly. But despite the overwhelming 00:04:33.100 --> 00:04:36.000 backlash, science did allow the archaeologist 00:04:36.000 --> 00:04:39.279 Michael Koh, who was one of the very few early 00:04:39.279 --> 00:04:42.220 believers, to display the Codex at the Grolier 00:04:42.220 --> 00:04:45.579 Club in New York in 1971. Oh, okay. That makes 00:04:45.579 --> 00:04:47.779 sense. That exhibition is why the document was 00:04:47.779 --> 00:04:50.139 known for decades as the Grolier Codex, right? 00:04:50.180 --> 00:04:53.180 Yes, exactly. But the controversy just relentlessly 00:04:53.180 --> 00:04:55.180 followed it. So what happened after the New York 00:04:55.180 --> 00:04:58.120 exhibition? Well, by 1976, the U .S.-Mexico Artifacts 00:04:58.120 --> 00:05:00.699 Treaty was invoked. The Codex was seized, returned 00:05:00.699 --> 00:05:03.199 to Mexico, and science eventually donated it 00:05:03.199 --> 00:05:04.800 to the government. And then it just effectively 00:05:04.800 --> 00:05:07.100 vanished into a vault in the National Museum 00:05:07.100 --> 00:05:08.939 of Anthropology, right? Yeah, it sat there for 00:05:08.939 --> 00:05:11.620 years, locked away in the dark, entirely because 00:05:11.620 --> 00:05:13.899 the academic consensus deemed it too radioactive, 00:05:14.019 --> 00:05:16.620 too likely to be a scam to even study properly. 00:05:16.959 --> 00:05:19.839 That is so frustrating. But I guess traditional 00:05:19.839 --> 00:05:22.319 archaeology and art history had reached a complete 00:05:22.319 --> 00:05:24.839 stalemate. They really had. You had experts arguing 00:05:24.839 --> 00:05:27.040 over stylistic interpretations, the shape of 00:05:27.040 --> 00:05:29.360 the painted deities, the plausibility of the 00:05:29.360 --> 00:05:31.160 looting story. It was just going in circles. 00:05:31.300 --> 00:05:33.720 Right. So to actually uncover the truth, the 00:05:33.720 --> 00:05:36.540 investigation had to abandon subjective observation. 00:05:36.980 --> 00:05:39.240 They had to transition from the magnifying glass 00:05:39.240 --> 00:05:42.620 to the mass spectrometer. Ooh, CSI Mesoamerica. 00:05:42.699 --> 00:05:45.980 I like it. Exactly. So Mexico's National Institute 00:05:45.980 --> 00:05:49.930 of Anthropology and History NIH, they coordinated 00:05:49.930 --> 00:05:53.370 this massive barrage of scientific tests that 00:05:53.370 --> 00:05:55.709 culminated in 2018. And they finally subjected 00:05:55.709 --> 00:05:59.310 it to real modern testing. Right. They did rigorous 00:05:59.310 --> 00:06:02.649 radiocarbon dating. And the results came back 00:06:02.649 --> 00:06:06.290 conclusive. The codex dates between 1021 and 00:06:06.290 --> 00:06:10.529 1154 C .D. Wow, so solidly the 11th or 12th century. 00:06:10.689 --> 00:06:12.889 Yep, which officially makes it the oldest surviving 00:06:12.889 --> 00:06:15.189 codex from Mexico and the oldest book in the 00:06:15.189 --> 00:06:17.029 Americas. But detractors still tried to poke 00:06:17.029 --> 00:06:18.509 holes in it, didn't they? Oh, of course they 00:06:18.509 --> 00:06:21.389 did. Because earlier radiocarbon tests, like 00:06:21.389 --> 00:06:24.589 back in 1972 and 2012, had also pointed to the 00:06:24.589 --> 00:06:27.839 11th century. But the skeptics argued the ultimate 00:06:27.839 --> 00:06:31.000 forgers loophole. Oh, right the blank paper Yeah, 00:06:31.139 --> 00:06:33.699 they said remember that dry cave science found 00:06:33.699 --> 00:06:36.120 blank pieces of ancient