The Death Relic

by Chris Kuzneski

  ‘The Maya?’ she repeated, pausing for a moment to gather her thoughts. ‘Local civilization, very advanced for their time. They ruled this region for several hundred years, until the Spanish conquistadores arrived in the sixteenth century. After that, they kind of faded away.’

  Hamilton considered her response for several seconds before shaking his head from side to side. He punctuated his thoughts by giving her a thumbs down. ‘If you were my student, I’d give that answer a D-minus at best. About the only thing you got correct was their name.’

  Her face flushed with embarrassment. ‘Their name?’

  He nodded. ‘Most people call them the Mayans, not the Mayas. It’s an error that drives me crazy. Maya is the name of the people. Mayan is an adjective that describes their things – Mayan art, Mayan language and so on. At least you got their name right.’

  Sensing a shift in his tone, Maria lifted her glass and tried to ease the tension with a joke. ‘What did you say before? Here’s to small victories!’

  Hamilton forced a smile. ‘Sadly, I was hoping for more from you.’

  Her shoulders sagged, as if the wind had escaped her sails. ‘Listen, I think there’s been some sort of misunderstanding. If you’re looking for an expert in Mayan history, I’m definitely not your gal. In all my years, I think I took one course on Mesoamerica, and I only did that because it was a school requirement. My specialty is Christian history, not ancient civilizations.’

  A master of reading people, Hamilton studied her posture and realized he had been too tough on her. She had gone from eager to defensive in the blink of an eye. To ensure her involvement, he knew he had to walk a fine line between employer and friend. If he pushed her too hard, she was liable to walk away before she even got started.

  With that in mind, he quickly apologized. ‘Please forgive my rudeness. For a brief second, I was back in the lecture hall, trying to motivate students at the beginning of a semester. Obviously I know what your specialty is. It’s the reason I brought you here.’

  ‘Are you sure? Because—’

  ‘Trust me, I’m positive. I could’ve called any scholar in the world, and yet I called you. I am fully confident that you are the right person for this project.’

  She breathed a sigh of relief. The last thing she wanted to do was disappoint him. ‘Just so you know, I’m a quick learner. It’s one of my greatest strengths. Tell me what I need to know and I’ll remember it.’

  Hamilton nodded. ‘I’ll keep that in mind.’

  Unsure where to begin, he removed his Panama hat and ran his fingers through his stark white hair. Despite the mild temperature, it was plastered to his scalp with sweat. For the next few seconds he disappeared into his thoughts as he tried to decide what she needed to know about his project. No matter how bright she was, he couldn’t afford to bog her down with too many details. All that would do was confuse her.

  ‘Out of curiosity,’ she said, ‘what was wrong with it?’

  He blinked a few times. ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘My answer. What was wrong with it?’

  ‘Just about everything.’

  She stared at him, defiant. Then she used the same words that he had used against her a moment earlier. ‘Sadly, I was hoping for more from you.’

  Slowly but surely, the corners of his lips curled upward. What had started as a grimace ended as a grin. Maybe hope wasn’t lost after all. Maybe she was tougher than she looked.

  Suddenly recharged, Hamilton placed his hat on his head. ‘All right, my dear, I’m willing to play this game if you’re willing to listen. But don’t expect me to pull any punches. You must understand, when it comes to facts, you must be precise. Otherwise, your answer is wrong.’

  ‘Sounds fair to me.’

  ‘Let’s start with your initial statement about the Maya. They were not a local civilization as you claimed. During the course of their history, their territory stretched from the Gulf of Mexico to the north to El Salvador in the south and as far west as Central Mexico. And even though there were some minor sites found in Cancún, this area was never fully developed.’

  ‘Good to know.’

  He continued. ‘And your notion that they were advanced for their time? Talk about a general statement. What exactly does “advanced” refer to?’

  She shrugged. ‘Their culture?’

  ‘Define culture.’

  ‘Everything that made them who they were – their beliefs, their customs, their technology. All of that encompasses their culture.’

