Bishop Diego de Landa, the second bishop of the Yucatan, is a central figure in Mayan history. He is famous for two reasons. The first is that he wrote Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan. In this book he describes the Mayan language and how to translate it. During the conquest, Bishop Diego de Landa did studies of the Maya culture with a series of interviews and research. It is said that he asked some of his native “friends” how to write ‘a’, ‘b’, ‘c’, and so on, assuming that they used an alphabet. However, the Maya used glyphs and an alphabet completely different from the Spanish alphabet. They heard ‘ah’, ‘beh’, ‘se’ and gave him the glyphs that matched those phones in their language. Landa wrote down a sketchy summary of these in his book and these glyphs are being used to day to translate the remaining Mayan texts.
Almost all of what is known about Mayan writing is from three books. The rest were destroyed by the Spanish, and Bishop Diego de Landa, in particular. He felt that the books were inspired by the devil. This destruction of books is the second thing for which de Landa is known. In July of 1562, de Landa burned five thousand idols and 27 hieroglyphic rolls at Mani in the Yucatan. This was not the only occasion that de Landa destroyed books; he is the main reason that so few examples of Mayan hieroglyphs exist today. Bishop Diego de Landa also tortured and killed many Mayans. There are records of burning people alive, hanging them from trees, mutilation and drownings. Landa and others believed that the Spanish were so small in number that they had to use these tactics to scare the local population in order to achieve conquest.
From electric library- Age of the Scribe: Deciphering the Secrets of the Mayas (International Herald Tribune) Souren Melikian; 12-27-97.
From electric library- Cover Archaeology: SECRETS OF THE MAYA. After a century and a half of research, scientists are finally unraveling the mystery of who the Maya were, how they lived –and why their civilization suddenly stopped. (Time) Michael D. Lemonick 08-09-1993.
Former link, http://alumni.eecs.berkeley.edu/~lorentz/Ancient_Scripts/maya.shtml (2007)
http://ambergriscaye.com/museum/digit13.html
Early History - ambergiscaye.com
Written by: Dana Mattson and Derek Schrader