[MUSIC PLAYING]
NARRATOR: Many centuries ago in Central America, the Maya
built cities full of secrets.
Why was this temple built on the edge of a cliff?
What purpose did it serve?
What strange rights were enacted in this underground chamber?
And what dire penalty was paid by the players
of this ancient ball game?
Mysteries from the files of Arthur C. Clarke,
author of "2001" and inventor of the communication satellite,
now in retreat in Sri Lanka, he ponders the riddles
of this and other world's.
[MUSIC PLAYING WITH HORNS]
In the 19th century, a journey like this
was often a voyage of discovery.
In many places, the jungle we are sailing through
is dark and impenetrable, and every explorer
wondered what ruins and treasures
lay in it's steamy heart.
Here in Sri Lanka, two huge ancient cities were discovered,
but perhaps the most remarkable find
of that golden age was made in a jungle thousands of miles
from here.
From Central America came reports
of a forgotten civilization skilled in writing,
sculptor, and astronomy.
These people, the Maya, were also the builders
of spectacular monuments.
Today, more than a century later, the mysteries they left
are still being unraveled.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
NARRATOR: It's towers, palaces, and pinnacles still engulfed
by the jungle, Tikal is just one of the vast cities
from which the Maya run their mighty empire.
They held sway over vast tracts of Central America,
in modern Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras.
Century's before invaders from the old world reached here,
much of the Maya civilization had perished.
But ancient stories give a few tantalizing clues
to the glories of it's past.
[SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]
NARRATOR: These men are the Guardians of one of the Maya's
most treasured traditions.
Great plazas dominate the landscapes
of the ancient cities.
They are ball courts.
But the game here was more than sport.
A hallowed ritual, it's outcome was literally
a matter of life and death.
These men play just like that ancestors depicted
on ancient Maya pottery.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
NARRATOR: They strike the heavy rubber ball not with their feet
but with their hips.
The ancient rules were endlessly complicated.
By analyzing the clues, archaeologist Nicholas Hellmuth
of Cocoa, Florida has pieced together many details
of the ancient game.
But he still has countless questions.
DR. NICHOLAS HELLMUTH: We'd like to know how often
they played, who played, why.
There must have been different levels of games.
And why are the courts so large?
It must have been extremely important to them.
NARRATOR: Hellmuth believes the goal is with the rings
on each side of the court.
DR. NICHOLAS HELLMUTH: It's very difficult to make a goal.
Points we're gained and lost in other manners.
But the ring was a grand slam.
If you got the ball through the ring,
you got to get the jewelry of everybody in the audience.
But the audience have the right to flee.
We know that because the Spanish saw the game
and made notes on it.
[SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]
There are some suggestions there was a gladiatorial aspect
that people were captured in battle
and brought into the court and had to fight it out,
either against the home team or possibly
even two teams of gladiators.
It was definitely more than a game
because the court was considered a temple.
And of course, at the end of the game, one or more people
the team was sacrificed.
It was literally a game to the death.
NARRATOR: To Hellmuth Maya art poses
one last unanswered question.
Players of the past are shown wearing
a strange yoke-like belt around their waist.
Often found new ball courts, no one knows for sure
what the stone yokes were for.
Hellmuth decided to conduct a weighty experiment.
DR. NICHOLAS HELLMUTH: Well, I believe that these were
actually worn in the game, not just in ceremonies,
because the art shows us.
And the best way to demonstrate that is put a yoke on.
They are heavy, but they balance.
That's the important thing.
They balance perfectly, and they don't
require any type of attachment.
They fit on sideways.
That's the correct way to fit on.
It's not comfortable at all.
You can make all the movements.
You can get down, move up, and it stays on the whole time.
The biggest problem would be the position, down on the court
floor, because they have to go down and then
get back up very quickly.
But I think if they were trained,
and I think if they were going to lose
their head if they didn't do it, I think they could do it.
NARRATOR: But in a local market, a different theory
is under investigation.
Archaeologist, Reina De Vries has enlisted the help
of a Mexican leather worker hoping to show that her idea is
the most practical.
Inspiration struck at an exhibition
in her native Holland.
RENIA DE VRIES: When I took my husband to the museum,
to the ballgame exposition, I told him about the theories
which exist about stone yokes, and I told him
that many people think they were actually worn during the game.