  ‘In that case, the Mayas weren’t advanced at all – at least not according to Christian standards. As hard as this is to believe, the Maya never had the wheel. Or metal tools. Or draft animals such as horses or donkeys. They did not have a monotheistic approach to religion, choosing instead to believe in many gods and supernatural beings. To appease these deities, humans were sacrificed in public ceremonies that make horror movies look humane.’

  Hamilton shook his head at the brutality. ‘Sorry, my dear, the Mayas were not an advanced civilization, unless you broaden your definition to include other aspects of their life.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘You tell me,’ he said, unwilling to do the work for her. ‘What are the Maya known for?’

  She gave it some thought. ‘Their calendar.’

  ‘Now we’re getting somewhere. Although they didn’t create the Mesoamerican calendar that was used in this region, the Maya refined it in such a way that it was far more accurate than the original Gregorian calendar used in Europe. Do you know how?’

  She nodded. ‘Astronomy.’

  ‘That’s correct! The Maya were brilliant astronomers, able to calculate celestial events with amazing accuracy. Without the use of telescopes, they figured out the length of the solar year with only a twenty-three-second margin of error. The five-hundred-year cycle of Venus was only two hours off. Plus they calculated the eclipses of the sun thirty-three years ahead of time. Most amazing of all, they accurately described the Orion Nebula more than a thousand years before it was officially discovered by a French astronomer in 1610.’

  ‘How did they do that?’

  Hamilton shrugged. ‘No one knows, but there’s evidence to prove it.’

  ‘What about maths?’ she asked.

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘If the Maya could calculate solar cycles with that much accuracy, I’m guessing they had advanced knowledge of maths.’

  His smile widened. ‘Now you’re thinking! The Maya were very advanced in mathematics. In fact, they were one of the first civilizations to develop the concept of zero.’

  ‘Really? That seems pretty basic to me.’

  ‘To us, it is! But that wasn’t the case in ancient times. Believe it or not, the greatest scholars in ancient Greece struggled with the status of zero as a number. To them, it wasn’t about maths. It was about philosophy. They constantly debated how nothing could actually be something.’

  She laughed at the thought. ‘Ancient Greeks loved their debates.’

  ‘But they weren’t the only ones who struggled with zero. So did the Romans, Egyptians and Babylonians – which is saying something because the Babylonians were doing algebra two thousand years before Christ.’

  The mere mention of Christ grabbed Maria’s attention. As an expert in Christian history, she prayed Hamilton would shift the conversation to her comfort zone because she was dying to know what her role in his project would be. But that didn’t happen. Instead, he changed the topic to agriculture and the Maya’s advanced methods of food production.

  ‘As you probably know, the Maya relied on three main crops to survive: maize, squash and beans. In this part of the world, those staples are referred to as the “three sisters” because they complement each other in the ground and in one’s diet. Unfortunately, growing those crops on a large-scale basis is more difficult than you’d think. To combat pH problems, the Maya introduced ash to the ground, which raised the level of phosphorus and other nutrients in the soil
. They utilized crop rotation and raised field techniques that are still used to this day. They also built extensive canal systems that can still be seen in aerial pictures of the jungle.’

  Maria grimaced. ‘The jungle? What are they doing in the jungle?’

  ‘Nothing. They’re just sitting there.’

  ‘No, that’s not what I meant. Why were they built in the jungle?’

  ‘Aha! Now we’re getting close.’

  ‘We are?’

  He nodded. ‘We’re finally going to discuss the most blatant error in your initial summation of the Maya.’

  ‘Which error was that?’

  ‘The part where you claimed the Maya faded away after the conquistadores.’

  ‘That’s not correct?’

  He shook his head. ‘Believe it or not, the Maya started to disappear in the ninth century, nearly seven hundred years before the Spanish arrived.’

  ‘Wait,’ she said, confused. ‘What do you mean by disappear?’

  Hamilton smiled. ‘One day they were here, and the next they were gone.’

