S4E171 - The Man Who Burnt the Maya Books: Diego de Landa

In 1562, in the town of Maní on the Yucatán Peninsula, Spanish Franciscan friar Diego de Landa ordered the destruction of thousands of Maya codices — bark-paper books containing centuries of knowledge about astronomy, ritual, history, and medicine. Only four authenticated Maya codices survive today. This episode explores who Landa was, why he burned the books, and the paradox of his legacy: the same man who erased the Maya literary tradition also wrote the single most detailed account of Maya culture and religion, the Relación de las Cosas de Yucatán, without which much of what we know about the an...