Engineering an Empire: The Maya (S1, E5) | Full Episode | History

deep within the jungle we're talking about a civilization discovered in the middle of a rainforest cryptic remains of a lost civilization one that spanned a continent for more than a thousand years they definitely had attributes of the supernatural they were the ancient maya their rulers filled vast cities with sky-high pyramids ornate palaces and lavish plazas they were masters of their environment they were very resourceful in figuring out how to harness the energy creating amazingly sophisticated works of art and engineering and sustaining a civilization for 1500 years then after generations of prosperity and innovation the ancient civilization collapsed turning bustling cities into ghost towns to be reclaimed by mother nature centuries later answers to the mysteries surrounding these majestic people and the god-like kings who ruled them tell a story of conquest ingenuity and disaster [Music] 869 a. d in the lowlands of the guatemalan jungle the maya are becoming desperate food and clean water are dwindling thousands of people are starving and malnutrition and disease are ravaging the population the maya no longer trusts their divine rulers to appease their gods political turmoil plagues the kingdoms and one by one the great city-states are being abandoned the ancient maya civilization is crumbling city after city area after area begins to fail cities are abandoned kings disappear and what had been classic maya culture really comes to an end what happened to this great people even today scholars are still mystified we know that people begin to disappear the question is how did that happen the answer may lie in complex hieroglyphics known as the maya code zero glitch is a complex way of conveying all the information that maya people could think or express and is the only example in the americas of a complete complex system of writing today these cryptic symbols reveal a history of brutal warfare larger-than-life rulers and the rise and fall of an enigmatic people hi i'm peter weller and i'm standing on top of this beautiful temple deep in the rainforest of southern mexico near the border of guatemala and this is the heart of the civilization of the ancient maya for years archaeologists believe that the ancient maya were peacefully separated into 40 or so independent city-states each with their own dynasty of kings for what we could tell there seemed to be trade communication but there didn't seem to be any particular imperial aggression motivated by a thirst for land or power outside of a king's own territory but in the last half century these theories are starting to fly in the face of a different story because hieroglyphs like this one the remnants of the ancient maya's advanced writing system are painting a whole new picture the touchy-feely 1960s and new age ideas of a gentle and loving people are being fast replaced by a much more complex reality of city-states butting heads and bloody clashes and now we have evidence that brutal battles and human sacrifice were fundamental components of life among the ancient maya but the evolution of the maya civilization into this complex network of city-states didn't happen overnight the maya came into existence probably a couple of thousand years before christ by 500 bc population was on the rise and small communities were turning into the first major maya sites located throughout central america fully organized kingdoms were ruling the region by 250 a. d with mighty rulers at the helm they had powerful rulers they were in competition with each other and sometimes this competition led to war for the maya it was war led by kings in the name of the gods maya kings were people like us but for the maya they definitely had attributes of the supernatural the price of devotion had brutal and sometimes deadly consequences people owed a blood debt to the gods it wasn't that they didn't regard human life or human blood highly quite the contrary human blood and human life was the most precious the most sacred thing that could be offered to the gods in order to repay the blood debt that was incurred at creation bloodletting and human sacrifice dominated the king's strategic thinking they picked allies and attacked neighbors all with an eye on appeasing their deities and staying autonomous unlike rome in the case of the maya we're not dealing with one empire instead we're dealing with a series of rival kingdoms by the third century a.

d maya civilization was flourishing no one city ever succeeded in dominating all the others but one seat of power was on the rise its name was tikao tikal is one of the few cities that goes strong in the pre-classic period before the time of christ and then it just continues pretty much unabated all the way until the end of the classic period this is a city that never really lost it but in the sixth century a rival power named kalakmul threatened tikal's success the maya had these two great dynastic capitals kalakmul and tikol those two cities essentially locked horns it's really colic mole that seems to engage in this action in which they engineer alliances all the way around tiko essentially boxing in their enemy it would be up to an ambitious and visionary leader to build a center of military power one that would take on kalakmul his name was hikim khan kaweem he would construct one of the most iconic structures of the maya a pyramid that would stand the test of time the temple of the giant jaguar the most valuable monument was one that took a lot of effort so a big temple pyramid is an indication of your power your strength your prestige it's a way of drawing people into your city because it shows what an awesome powerful ruler you are building in semi-tropical environments with rudimentary materials was a unique challenge especially when the goal was to build vertically using stone age technology most of the technology that we associate with big stone constructions were unknown to the maya they did not have beasts of burden they didn't have metal tools what the maya did have was a virtually unlimited supply of malleable limestone and a great deal of manpower your labor was one of the things that you were required to give to the