  10

  Despite her doctorate in history, Maria was unfamiliar with the ninth-century disappearance of the Maya. As far as she knew, the Spanish had conquered them in the 1500s.

  Hamilton noticed the confusion in her eyes. ‘Perhaps I was a bit melodramatic when I said the Maya disappeared. They didn’t vanish into thin air. At least, I don’t think they did.’

  ‘Then what happened?’

  ‘The truth is no one knows. But sometime around 850 AD, the Maya abandoned most of their major cities. No rhyme, no reason, no explanation of any kind. The Maya simply left and didn’t come back. Within months, their cities were swallowed by vegetation. That’s why so many canals and temples are still being found in the jungle. Sites from Mexico to Guatemala were deserted seven hundred years before the Spanish arrived, so explorers don’t know where to look. Who knows what could still be out there hiding in the trees?’

  ‘Where did the Maya go when they left the cities?’

  Hamilton shrugged. ‘Somewhere. Nowhere. Everywhere in between. Our best guess is that they moved from place to place for a hundred years or so before they grew in numbers and re-emerged as a force in the mid-tenth century.’

  ‘They abandoned their cities but re-emerged as a force? How is that possible?’

  ‘What do you know about Mayan politics?’

  ‘Absolutely nothing.’

  He figured as much. ‘Unlike the Roman Empire, the Maya were never a unified nation. Instead, they were a series of tiny kingdoms that sometimes fought one another. A typical kingdom was usually nothing more than a city-state, headed by a hereditary ruler known as an ajaw. These kingdoms were generally small in size, consisting of a capital city and the nearby villages. Despite the geography involved, a kingdom was identified by the name of the ruling dynasty, not by its territory. Therefore, when the royal family was captured or killed, the kingdom ceased to exist.’

  ‘Did that happen often?’

  He nodded. ‘Eventually the kingdoms became bigger and bigger until they grew into powerful city-states that spread to all corners of Mesoamerica. This proved to be problematic for the Spanish. Without one true government to overthrow, they had to endure a brutal campaign against the Maya that lasted the better part of two centuries.’

  ‘Two centuries? I didn’t know it lasted that long.’

  ‘One hundred and seventy years to be precise.’

  Francisco de Montejo, a Spanish conquistador who had petitioned the King of Spain for the right to conquer the Yucatán, arrived on the east coast in 1527. Remarkably, the last Mayan stronghold – the Itzá capital of Tayasal in Guatemala – didn’t fall until 1697. By comparison, Cortés and the Spanish conquered the Aztec Empire in a mere two years.

  Hamilton continued. ‘During that time, the Spanish did everything they could to sever the Maya’s connection with their past, including the burning of all Mayan texts. Not surprisingly, they did this in the name of God.’

  Maria shook her head in frustration. As a historian, one of the things that pissed her off more than anything else was the purposeful destruction of ancient documents. If it hadn’t been for the burning of the Library of Alexandria, the House of Wisdom in Baghdad and countless other libraries around the world, many of the mysteries of the past could be solved. She also realized most of the burnings had been done to promote a new ideology to a conquered civilization. In the case of the Maya, it was the introduction of Christianity.

  ‘Are you familiar with Diego de Landa?’ he asked.

  She nodded. ‘He was a Franciscan monk who came here in the mid-1500s to teach the natives about Christ. At least I think that’s when he arrived. According to your timeline, the Spanish Conquest was just warming up, so I might be wrong.’

  ‘No,’ he assured her, ‘you are correct about the date. Landa arrived here in 1549 to encourage the Maya’s conversion to Catholicism, while the conquistadores continued their campaign in other parts of the Yucatán. By order of the Spanish Crown, the Franciscans were granted a spiritual monopoly over the entire region, and Landa was one of the leaders.’

  As a practising Catholic, Maria frequently found herself embarrassed by the violent history of the Church, and this was one of those times. Although the term ‘spiritual monopoly’ was new to her, she knew exactly what it meant. When it came to religion, the Maya had no choice in the matter. If they didn’t convert to Catholicism, they were punished or killed.