And then he said, but when they use leather nowadays,
why can't it be possible that the stone
yokes were molds to make leather belts to use in the ball game.
NARRATOR: Reina suggests that the Maya
used wet leather tightly molded around the yokes.
Once dried in the sun, the leather
would hold the design of the yoke
and could be stuffed with sawdust and sewn into shape.
RENIA DE VRIES: I think a leather
yoke will be better, because a stone yoke is very heavy.
Their weight is between 20 and 30 kilos,
and it's really very heavy to play that in a very
active and agile ball game.
[SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]
NARRATOR: A slim line volunteer puts Hellmuth's theory
to a practical test.
Yes, he thinks that, especially if you became
accustomed to using that, you could
hit the ball much further using a yoke,
and that's the purpose of the yoke.
That's why it's stone.
That's why it has to be heavy.
NARRATOR: So far so good for Hellmuth, but Reina
has high hopes for her leather version.
RENIA DE VRIES: I'm really very pleased with this yoke,
with this copy, because it took exactly the same form
as the stone yoke.
It even has the reliefs exactly as the original mold.
It's much lighter than the stone yoke, but it's tough.
It's hard.
NARRATOR: Only the players can tell
if Reina's idea is a winner.
[SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]
NARRATOR: Just a few hits and the leather
is dented out of shape.
[SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]
He says if it's maybe too soft, not hard enough
to hit the ball far.
NARRATOR: So which yoke does the team prefer?
[SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]
He says he is imaging that maybe
the stone will hit faster.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ARTHUR C. CLARKE: Knowing the popularity of human sacrifice
in ancient South America, one wonders what happened
to the losers in this game.
There's even a theory that the winners
were eager to be sacrificed so that they could go
straight to the Mayan heaven.
I'm happy to offer either version
to any TV station, which is losing
ratings on its sports coverage.
Well, it wasn't too difficult to discover the purpose
of the ball courts, but much more puzzling
are the curiously shaped pits scattered
throughout the Mayan cities.
NARRATOR: The pits are known as chuntules.
At Tikal they're found all around the edge
of the majestic ruins concealed by the encroaching jungle.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[BIRDS CHIRPING]
NARRATOR: Deep in the tropical forest, ethnobotonist Bill
Litzinger from Arizona believes he knows why the Maya
dug these mysterious holes.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
NARRATOR: His Guatemalan guides have directed
him to a classic chuntules.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
NARRATOR: Clearly man made, the pits seemed to have
been designed with a purpose.
WILLIAM LITZINGER: A chuntule is a hole that the ancient Maya's
made around their dwellings.
Generally they're about two meters
deep and the chambers, maybe a meter to a meter
and a half high inside.
NARRATOR: Most people believe that the chuntules
were storehouses for food hoarded
against times of famine.
But they are hot, humid, and popular with bats.
Litzinger has his doubts.
WILLIAM LITZINGER: When we do find them,
we often find four or five at one house,
and then the surrounding houses have none.
And that doesn't really seem to make much sense when you're
thinking about storing food.
You'd think every house would have its own storage.
Some people think they were used for trash or latrines,
but none of these ideas are supported with good evidence.
NARRATOR: An expert in brewing and wine making,
Litzinger believes the Maya make a virtue
of the chuntules fettered atmosphere
and used them as fermenting chambers.
Following an ancient recipe, he hopes to brew Mayan honey wine.
WILLIAM LITZINGER: We'll put it into the water.
I think that's good.
A couple of handfuls of these flowers, this
is hibiscus flower.
We'll put plenty in there.
Now I'm going to add the yeast, which I've already
mixed up in some water here.
I'm using a lot of yeast just to give it a good start.
NARRATOR: LItzinger is risking his health
in the name of silence.
The bats that inhabit the chuntules
can cause serious disease.
And a face mask is his only protection.
You OK?
NARRATOR: The wine is left overnight to ferment
in the chuntules murky depths.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[CRICKETS CHIRPING]
[BIRDS CHIRPING]
NARRATOR: Next morning, happy hour comes early.
[SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]
WILLIAM LITZINGER: Well, it looks good.
And I think we had good success, and I
think really the proof is in the tasting,
so why don't I just give it at taste.
[INSECT NOISES]
Mm.
It's good.
It's got a nice acrid flavor, a little bit of flavor
from the flower, and it's very slightly alcoholic.
