# Hieroglyphs Reveal Ancient Superpower Conflict In The Maya World **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 20, 2002, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hieroglyphs-reveal-ancient-superpower-conflict-in-the-maya-world/128851 "2002-09-20T18:24:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![dalovindj](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/65b543/32.png) [@dalovindj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalovindj)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2002, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hieroglyphs-reveal-ancient-superpower-conflict-in-the-maya-world/128851/1 "2002-09-20T18:24:00Z")
[See?](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/09/020920071859.htm) I don’t have much to say about it, but I thought it was very interesting. I find it way cool that they were able to find this valuable piece of information. I do have a question, actually, now that I think about it. How can we read Mayan glyphs? Is there a Rosetta Stone equivalent, or has the language survied in some other form? I can’t imagine it is still spoken or written. DaLovin’ Dj ---
**Author:** ![Ice\_Wolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/dfb087/32.png) [@Ice\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ice_Wolf)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2002, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hieroglyphs-reveal-ancient-superpower-conflict-in-the-maya-world/128851/2 "2002-09-20T18:54:10Z")
According to [this site,](http://www.ioon.net/mayaonics/EngPages/foreword.htm) one Yuri Knorozov was the first to break the “Mayan Code” in the early 1950s. > [@](#): > > During World War II Yuri Knorozov was a young student in Leningrad until he was drafted to the Red Army, where he was part of the units that seized Berlin and set an end to Hitler’s rule in Germany. In the final assault on Berlin he saw the National Library in flames and so rushed in and at random grabbed a book to save it. The book turned out to be a facsimile of the only three surviving Mayan Codices that were known at the time, a book that was hardly available in any book store in Stalin’s Russia. Back in Russia he was encouraged to take on breaking the Maya code, the Mayan script, and seven years later he published the solution in a Russian journal of linguistics. ---
**Author:** ![xcheopis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/bc8723/32.png) [@xcheopis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xcheopis)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2002, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hieroglyphs-reveal-ancient-superpower-conflict-in-the-maya-world/128851/3 "2002-09-20T19:15:36Z")
There were a couple of posts about this [here](http://www.livejournal.com/users/anthropologist), which include a radio interview.