Until recently, Mayan script was indecipherable. David Stuart was one of the few who helped to crack it.

National Geographic Explorer David Stuart has been critical to unraveling the mysteries of the Maya. In our latest Ask an ...

Maya culture never really collapsed. It simply adapted to changing circumstances, writes Dr. Pablo Mumary.

Winston Scott's twists and turns took him to the lush mountains of Guatemala, where he was introduced to the Maya people. Now he's made it his mission to preserve their language.

New research suggests that explanations based only on climate may not fully account for the major decline of the lowland ...

National Geographic archaeologist George E. Stuart reported in 1975 on the scientists who sought to decode the ancient language—and the looters who stood in their way.

A 13th-century manuscript sits under glass, its bark-paper pages filled with vivid glyphs and cryptic figures, in a quiet reading room in Dresden, Germany. Known as the Dresden Codex, it’s one of the ...

Scholars show how multiple planet movements tie into the 819-day Mayan calendar. The 819 days of the calendar must be viewed across a 45-year time period to fully understand. The movements of all ...

Archaeologists uncovered how Hunacti's Maya town residents secretly preserved ancient rituals inside a colonial church while ...

Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story: A new study uses genome analysis to show the decline, not erasure, of the ancient Maya civilization. Researchers compared the genomes of seven ...

The tomb of a Mayan king has been discovered by Texas archaeologists in Caracol, Belize, marking the first time researchers in the ancient city have found a ruler's identifiable resting place. Caracol ...