I think it's and excellent possibility that Maya were
making wine in the chuntules.
[BIRDS CHIRPING]
ARTHUR C. CLARKE: Unlike most ancient peoples,
the Maya left masses of writing and covered
their cities with inscriptions.
If we could only read all of them,
we would have the answers to many mysteries.
One of the key breakthroughs in cracking the Mayan code
has come from a unique culmination
of archaeology and gastronomy.
NARRATOR: Archaeologist, David Stuart
is on the last leg of a journey from Harvard, Massachusetts
to one of his favorite places in Central America.
Hidden away in northern Honduras is the ruin City of Copan.
These stones tell tales of its heyday
1300 years ago, mute witnesses to Central
America's golden age.
Carved lettering called glyphs is everywhere.
These messages from the Maya have laid unread for centuries.
Copan's most famous symbol is a history book written in glyphs.
Carved in stone, the hieroglyphic staircase holds
the secrets of a civilization.
DR. DAVID STUART: You know the hieroglyphic stairway is one
of the most amazing monuments, I think, from the ancient world,
because every step has an inscription that gives us some
of the history of Copan, information about the kings
and their lives.
So it's an extremely important monument
for understanding something about the world
here at Copan in ancient times.
There are signs that are very pictorial that
are representing animals and faces and body parts.
And they combine together to spell words, essentially.
Over the years it's been a great challenge
deciphering Maya glyphs.
First of all, it doesn't look quite like a writing system
that we're used.
I think it's taken a long time for specialists to really
understand the nuances and the system behind this really
incredible way of writing.
So I think it's going to take generations still
to understand most of what we find
here at Copan and other sites.
NARRATOR: In the modern bustle of Guatemala City,
Stuart came across a clue which may speed
up his quest for understanding.
The city's museum houses a unique treasure found
in the tomb of a Mayan noble.
This simple pot is adorned with cryptic glyphs.
Besides its special decoration, the pot
has another claim to fame.
It is the first known example of a screw top jar.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
DR. DAVID STUART: The glyph that first
caught my eye was one over here on the lid,
which is seen right here.
And this is a glyph that we find all sorts of Maya vessels
that basically says, his drinking cup.
But in this case they added some extra information,
because as we read around the lid,
we find here that it's beginning to give
us the recipe of the contents.
This first time that you can see over here,
this comb-like element was first recorded
by the Spanish back in 16th century
and that is the syllable cah.
A little detective work in recent years
has shown that the cah sign, this comb,
can also be written in the form of fish.
So we read both of these as the same sound, cah cah, and then
the last time below it, right here we know from other lines
of evidence is pronounced wah.
So together its cah cah wah.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
NARRATOR: Stuart's new cah cah was the Mayan work for cocoa.
He also knew the one place he could find confirmation,
chocolate town USA.
Hershey's senior research chemist is Jeffrey Hurst.
DR. JEFFREY HURST: I was really excited.
I mean this is really a neat opportunity.
They look to us to help determine
if, in fact, this material that they found inside was cocoa.
NARRATOR: Stuart sent Hurst scraping he
found at the bottom of the pot.
DR. JEFFREY HURST: I opened the box
and found a number of vials of material
that surely didn't resemble cocoa to me from my first look.
NARRATOR: The anonymous brown powder
was subjected to a battery of tests
to determine its composition.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
NARRATOR: Two ingredients unique to chocolate showed up.
Stuart's hunch had been spot on.
The pot has indeed contained Mayan cocoa.
DR. JEFFREY HURST: It's a sample that nobody
had touch for 1,100 years, or something close to that.
I was excited.
It was neat, but I was honored also to be able to participate
as part of the project team.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
DR. DAVID STUART: Reading the glyphs
and being able to decipher them is, i think, a real key to so
many aspects of Maya civilization,
not only reading the history, the names and dates, which
is kind of a dry aspect of it, but also we
can learn so much about Maya religion, Maya ritual behavior,
their society at large.
Not just about the kings, they're
talking about bigger issues and bigger
questions that concerned them.
And what's so important is that it's their own voice.
We're really bridging the gap of 1,500 years
listening to what they have to say
about their own civilization.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[BIRDS CHIRPING]
[SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]
What a strange but fruitful alliance
of scientific disciplines, and that
seems to be the trick for solving Mayan mysteries.