  Over the years, she had come across dozens of historical events when the Vatican or its representatives had encouraged similar acts of conversion. Some of the incidents were so abhorrent that they forced her to seriously question her devotion to a Church that had empowered such behaviour. In the end, though, she always came to the same conclusion: the religion was pure, but humans were fallible.

  Hamilton continued. ‘In the history of the Maya, there has never been a more controversial figure than Diego de Landa. To many, he is hated for his cruelty and his destruction of invaluable ancient documents. To others, he is praised for his personal preservation of the Mayan culture. In all of my years as an historian, he is the most complex man I’ve ever encountered.’

  Maria frowned. ‘How could he be known for such contradictory things? It doesn’t seem possible.’

  ‘As I mentioned, Landa was complicated. When he first arrived in the Yucatán, he was stationed as a monk in the mission at Izamal, a small city to the west. While there, Landa noticed the Maya’s use of glyphs and decided to translate them into Spanish. Working with Mayan royalty, he established a base for their glyphs – which were a mixture of syllables and words – which is still used by scholars today. Two decades later, on his return voyage to Spain, Landa started to write a book called Relación de las cosas de Yucatán in which he chronicles the Mayan culture in remarkable depth. In it, he discusses their language, their religion, their writing and their ethnology. Over the years, I have used it many times as a guide.’

  ‘I have to admit, none of that sounds bad to me. Why is he so reviled?’

  ‘Why?’ Hamilton asked rhetorically. ‘The main reason that modern scholars like myself are reliant on Landa’s book is because he personally burned the Mayan glyphs. If he hadn’t done that, our knowledge of the Maya would be much more advanced. We would be able to read Mayan history in the hand of the Maya, not his distilled version of ancient events.’

  ‘Landa translated the documents, then burned them?’

  He nodded gravely. ‘Are you familiar with the term “auto-da-fé”? It was a ritual used during the Spanish Inquisition.’

  She grimaced in disgust. The ceremony was one of the skeletons in the Church’s closet that they would rather forget. ‘The term meant “act of faith” in medieval Spanish. The ritual involved a Catholic Mass, followed by a public procession of the condemned and a reading of their sentences. Torture was quite common, so was burning at the stake.’

  Hamilton lowered his voice
to a whisper. ‘In July of 1562, Landa ordered an auto-da-fé in the city of Maní. At the end of the ceremony, he burned more than twenty thousand Mayan images and a reported five thousand Mayan idols, claiming they were the “works of the devil”. This marked the beginning of a new campaign, where Mayan nobles were jailed, interrogated and tortured to speed up the mass adoption of Catholicism. Scared for their lives, thousands of Maya fled from the cities and into the jungles to avoid abuse.’

  ‘He burned twenty-five thousand items? The fire must have been huge.’

  ‘It could be seen for miles and signalled the start of Landa’s brutal regime. Over the next several decades, the Spanish burned every Mayan document they could get their hands on – much to the dismay of the Maya, who were forced to watch their entire history go up in flames.’

  She took a deep breath. ‘The thought of it sickens me.’

  Hamilton nodded in agreement. ‘Do you know how many Maya are still living in Mesoamerica today?’

  She shrugged. ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘Approximately ten million. That’s a significant amount when you consider there are less than three million Native Americans still living in the United States.’

  ‘Ten million is way more than I figured.’

  ‘Amazingly, do you know how many Mayan codices managed to survive?’

  She shook her head, unwilling to guess.

  Hamilton held up his hand with his fingers spread. Then he tucked his little finger under his thumb. ‘Only three.’

  11

  Maria thought back to Hamilton’s earlier pronouncement, when he had claimed that the Maya vanished overnight during the ninth century, and figured he would amend his statement about the Mayan codices. But unlike before, no correction was forthcoming.

  He wiggled his three extended fingers to illustrate the point. ‘I know it’s tough to fathom, but only three codices survived the Spanish conquest and the eventual spread of Christianity. Because of their near extinction, Mayan codices are considered priceless.’