ma paper sitting right 00:06:36.120 --> 00:06:38.759 next to the codex So they argued that a clever 00:06:38.759 --> 00:06:41.660 mid -century forger simply took that blank 1 00:06:41.660 --> 00:06:44.519 ,000 year old paper and painted fresh beaties 00:06:44.519 --> 00:06:47.060 on it to fool the carbon dating Which honestly 00:06:47.060 --> 00:06:49.120 is a pretty good argument if you're a skeptic 00:06:49.120 --> 00:06:51.579 and they pointed to the physical damage on the 00:06:51.579 --> 00:06:55.230 pages to support this how so well they They looked 00:06:55.230 --> 00:06:58.569 at the crisply cut edges of the codex, and they 00:06:58.569 --> 00:07:00.790 argued these edges were obviously sliced with 00:07:00.790 --> 00:07:04.329 modern scissors by a 1960s scammer who was trying 00:07:04.329 --> 00:07:06.589 to clean up the ancient paper. Oh, I see, like 00:07:06.589 --> 00:07:09.569 trimming the frayed edges. Exactly. But the Mexican 00:07:09.569 --> 00:07:11.990 scientific studies brought in entomologists to 00:07:11.990 --> 00:07:14.550 look closely at those edges. Bug experts. Bug 00:07:14.550 --> 00:07:16.730 experts. And they found out those crisp limes 00:07:16.730 --> 00:07:19.329 weren't from scissors at all. They were the result 00:07:19.329 --> 00:07:22.129 of tiny arthropods chewing on the edges over 00:07:22.129 --> 00:07:26.569 centuries. Wait, really? Yes. World -class experts 00:07:26.569 --> 00:07:29.790 literally confuse microscopic bug bite patterns 00:07:29.790 --> 00:07:32.670 with a pair of office scissors. That is just 00:07:32.670 --> 00:07:34.889 incredible. It's confirmation bias in action. 00:07:34.949 --> 00:07:37.170 Totally. If you already believe it's a fake, 00:07:37.329 --> 00:07:38.810 you look at a straight edge and you just see 00:07:38.810 --> 00:07:42.189 a scissor cut. But a forger does not leave microscopic, 00:07:42.449 --> 00:07:45.769 century -spanning termite tracks. Exactly. And 00:07:45.769 --> 00:07:48.970 beyond the bug bites, the material science dismantled 00:07:48.970 --> 00:07:51.949 the forgery theory layer by layer. Let's talk 00:07:51.949 --> 00:07:53.529 about the paper engineering because this isn't 00:07:53.529 --> 00:07:55.959 just fly— bark. Right, it's highly engineered. 00:07:56.060 --> 00:07:58.819 Yeah, it's three -ply amit paper. Meticulously 00:07:58.819 --> 00:08:01.319 engineered to be folded like an accordion into 00:08:01.319 --> 00:08:04.079 a screen fold format, and both sides of the paper 00:08:04.079 --> 00:08:06.620 were prepared with a foundation of gypsum. which 00:08:06.620 --> 00:08:09.000 is calcium sulfate. To make it smooth. Yeah, 00:08:09.079 --> 00:08:11.439 they applied a layer measuring just 0 .2 to 0 00:08:11.439 --> 00:08:14.120 .3 millimeters thick. Oh, wow. So it's essentially 00:08:14.120 --> 00:08:17.100 ancient drywall compound spread incredibly thin 00:08:17.100 --> 00:08:19.740 just to create a perfectly smooth white canvas 00:08:19.740 --> 00:08:22.040 for writing. That's a great way to put it. But 00:08:22.040 --> 00:08:24.439 the thing that truly destroys the forgery theory 00:08:24.439 --> 00:08:26.980 is the ink. The ink is the smoking gun here. 00:08:27.180 --> 00:08:29.519 It really is. They didn't just test the paper. 