Here's how a sailor and an archaeologist
succeeded in casting light upon another.
NARRATOR: One of Mexico's most dazzling beaches
lies beside the ruined Mayan city of Tulum.
Walled in on three sides and protected by the sea
on the fourth, Tulum was a fortress
dominated by one building, the Castillo perched
right on the cliff edge.
What was it for wondered local seaman Michael Creamer
MICHAEL CREAMER: I was taking a swim out
in front of the Castillo at Tulum,
and I noticed that it had a pair windows facing seawards.
One is square, let's say about 45 x 45 cm and the other one
was long and narrow.
They were absolutely distinct, different,
and I couldn't believe that was an accident
or sloppy workmanship and there must
have been a reason for that.
The other thing about the upper windows at Tulum
is the walls are quite thick.
And what this does is any light that might be behind
them is now in a column.
And when you pass by that column,
the light is completely cut off.
It's like looking through a tube.
NARRATOR: Creamer considered the Castillo's position.
Offshore lies a deadly reef whose
sharp corals lie only inches beneath the surface.
For sailors it's an accident waiting to happen.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
MICHAEL CREAMER: You could easily swamp the boat,
drown the passengers, lose the cargo, crash on the reef,
and I don't think even the bravest and intrepid Mayan
navigator wound want to go through that reef opening
without some kind of guide.
NARRATOR: There is only one safe passage from reed to shore,
but at deck level the dark clumps of coral
are hard to see.
Creamer believes the reef in the Castillo are linked.
In the daytime the sun shines through two gaps
in the temple's stonework directly
opposite the reef's safe entrance.
Creamer's hunch is that the windows
were used after dark, that the temple doubled as a lighthouse.
Unsure Creamer's wife Greta, a Mexican archaeologist,
Pilar Luna will be lighthouse keepers.
We need to take a look at these at the next buoy.
I'll be able to what this looks like in this coral.
NARRATOR: The lamps carried into the Castillo's upper chamber
will simulate Mayan fire.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
MICHAEL CREAMER: OK, OK. we're in good position now.
Please turn the lights on, Pilar.
Please turn the lights on. -OK.
NARRATOR: Creamer's idea is that the design of the windows
was carefully calculated.
He expects that both lights can be seen together
only when it's saved to turn.
MICHAEL CREAMER: Now a a Mayan canoe of the year 1000
would be looking at the Castillo and hoping
that somebody had remembered to turn on the lights.
As we approach, we'll first see a light
showing up in the north window, in that wider
window I talked about.
And then when the light begins to appear in the second window,
then we know we're in the safe channel.
That's the moment to make the turn.
Just coming up now in the wide window.
Can you see it?
OK, well, just a minute the next window will appear
and it will be time to put those oars and paddles in the water
and make your turn.
Here we go. There we are.
Now we're in it.
We're in the channel.
Now you can also see that the day
signals are still functioning with a little sunset
behind them. I believe you can see that.
NARRATOR: But the acid test comes in the dark of night.
Creamer hopes the lights in the two windows
can be trusted to guide him to shore.
MICHAEL CREAMER: Here we come.
Now we hope this works because this is going through the reef.
Here we go.
Ready.
Here it comes.
OK, go.
Make your turn now, Javier. Very good.
Now you see how the lights are equally brilliant?
Keep them exactly like that.
Very good, OK.
You're right on it, right on the money.
Very good.
OK. you see those two lights still.
OK, same intensity, that's perfect, perfect.
OK. [MUSIC PLAYING]
OK we're through the reef.
We can safely head for the beach now.
We're through it all.
There's nothing that can hurt the boat now.
I feel great about this evening's work.
I think we did a great job.
As far as I'm concerned, we absolutely proved it.
The windows were not an accident.
They are different shapes for a reason.
The Mayans did a great job in engineering.
I suppose they were great seamen too.
ARTHUR C. CLARKE: I've long been interested in the Maya, not
least because they may have crafted
the extraordinary crystal skull, which watches over our series.
But for all its glories, the Mayan civilization
suddenly collapsed.
It's great cities were swallowed up by the jungle.
Why did it happen?
Well, I can give you a simple answer.
Nobody knows.
And that's the greatest of all the mysteries
left us by the Maya.
[MUSIC PLAYING]