Forget everything you thought you knew about the ancient Maya. Cracking their mysterious hieroglyphs didn't just reveal boring calendars, it exposed a cutthroat, Game of Thrones-style world of rival superpowers, Tikal and Calakmul. Tristan Hughes is joined by Professor David Stuart to uncover tales of powerful female warlords, dark pilgrimages to the underworld, and the secret jungle "whiteboard" of an ancient mathematician. MORE The Maya Collapse Listen on Apple Listen on Spotify The Olmec: Mother of Mesoamerican Civilisations Listen on Apple <...
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B2 · Upper-intermediate
Comfortable if you already follow TV news
- 84% of the words are B1 or easier.
- 169 words a minute: natural, fairly fast speech.
- 212 harder words (B2 and up) in the whole episode.
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Cuneiform, Linear B. Hieroglyphs. Mysterious ancient scripts that, when finally deciphered, revealed exciting new worlds. The cracking of hieroglyphs unlocked the world of ancient Egypt. formed the world of Mesopotamia, Linear B, Bronze Age Greece. And across the Atlantic in Central
America, archaeologists have had another ancient code to crack. We know them as Maya hieroglyphs. Today, these beautiful symbols have started to reveal so much about the complex world of the ancient Maya. About their cities, their politics, their beliefs, their conflicts, their leaders. Welcome to The Ancients, I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and this is your guide
to Maya hieroglyphs and the world, the stories they are revealing. Our guest is Dr. David Stewart, Professor of Mesoamerican Art, Archaeology and Apigraphy at the University of Texas. David, it is such a pleasure to have you on the podcast.
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