00:08:30.040 --> 00:08:31.899 Physicists from the National Autonomous University 00:08:31.899 --> 00:08:35.399 of Mexico used non -destructive ion beam techniques 00:08:35.399 --> 00:08:38.440 to identify the exact chemical makeup of the 00:08:38.440 --> 00:08:40.899 colors. And non -destructive testing is so vital 00:08:40.899 --> 00:08:43.299 here. You can't just scrape pieces of pigment 00:08:43.299 --> 00:08:46.080 off a fragile, priceless artifact. Right. You'd 00:08:46.080 --> 00:08:48.740 ruin it. So the ion beams literally bounce off 00:08:48.740 --> 00:08:50.779 the material and tell us the chemical signature. 00:08:51.000 --> 00:08:53.379 That's so cool. What did they find? They found 00:08:53.379 --> 00:08:56.299 hematite for the reds, lamp black for the outlines. 00:08:56.759 --> 00:08:59.700 and a brown made from crushed kookneel insects. 00:08:59.860 --> 00:09:02.480 Crushed bugs. Nice. Very standard for the time. 00:09:02.879 --> 00:09:05.679 But most crucially, they found genuine Maya blue. 00:09:05.899 --> 00:09:08.200 And that is the nail in the coffin. Because a 00:09:08.200 --> 00:09:11.159 1960s forger wouldn't know how to synthesize 00:09:11.159 --> 00:09:14.519 genuine Maya blue. Exactly. It is a highly complex 00:09:14.519 --> 00:09:18.120 pigment made from indigo dye. and a very specific 00:09:18.120 --> 00:09:21.220 clay called polygorsky. Making Maya blue isn't 00:09:21.220 --> 00:09:23.379 just like mixing a blue paint with a white paint 00:09:23.379 --> 00:09:26.299 on a palette. Well, not at all. It requires chemically 00:09:26.299 --> 00:09:28.240 baking the indigo into the clay so they lock 00:09:28.240 --> 00:09:30.379 together at a molecular level. A molecular level. 00:09:30.539 --> 00:09:32.580 Wow. Yeah, think of it like putting a letter 00:09:32.580 --> 00:09:35.299 into a heavy steel safe rather than just slipping 00:09:35.299 --> 00:09:38.600 it into a paper envelope. That molecular bond 00:09:38.600 --> 00:09:41.220 protects the color from degrading over time. 00:09:41.240 --> 00:09:43.139 Which is why it's still blue a thousand years 00:09:43.139 --> 00:09:46.139 later. Right. And a mid -century scammer simply 00:09:46.139 --> 00:09:48.320 did not have the combination to that safe. They 00:09:48.320 --> 00:09:50.860 didn't understand the complex thermal chemistry 00:09:50.860 --> 00:09:53.299 required to bind those materials the way the 00:09:53.299 --> 00:09:56.120 11th century Maya did. That's amazing. And the 00:09:56.120 --> 00:09:58.879 pigment degradation also perfectly matched centuries 00:09:58.879 --> 00:10:01.240 of environmental exposure. Oh, because of the 00:10:01.240 --> 00:10:03.100 cave. Yeah, the cave wasn't perfectly dry its 00:10:03.100 --> 00:10:05.899 whole life. The Codex survived at least three 00:10:05.899 --> 00:10:09.460 distinct periods of extreme high moisture. and 00:10:09.460 --> 00:10:12.120 you simply cannot fake a thousand years of humidity 00:10:12.120 --> 00:10:15.419 cycles in a basement art studio. You really can't. 00:10:15.440 --> 00:10:17.840 So, the fact that a scribe went to the immense 00:10:17.840 --> 00:10:20.940 trouble of engineering three -ply paper, coating 00:10:20.940 --> 00:10:23.899 it in microscopic gypsum, and synthesizing Maya 00:10:23.899 --> 00:10:26.620 Blue at a molecular level, it tells us this wasn't 00:10:26.620 --> 00:10:29.320 just casual artwork. No, definitely not. The 00:10:29.320 --> 00:10:31.519 subject matter had to be of vital, existential 00:10:31.519 --> 00:10:34.000 importance to their society. And when we look 00:10:34.000 --> 00:10:37.639 at the actual pages, we see exactly why. I mean, 00:10:37.639 --> 00:10:39.740 this wasn't a storybook. It was quite literally 00:10:39.740 --> 00:10:41.899 a matter of life and death. Well, let's break 00:10:41.899 --> 00:10:44.059 down what's actually on these pages. OK, so the 00:10:44.059 --> 00:10:47.159 Codex originally had 20 pages. The first eight 00:10:47.159 --> 00:10:49.679 and the last two are missing, leaving 10 surviving 00:10:49.679 --> 00:10:53.820 pages. And only the front, the recto side, is 00:10:53.820 --> 00:10:57.019 painted. So it's very structured. Highly rigid. 