could have this kind of skill,” Rolando said, gesturing at a perfectly executed picture of the maize god.
Chel studied the words again. The penalty for writing this could well have been death.
No rain has come to give nourishment in a half cycle of the great star
. The great star was Venus, and a half cycle was almost fifteen months. What the scribe was describing would be by far the longest drought in the known Mayan record.
“What is it?” asked Rolando.
“It’s not just the drought. He’s talking about the depletion of the maize stores,” Chel said. “He’s talking about endangered animals and diminishing amounts of arable land. No one would have been permitted to write something like this. It’s basically a description of the end of the civilization.”
Rolando flashed another grin. “You think …”
“He’s writing about the collapse.”
OVER THE COURSE of Chel’s career, the question that had bedeviled her more than any other was the “collapse” of her ancestors’ civilization at the end of the first millennium. For seven centuries, the Maya had built cities and innovated in art, architecture, agriculture, mathematics, astronomy, and commerce. But then, six hundred years before the Spanish conquistadores arrived, city-states stopped expanding, construction halted, and scribes in the lowlands of Guatemala and Honduras stopped writing. Within a span of only half a century, urban centers were abandoned, the institution of kingship disappeared, and the classic era of Maya civilization came to an end.
Colleagues of Chel’s had a variety of theories about what caused the collapse. Some suggested eco-recklessness: aggressive farming practicesand disregard for deforestation. Others claimed that, through continuous warfare, hyper-religiosity, and sacrificial bloodlust, the ancients brought on their own demise.
Chel had a skeptical view of all these ideas. She believed they were rooted in a European inclination to belittle
indígenas
. Exaggerations of human sacrifice had plagued the Maya since the Spanish landed, and the collapse had been used for centuries as proof that the conquistadores were more evolved than the savages they’d conquered. Proof the Maya couldn’t be trusted to rule themselves.
Chel believed that the collapse was caused by natural mega-droughts that spanned decades and made large-scale agriculture impossible for her ancestors. Studies done on riverbeds in the area suggested that the end of the classic era was the driest in seven millennia. When these extended dry periods made cities uninhabitable, the Maya simply adapted. They reverted to subsistence farming and migrated to small villages like Kiaqix.
“If we could prove this is an actual description of the collapse,” Rolando said giddily, “it would be a landmark.”
Chel imagined what else they might find on these pages. Imagined how far the codex would go toward answering what had, to date, been unanswerable. Imagined how she could one day show it to the world.
“And if we could prove the collapse was the result of mega-droughts,” Rolando continued, “it would cut the balls right off those generals too.”
This possibility gave Chel yet another surge of adrenaline. In the last three years, tensions had flared again between
ladinos
and the
indígenas
. Civil-rights activists had been killed, crimes perpetrated by the same ex-generals who’d murdered Chel’s father. Politicians had actually invoked the collapse on the floor of Parliament: The Maya were savages who’d destroyed their environment once, they’d claimed, and would do it again if they were allowed to keep their valuable land.
Could the book prove otherwise once and for all?
The phone rang in Chel’s office at the back of the lab. She checked the clock. It was just after eight A.M . They needed to pack up the codex andput it in the vault. People would start filtering into the museum soon, and they couldn’t risk questions.
“I’ll get it,”
Chel studied the words again. The penalty for writing this could well have been death.
No rain has come to give nourishment in a half cycle of the great star
. The great star was Venus, and a half cycle was almost fifteen months. What the scribe was describing would be by far the longest drought in the known Mayan record.
“What is it?” asked Rolando.
“It’s not just the drought. He’s talking about the depletion of the maize stores,” Chel said. “He’s talking about endangered animals and diminishing amounts of arable land. No one would have been permitted to write something like this. It’s basically a description of the end of the civilization.”
Rolando flashed another grin. “You think …”
“He’s writing about the collapse.”
OVER THE COURSE of Chel’s career, the question that had bedeviled her more than any other was the “collapse” of her ancestors’ civilization at the end of the first millennium. For seven centuries, the Maya had built cities and innovated in art, architecture, agriculture, mathematics, astronomy, and commerce. But then, six hundred years before the Spanish conquistadores arrived, city-states stopped expanding, construction halted, and scribes in the lowlands of Guatemala and Honduras stopped writing. Within a span of only half a century, urban centers were abandoned, the institution of kingship disappeared, and the classic era of Maya civilization came to an end.
Colleagues of Chel’s had a variety of theories about what caused the collapse. Some suggested eco-recklessness: aggressive farming practicesand disregard for deforestation. Others claimed that, through continuous warfare, hyper-religiosity, and sacrificial bloodlust, the ancients brought on their own demise.
Chel had a skeptical view of all these ideas. She believed they were rooted in a European inclination to belittle
indígenas
. Exaggerations of human sacrifice had plagued the Maya since the Spanish landed, and the collapse had been used for centuries as proof that the conquistadores were more evolved than the savages they’d conquered. Proof the Maya couldn’t be trusted to rule themselves.
Chel believed that the collapse was caused by natural mega-droughts that spanned decades and made large-scale agriculture impossible for her ancestors. Studies done on riverbeds in the area suggested that the end of the classic era was the driest in seven millennia. When these extended dry periods made cities uninhabitable, the Maya simply adapted. They reverted to subsistence farming and migrated to small villages like Kiaqix.
“If we could prove this is an actual description of the collapse,” Rolando said giddily, “it would be a landmark.”
Chel imagined what else they might find on these pages. Imagined how far the codex would go toward answering what had, to date, been unanswerable. Imagined how she could one day show it to the world.
“And if we could prove the collapse was the result of mega-droughts,” Rolando continued, “it would cut the balls right off those generals too.”
This possibility gave Chel yet another surge of adrenaline. In the last three years, tensions had flared again between
ladinos
and the
indígenas
. Civil-rights activists had been killed, crimes perpetrated by the same ex-generals who’d murdered Chel’s father. Politicians had actually invoked the collapse on the floor of Parliament: The Maya were savages who’d destroyed their environment once, they’d claimed, and would do it again if they were allowed to keep their valuable land.
Could the book prove otherwise once and for all?
The phone rang in Chel’s office at the back of the lab. She checked the clock. It was just after eight A.M . They needed to pack up the codex andput it in the vault. People would start filtering into the museum soon, and they couldn’t risk questions.
“I’ll get it,”
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