king on an annual basis of limestone were quarried and then pushed pulled or carried by sheer force to the construction site they use something that we call the trump line and this is a rope that would pass around the forehead and in that they could carry literally at times hundreds of pounds of debris level by level the pyramid was built skyward wooden scaffolding supported the laborers and the structure as it expanded skilled masons shaped the limestone with stone tools and wooden mallets though the interior was filled with unrefined rubble the exterior was deceivingly manicured covered in a strong mortar known as maya stucco and painted red even though they knew of the wheel even though they knew of metal they elected not to make practical use of either of these things and i think in part it was because in their world view something was much more valuable if a lot of human labor went into it at nearly 150 feet the temple of the giant jaguar emerged facing west toward the setting sun the ancient skyscraper would command the attention of all who set foot in tikal's grand plaza as a symbol of power and redemption [Music] engineering marvel was just the beginning in 736 cawil had defeated his ultimate rival kalakmul then in 743 and 744 he attacked and eviscerated two critical kalakmul allies that surrounded tikal el peru to the west and naranjo to the east finally the suffocating noose that had once strangled tikal was broken in celebration of this he builds us a whole series of major expansions to the palace new pyramids and when we look at tikal today in many cases we're looking at the fruits of that success he may have even launched the construction of the tallest of tikal structures temple 4 made of 250 000 cubic yards of stone the massive pyramid stretched more than 210 feet or 22 stories high nearly as tall as the towers of the brooklyn bridge it jutted far above the dense rainforest canopy with a 180 degree view of the city in the distance other maya cities were also ambitiously building toward the sky but at this moment with king yakin khan khawil at the helm tikal was the unchallenged powerhouse of the maya civilization [Music] but tikal was not alone out of sight about 250 miles to the west another dynasty is forging the construction of a great acropolis there in the 7th century a king with a vision would emerge he would turn one of the wettest cities in the world into a mecca of new world architecture the view from the top of temple 4 at tikal was the backdrop for the masasi temples in the movie star wars 611 a. d on the outskirts of the maya world in southeast mexico a city by the name of palenque is on the ropes it launches a last-ditch defense against regional powerhouse kalakmul elenkay's forces are overwhelmed and the king is killed with no male heir to the throne because maya kings were thought to be divine lords their lineage is key to survival the end of a dynasty usually spelled disaster yet at this critical moment one of the greatest building campaigns in maya history was about to begin in palenque and the king behind it would remain unknown until the middle of the 20th century in 1949 some of the questions regarding the mysterious dynasty of palenque are answered when archaeologist alberto russo yeah is excavating this 75-foot high temple now called the temple of the inscriptions now i'm in pretty good shape but those guys had headdresses and big robes obsidian knives and swords i thought i'm in pretty good shape for an old guy anyway but i don't know how they did it i don't know how alberto rousslier did it but i still got a lot to go when he gets up into the sanctuary he looks around and he notices on the floor a row of holes covered with stone stoppers and he figures out that these holes were made for ropes in order to pull up the slab just like i'm on a trapdoor so he pulls up the slab this one exactly and he follows a steep staircase filled with dirt and debris he's never seen a my pyramid like this before so his men start digging and digging and digging into the unknown the wet stairs are very slippery from the moisture and time and the rain for the forest and he finally gets down to a plateau and he notices that the whole pathway doubles back and then continues and he finds hidden doors secret passageways signs that a lot of thought and calculation went into building this structure finally after three years after three long years he gets to the bottom of this 80-foot stairway and there he sees a small corridor and in the corridors of the stone box and in the box are six skeletons the remains of souls who were sacrificed to protect the person for whom this temple was built but he still doesn't know who that person was and then he finally sees a huge door a massive triangular stone so his men and he open it and then they go in and behind this huge triangular door is a vaulted crypt about 30 feet long and 23 feet high and inside the crypt is this massive sarcophagus carved from one piece of limestone and on top of the sarcophagus is this magnificent lid with these expertly carved images of a king along this edge by the way which is covered with cinnabar this red stuff is poison to the touch to keep looters from coming in here and ruining it and by the way if the ancient egyptians might have used this we might have had more antiquities coming out of that country today but along this edge is the image of a shield and up in the sanctuary is another image of a shield and the ancient maya word for shield is pacal so alberto roos had discovered the tomb of the most important maya king pacquiao the great the khal's ascension to the throne in 615 a. d came during the most critical time for palenque with no direct air the elders of palenque had turned to an outsider a royal who lived outside the kingdom named lady suck cook now she returned to palenque with her adolescent son pacal the future of palenque hung in the balance as the young boy was crowned king by his mother he was just 12 years old she sort of kept the throne warm for him for over 10 years while he was growing up as the young king grew into adulthood pikal had to deify himself to legitimize his rule he declared his mother to be the living embodiment of the first mother who created humans