00:10:57.500 --> 00:11:00.740 Every single page features a standing deity facing 00:11:00.740 --> 00:11:03.549 left. Down the left -hand side is a column of 00:11:03.549 --> 00:11:07.230 13 repeated day signs. Across the top are these 00:11:07.230 --> 00:11:09.870 mathematical markers called ring numbers. And 00:11:09.870 --> 00:11:12.090 what are those numbers doing? They are spelling 00:11:12.090 --> 00:11:15.210 out a terrifying apocalyptic countdown clock 00:11:15.210 --> 00:11:18.049 based on the movements of the planet Venus. Venus. 00:11:18.570 --> 00:11:20.929 Really? Yeah. I mean, it requires a major shift 00:11:20.929 --> 00:11:23.009 in modern perspective to understand this. Today, 00:11:23.350 --> 00:11:25.649 you know, we associate Venus with the Roman goddess 00:11:25.649 --> 00:11:27.960 of love and beauty. Right. It's romantic. But 00:11:27.960 --> 00:11:30.500 Mesoamerican culture has viewed Venus as an incredibly 00:11:30.500 --> 00:11:33.440 dangerous, aggressive, and warlike celestial 00:11:33.440 --> 00:11:36.000 entity. Well, warlike planet. That's so different. 00:11:36.220 --> 00:11:38.559 Completely different. They believe the movements 00:11:38.559 --> 00:11:41.059 of the stars and planets directly dictated earthly 00:11:41.059 --> 00:11:44.799 events. Things like warfare, the spread of disease, 00:11:44.940 --> 00:11:47.379 the failure of crops. And they were specifically 00:11:47.379 --> 00:11:50.419 terrified of its heliacal rise. The heliacal 00:11:50.419 --> 00:11:52.960 rise. Yeah. That's when Venus first becomes visible 00:11:52.960 --> 00:11:55.240 in the morning sky after a period of absence. 00:11:55.759 --> 00:11:58.379 Its light was perceived literally as spears or 00:11:58.379 --> 00:12:00.799 arrows striking people down. Oh, wow. So the 00:12:00.799 --> 00:12:03.139 light itself was dangerous. Yes. And because 00:12:03.139 --> 00:12:06.620 the threat was so severe, they needed an to track 00:12:06.620 --> 00:12:09.620 it with absolute unforgiving precision. Which 00:12:09.620 --> 00:12:13.159 is what the Codex is. It tracks Venus's 584 -day 00:12:13.159 --> 00:12:15.919 synodic cycle. Let's explain what a synodic cycle 00:12:15.919 --> 00:12:18.460 is for a second. Sure. It's simply the time it 00:12:18.460 --> 00:12:20.600 takes for a planet to return to the exact same 00:12:20.600 --> 00:12:23.639 position relative to the Sun as seen from Earth. 00:12:23.720 --> 00:12:27.039 Okay, got it. And the Maya broke this 584 -day 00:12:27.039 --> 00:12:30.799 cycle into four highly specific phases based 00:12:30.799 --> 00:12:32.480 on what they could actually observe in the sky. 00:12:32.669 --> 00:12:34.909 And the math here is just mind -bending for a 00:12:34.909 --> 00:12:37.370 society working without modern optical telescopes. 00:12:37.610 --> 00:12:39.450 So let's walk through those four phases. Okay. 00:12:39.830 --> 00:12:42.250 First, Venus enters what astronomers call superior 00:12:42.250 --> 00:12:44.799 conjunction. Superior conjunction. What does 00:12:44.799 --> 00:12:47.220 that mean visually? It simply means Venus is 00:12:47.220 --> 00:12:49.419 hiding behind the Sun from our perspective on 00:12:49.419 --> 00:12:52.179 Earth. The Sun's mass blocks it entirely, which 00:12:52.179 --> 00:12:54.980 is why the planet vanishes from the sky for 90 00:12:54.980 --> 00:12:58.340 days. OK, so 90 days of invisibility. Next, it 00:12:58.340 --> 00:13:00.639 emerges from behind the Sun and appears as the 00:13:00.639 --> 00:13:03.779 evening star for 250 days. Right. And then comes 00:13:03.779 --> 00:13:06.759 the most terrifying phase, inferior conjunction. 00:13:06.940 --> 00:13:09.720 Why is that the terrifying one? Because inferior 00:13:09.720 --> 00:13:12.120 conjunction occurs when Venus crosses directly 00:13:12.120 --> 00:13:14.559 between the Earth and the Sun. It disappears 00:13:14.559 --> 00:13:17.580 again, this time lost in the Sun's blinding glare, 00:13:18.100 --> 00:13:20.940 for a brief window of just eight days. Only eight 00:13:20.940 --> 00:13:24.620 days? Yeah. And symbolically for the Maya, the 00:13:24.620 --> 00:13:26.600 planet has descended into the underworld during 00:13:26.600 --> 00:13:29.779 those eight days. Oh, creepy. So finally it bursts 00:13:29.779 --> 00:13:31.899 out of that glare and emerges as the morning 00:13:31.899 --> 00:13:35.759 star for 236 days, shooting its dangerous rays 00:13:35.759 --> 00:13:37.659 down at the earth. Exactly. So you add those 00:13:37.659 --> 00:13:40.960 phases up 90 plus 250 plus eight plus 236 and 00:13:40.960 --> 00:13:43.940 you get exactly 584 days. That is incredibly 00:13:43.940 --> 00:13:46.019 precise. It gets better. The ancient astronomers 00:13:46.019 --> 00:13:48.200 took the math even further. They linked the Venus 00:13:48.200 --> 00:13:50.240 cycle perfectly to the solar calendar. Wait, 00:13:50.240 --> 00:13:53.200 how does that work? Well, five of these 584 -day 00:13:53.200 --> 00:13:58.620 Venus cycles equals 2 ,910 days. OK. Eight solar 00:13:58.620 --> 00:14:03.100 years of exactly 365 days also equals exactly 00:14:03.100 --> 00:14:07.379 2 ,920 days. Oh, wow. Right. It is an elegant, 00:14:07.679 --> 00:14:10.740 deeply complex mathematical harmony connecting 00:14:10.740 --> 00:14:13.159 this dangerous planet to the life -giving sun. 00:14:13.259 --> 00:14:16.159 That is just beautiful math, and the Codex calculates 00:14:16.159 --> 00:14:18.879 these exact days using a hybrid numbering system. 00:14:19.000 --> 00:14:21.440 A hybrid system. Yeah, it mixes traditional Maya 00:14:21.440 --> 00:14:24.159 bar and dot numeration with the single dots used 00:14:24.159 --> 00:14:26.879 in central Mexico. So on page seven, for example, 00:14:27.279 --> 00:14:29.299 a priest could use those ring numbers to count 00:14:29.299 --> 00:14:32.000 exactly eight days from a specific date. Ah, 00:14:32.360 --> 00:14:34.860 calculating that exact eight -day window of inferior 00:14:34.860 --> 00:14:37.159 conjunction. Precisely. They knew exactly when 00:14:37.159 --> 00:14:38.779 Venus would rise at the morning star so they 00:14:38.779 --> 00:14:41.000 could prepare for the cosmic danger. And, you 00:14:41.000 --> 00:14:43.580 know, the visual iconography on the pages perfectly 00:14:43.580 --> 00:14:46.019 matches that intense dread. The descriptions 00:14:46.019 --> 00:14:48.720 of the deities are absolutely brutal. Like, page 00:14:48.720 --> 00:14:51.419 one depicts the god Kaolwil taking a human captive. 