and the gods he then was the son of a goddess an exalted position that removed any question of his legitimacy he was almost certainly a charismatic fellow he had to have been he had no power base he had to do it almost on pure charisma and determination as a johnny come lately as someone who needs to prove himself he's going to be as splashy as possible and so he constructs the most gaudy buildings imaginable he is establishing all sorts of new architectural patterns to authenticate his lineage the carl set off on a building spree to revitalize his battered kingdom one of his first orders of business the renovation and expansion of the royal palace an impressive structure that sits in the heart of the main plaza more than 000 square feet the palace would become a maze of galleries chambers stairways courtyards and tunnels and was designed to reflect his ideas of grandeur at first picales architects like those throughout the maya world employed what is called the corbeled vault to support their soaring structures now this was a pretty straightforward structure where a series of lines of stones of ever decreasing height are laid on top of each other so it forms really a kind of inverted v shape with a row of capstones along the top but the cordless vault left something to be desired this basic construction limited interior space and light and forced architects to build walls wider than even the space it enclosed driven by a determined king pical's engineers now looked for solutions to this problem well the palenque designers succeeded in doing was lightening the weight they produced sort of honeycomb structures on the top of these buildings they could make their spans wider area more light could come in these innovations reduced the stress on the load-bearing walls creating a more open and inviting field than the traditional maya buildings over 60 years the carl's builders became the best in the new world but it wasn't until the end of his rule that pical commissioned one of the most complex and imaginative projects ever attempted by the maya the temple of the inscriptions the discovery of the temple of the inscriptions changed all our ideas about maya pyramids they weren't supposed to be mortuary shrines inside along a stairway leading down to the tomb engineers built a psychoduct or hollow tube it's a conduit that allows someone on the top of the pyramid to speak into this speaking tube and eventually you would be able to presumably communicate directly with piccol in his tomb this 20-ton sarcophagus was built to last an eternity this actually had a lid which was rolled off to one side and there was a cavity for his body to be put so that when he eventually did die the door was sealed and the stairway was blocked his architects and sculptors designed a coffin rich in symbolism portraying the resurrection of pakal in the after world royal scribes were ordered to draw a grid to accommodate 640 glyphs that would tell the story of pikal's reign many maya pyramids don't leave much textual record on them the opposite is the case in the temple the inscriptions everything about it from these huge tablets on the summit to the information inside proclaims that this is the final resting place of the founder of one of the great maya dynasties in 683 during pakal's 68th year as king the 12 year old boy who grew to be one of the great maya rulers died at the age of 80.

he was covered in red cinnabar and adorned in lavish jewelry a jade mask was placed over his face though the legacy of pacal the great would be hard to match his son had been waiting on the sidelines for nearly 50 years with the clock ticking he would launch a series of building projects harnessing the laws of physics and mother nature in 1985 pikal's burial mask was stolen from a museum in mexico fortunately four years later the mask was recovered 684 a. d the mighty king pakal has engineered palenque to be one of the finest maya capitals ever known after 68 years on the throne his body is buried in a tomb that rivals those built for the egyptian pharaohs now it is up to his son to build upon his father's legacy and cement his own reign was the founder of a dynasty but his son was a great consolidator he was someone that was going to make sure that that dynasty would continue the 48 year old king immediately threw himself into an ambitious three pyramid complex that would stand as his own monument for the ages he designed and constructed the cross group one of the most intricate and beautiful groups of ceremonial temples ever constructed in the maya world these are his memorial and they tower above the palace they look down on the works of his father and in some ways i think they represent a statement of individuality that he himself is going to leave his imprint on the city just as his father did he ordered his engineers to build three intricate structures the temple of the cross the temple of the foliated cross and the temple of the sun khan balam's engineers would take a giant leap forward using sophisticated geometric calculations unsurpassed anywhere in the world based on the maya's creation of a complete number system one of the many ways in which the maya were ahead of their time was in their creation of what we would refer to as zero with a similar combination of a of a shell which represented zero or completion and then a dot number one and then the five by just placing them in different positions they were able to multiply you know uh and reach incredible numbers the greeks and romans were tremendous engineers theologians historians and so forth but were very limited by their mathematical system because they didn't have a zero so you have the irony that they were able to produce great public works philosophy and whatnot but we're really pretty lousy mathematicians compared to the mine khan valam's engineers advanced mathematical observations may have included the discovery of proportions like the square roots of rectangles and something called the golden mean a naturally occurring proportion that can be seen in animals nature and even the human body as 1 to 1. 618 measure a person from his head to his belly button and then from his belly button to his feet you get a proportion very close to 1 to 1.