00:14:51.539 --> 00:14:54.019 Right out of the gate, human captive. Yeah. Page 00:14:54.019 --> 00:14:56.740 2 features the Death God, known to the Maya as 00:14:56.740 --> 00:15:00.940 Kimi. Page 5 shows a solar deity literally setting 00:15:00.940 --> 00:15:03.879 a temple on fire using a dart launched from an 00:15:03.879 --> 00:15:06.460 atlat. An atlat of being an ancient spear -thrower. 00:15:06.639 --> 00:15:09.059 Yep, a spear -thrower. But page 6 is perhaps 00:15:09.059 --> 00:15:11.399 the most striking visual of all. Oh, describe 00:15:11.399 --> 00:15:14.779 page 6! It illustrates another Death God, likely 00:15:14.779 --> 00:15:18.720 La Huizcal Ponticutli, who is the central Mexican 00:15:18.720 --> 00:15:20.879 god of the Morning Star. Okay, so the Morning 00:15:20.879 --> 00:15:23.429 Star god himself. Right. And this Dee Dee Dee 00:15:23.429 --> 00:15:26.789 is wielding a massive knife, he holds a decapitated 00:15:26.789 --> 00:15:29.549 god by the hair, and he actually has a jagged 00:15:29.549 --> 00:15:31.830 flint blade shoved violently into his own nasal 00:15:31.830 --> 00:15:35.250 cavity. Oh my god. That is horrific. It's very 00:15:35.250 --> 00:15:37.769 intense. It's just a relentless parade of aggression. 00:15:38.120 --> 00:15:40.600 Page 7 features a deity standing in front of 00:15:40.600 --> 00:15:42.620 the Shiner Tree, which researchers believe might 00:15:42.620 --> 00:15:45.519 be issuing Radiant Jade Disks. Okay, slightly 00:15:45.519 --> 00:15:47.720 less bloody, but still intense. Right, but then 00:15:47.720 --> 00:15:50.720 on page 10, a skeletal death deity throws a dart 00:15:50.720 --> 00:15:53.419 into a body of water to spear a snail -like creature. 00:15:53.580 --> 00:15:55.899 I mean, every single image reinforces warfare, 00:15:56.200 --> 00:15:58.399 sacrifice, and cosmic threat tied directly to 00:15:58.399 --> 00:16:00.759 Venus. Which makes perfect sense when you consider 00:16:00.759 --> 00:16:04.419 the historical context. This hyper -precise tracking 00:16:04.419 --> 00:16:06.960 of doom didn't happen during a peaceful golden 00:16:06.960 --> 00:16:09.679 age. No, it definitely didn't. The radiocarbon 00:16:09.679 --> 00:16:11.860 dating placed the creation of this book right 00:16:11.860 --> 00:16:14.059 in the early post -classic period, around the 00:16:14.059 --> 00:16:18.240 1021 to 1154 CE. And the context of that era 00:16:18.240 --> 00:16:21.379 perfectly explains the intense anxiety radiating 00:16:21.379 --> 00:16:23.559 from the Codex. Because the early post -classic 00:16:23.559 --> 00:16:27.059 was an era of massive instability. Massive. The 00:16:27.059 --> 00:16:29.240 great classic Maya cities had already collapsed 00:16:29.240 --> 00:16:32.220 centuries earlier. And by the 11th century, even 00:16:32.220 --> 00:16:34.340 the later power centers like Chichen Itza in 00:16:34.340 --> 00:16:37.419 the Yucatan and Tula in central Mexico were rapidly 00:16:37.419 --> 00:16:39.639 waning in power. So the whole region is just 00:16:39.639 --> 00:16:42.519 falling apart. Exactly. Trade routes were fracturing. 00:16:42.879 --> 00:16:45.299 Old political alliances were dissolving. The 00:16:45.299 --> 00:16:48.039 entire Mesoamerican world was in a state of political 00:16:48.039 --> 00:16:51.029 and social decline. And when societies are in 00:16:51.029 --> 00:16:53.490 flux like that and populations are migrating 00:16:53.490 --> 00:16:56.250 or just desperately seeking stability, cultures 00:16:56.250 --> 00:16:59.450 inevitably mix. Yes, which perfectly explains 00:16:59.450 --> 00:17:02.129 why the Codex features a hybrid artistic style. 00:17:02.230 --> 00:17:04.329 Right, because it's not purely classic Maya. 00:17:04.650 --> 00:17:07.589 No, it blends Maya mathematics with artistic 00:17:07.589 --> 00:17:11.069 styles from central Mexico, Oaxaca, and the Mixtec 00:17:11.069 --> 00:17:14.359 people. Even the proportions of the human figures 00:17:14.359 --> 00:17:17.220 on the pages actually resemble the fine orange 00:17:17.220 --> 00:17:20.119 ceramics traded during that specific transitional 00:17:20.119 --> 00:17:22.700 period. It's kind of like the ancient equivalent 00:17:22.700 --> 00:17:25.259 of globalization during a crisis. That's exactly 00:17:25.259 --> 00:17:27.980 what it is. And looking at the physical workmanship 00:17:27.980 --> 00:17:31.869 of the scribe. brings this history into incredibly 00:17:31.869 --> 00:17:34.230 sharp focus. Yeah, the researchers noted something 00:17:34.230 --> 00:17:36.670 really interesting about the underdrawings, the 00:17:36.670 --> 00:17:39.470 initial sketches on the gypsum. They are remarkably 00:17:39.470 --> 00:17:42.170 casual and rough. Rough sketches, huh? Yeah, 00:17:42.170 --> 00:17:44.009 and when the scribe came back to do the final 00:17:44.009 --> 00:17:46.950 painting, the painted lines actually deviate 00:17:46.950 --> 00:17:49.309 significantly from the sketches. Oh, that's fascinating. 00:17:49.410 --> 00:17:52.230 It's the exact same energy as a modern comic 00:17:52.230 --> 00:17:54.869 book artist hastily inking over a rough pencil 00:17:54.869 --> 00:17:56.769 sketch, because they are desperately up against 00:17:56.769 --> 00:18:00.049 a publication deadline. Brushed. Researchers 00:18:00.049 --> 00:18:02.809 like Michael Coe and Stephen Houston deeply analyzed 00:18:02.809 --> 00:18:05.730 the brushwork and concluded we are likely looking 00:18:05.730 --> 00:18:08.529 at the labor of a single highly competent scribe. 00:18:08.670 --> 00:18:11.390 Just one person doing all this. Likely, yeah. 00:18:11.910 --> 00:18:13.990 This scribe had to work rapidly but precisely, 00:18:14.509 --> 00:18:16.069 switching between at least two different tools. 00:18:16.170 --> 00:18:19.230 Two tools? Yeah, they used a thick brush to apply 00:18:19.230 --> 00:18:22.210 the viscous pigments needed for the rigid, blocky 00:18:22.210 --> 00:18:24.829 columns of day signs. And then they switch to 00:18:24.829 --> 00:18:27.390 a much finer instrument to carefully handle the 00:18:27.390 --> 00:18:30.269 detailed, violent imagery of the deities and 00:18:30.269 --> 00:18:32.950 weapons. Just visualize that person for a second. 00:18:33.450 --> 00:18:36.730 One scribe sitting in a deteriorating city, rapidly 00:18:36.730 --> 00:18:39.829 switching between two brushes. They're hastily 00:18:39.829 --> 00:18:42.650 sketching, yet expertly calculating the 500 -any 00:18:42.650 --> 00:18:45.289 -four -day cycle of a killer planet. It just 00:18:45.289 --> 00:18:47.430 strips away the myth and grounds the artifact 00:18:47.430 --> 00:18:49.920 in sheer human labor. It really does. You can 00:18:49.920 --> 00:18:52.539 feel the historical anxiety. Absolutely. Their 00:18:52.539 --> 00:18:54.700 society is collapsing around them and they are 00:18:54.700 --> 00:18:56.579 frantically calculating the movements of the 00:18:56.579 --> 00:18:58.900 stars to find some sort of cosmic order or at 00:18:58.900 --> 00:19:01.940 least a warning of what's coming next. It completely 00:19:01.940 --> 00:19:05.420 humanizes the codex. It wasn't conjured by magic. 