618 the golden mean some scholars believe this proportion has been appearing in structures for thousands of years at places like the pyramids of giza in egypt and the parthenon in greece da vinci's vitruvian man is a study of this proportion and some even say he painted the mona lisa using this ratio in her features with nothing more than some sticks and a cord khan balaam's engineers may have been able to measure the square roots of rectangles in the temple of the cross these shapes would be used to mark the two main piers of the facade the width of the medial doorway and the interior walls the golden ratio can be seen in the rear chambers and the base of the structure with the side wall is one and the back wall is 1. 618 by using repeated squares and natural proportions in the temple of the cross a beautifully calculated floor plan took shape full of geometry mythological history and a king's own legacy but not all engineering in palenque was done with an eye on the afterlife palenque's engineers also had to focus on more practical needs one of the names of palenque is la camha which means place of great waters we have four rivers running through plankey year-round we have dozens of springs we have water everywhere these riches came with challenges palenque was surrounded by steep hills natural springs and creeks that carved their way through the base of the site leaving only bits and pieces of flat water free land for building unlike most maya cities the problem facing palenque wasn't how to store water for the dry season it was how to deal with an over abundance of water as you can see everything is green here it rains every day so to meet this challenge the city planners devised a unique way of diverting the pre-existing streams by building subterranean aqueducts that would channel the water underground thus saving more land on top for cultivation these tunnels were lined with limestone and they were covered with our old friend from egypt and greece the corveld vault series of protruding stones one on top the other form sort of an arch overhead now these ceilings were so sturdy they could support the massive weight of palenque's giant plazas overhead so the people were walking along with the water rushing underneath them being diverted away from the city just like it is where i live today in new york city what's even more impressive is that there are signs that maya engineers may have figured out a way to create water pressure they built water tunnels that ran through the rugged terrain into the city often directed uphill as they got closer to the main structures the pipes got incrementally smaller like roman fountains the water pressure gained momentum as it coursed through increasingly narrower tunnels eventually allowing for running water throughout palenque's buildings we have beautiful systems of sweat baths and swimming pools and aqua in its day it would have rivaled any of the roman aqueduct systems we don't see this use of water pressure anywhere else and it doesn't appear again until the spanish bring the technologies with them together khan balam and his father pakal ruled palenque for nearly 100 years pushing maya engineering to a level never seen before the future seemed bright for this city on the rise its years of glory are about to come to a sudden end something is happening in the maya world that will cause the classic city-states to implode the maya had developed the concept of zero by the 4th century a. d but the europeans wouldn't understand the concept until 800 years later by the 8th century palenque tikal and the other kingdoms of the maya world were expanding across the continent tall pyramids unparalleled city planning and sumptuous royal palaces advertised the glory of the great kings then suddenly these cities began to unravel one after another royal sculptors stopped carving their monuments with historical information and kings halted their construction projects maya civilization had plunged into darkness it's not that the entire maya lowlands is abandoned overnight it's that you know one kingdom falls here and another one ten years later falls over here then another one over here the causes remains a great debate among scholars we're really talking about a society that was pushing itself to the limits there is no one single explanation for this implosion but scholars seem to believe that environmental catastrophe led to a full-blown meltdown for the maya civilization the soil no longer produced crops thus lack of food and polluted water produced malnutrition and disease the maya could no longer count on their kings to intercede with their gods because their great society was in a death spiral and their king so long counted on for guidance and prosperity were powerless to stop it so sadly but slowly and surely the people voted with their feet and the ancient maya left their beautiful cities forever there were no signs of mass graves they did not vanish where did the millions of maya go if you wanted to go where it was happening you move north go go north young man the cities that die in the south and that's the only way to describe it is they just go into oblivion are never really replaced but there are locations all around the yucatan peninsula where the cities not only thrive but they begin to grow explosively this growth was enhanced by an elaborate network of causeways called sock bays or white roads the sock bays weren't just local transport they were emblems of the great political power of two allied cities that had the wherewithal to create this magnificent royal procession way between their two kingdoms as much as 60 miles long in some places they were a marvel of engineering they would place huge rocks on both sides of the causeway and then fill in whatever was in between with cobbles and unfinished rocks and the stones and then they cover all these surface with stucco nice plaster and then upon it they created this smooth surface in the yucatan peninsula the sock bays often chartered a course through the rough terrain in perfectly straight lines it's not easy to cut a line 60 miles that doesn't deviate even even a degree i would really like to know what instruments they use we have no record of it these causeway systems allowed for rebirth movement and trade in the north and it is there that the ragged survivors of the southern lowlands hope to find a second chance in a yucatan city called chichen itza chichen itza came to be the largest and most powerful city from about 800 to 1050 or so that had a real knack of being a big tent so it was a very cosmopolitan place and i'm sure it traded handsomely on that reputation one of the buildings unique to the site was el caracol an astronomical observatory the maya were obsessed with both time and the stars and spent centuries looking to the sky for answers the maya probably had something called a nomen which is a series of two crossed bars and by looking at the intersection of those two bars they were able to focus on something [Music] with just basic tools the maya were able to track the movement of the stars and planets and the passing of time like stonehenge this was a place where people could make solar and lunar observations the staircase in the front of the building faced 27.