00:19:05.900 --> 00:19:08.160 It was engineered by a human being living in 00:19:08.160 --> 00:19:11.359 a terrifying era utilizing the absolute pinnacle 00:19:11.359 --> 00:19:13.839 of their culture, science, and mathematics to 00:19:13.839 --> 00:19:17.259 navigate a deeply dangerous universe. The journey 00:19:17.259 --> 00:19:21.450 of the Maya Codex of Mexico is just... I mean, 00:19:21.569 --> 00:19:24.470 it started as an apocalyptic survival guide in 00:19:24.470 --> 00:19:27.589 a collapsing 11th century world. It ended up 00:19:27.589 --> 00:19:30.869 shoved into a wooden box in a dry cave, looted 00:19:30.869 --> 00:19:33.829 and flown blindfolded on a rattling light plane 00:19:33.829 --> 00:19:36.190 into the hands of a collector. And then it faced 00:19:36.190 --> 00:19:39.490 50 years of intense academic skepticism. It was 00:19:39.490 --> 00:19:41.910 literally locked in a dark vault because the 00:19:41.910 --> 00:19:44.230 smartest experts of the day couldn't look past 00:19:44.230 --> 00:19:46.730 the chaotic nature of its discovery. But the 00:19:46.730 --> 00:19:48.769 physical evidence simply weighed them out. It 00:19:48.769 --> 00:19:52.200 really did. pre -ply amit paper, the molecularly 00:19:52.200 --> 00:19:55.440 bonded Maya blue, the extreme moisture degradation, 00:19:55.980 --> 00:19:58.700 and those microscopic bug bites, they all just 00:19:58.700 --> 00:20:00.759 patiently waited for the mass spectrometers of 00:20:00.759 --> 00:20:03.640 2018 to catch up and validate their truth. You 00:20:03.640 --> 00:20:05.859 know, sometimes the most profound knowledge requires 00:20:05.859 --> 00:20:09.019 us to suspend our immediate disbelief. We have 00:20:09.019 --> 00:20:11.339 to look past the messy Hollywood heist narrative 00:20:11.339 --> 00:20:14.240 of how something is found, strip away our preconceived 00:20:14.240 --> 00:20:16.700 biases, and just let the raw material evidence 00:20:16.700 --> 00:20:19.319 guide the way. I completely agree. And I think 00:20:19.319 --> 00:20:22.380 if the oldest book in the Americas, which is 00:20:22.380 --> 00:20:24.759 this mathematically brilliant, chemically complex 00:20:24.759 --> 00:20:28.079 masterpiece, was almost completely lost to history 00:20:28.079 --> 00:20:31.400 simply because its discovery didn't fit the neat 00:20:31.400 --> 00:20:34.180 orderly rules of traditional archaeology, it 00:20:34.180 --> 00:20:36.039 leaves us with a massive question to think about. 00:20:36.440 --> 00:20:39.160 What else is out there? Oh, wow. Yeah. Think 00:20:39.160 --> 00:20:41.660 about the countless artifacts sitting in private 00:20:41.660 --> 00:20:44.279 collections, or currently gathering dust in the 00:20:44.279 --> 00:20:46.319 deep forgotten basements of museums all around 00:20:46.319 --> 00:20:49.420 the world. How many priceless pieces of human 00:20:49.420 --> 00:20:52.140 history have been written off as crude fakes, 00:20:52.460 --> 00:20:54.539 just sitting in the dark waiting for our technology 00:20:54.539 --> 00:20:56.960 to finally catch up to their truth? That is an 00:20:56.960 --> 00:20:59.099 incredible thought to leave on. Thank you to 00:20:59.099 --> 00:21:01.299 everyone for joining us on this deep dive. Keep 00:21:01.299 --> 00:21:03.380 questioning, keep learning, and we'll catch you 00:21:03.380 --> 00:21:03.839 next time.