I was on my own modest search for Chaak. Roaming the Yucatán Peninsula, I was looking for rituals and beliefs held by modern Maya that might help me understand their link to their glorious ancestors.

Eric Thompson's theory had been that the Maya wrote in rebus, in which symbols are used for whole words. A modern rebus of the phrase "I can see" might include pictures of an eye, a tin can ...

Over the years people moved from villages to modern cities, making it difficult ... started to destroy the Maya cities and people. The Spanish were armed with artillery, steel swords and muskets ...

DNA comparisons between ancient remains and 68 present-day Maya people show a strong genetic continuity, despite changes brought by European colonialism. Modern Maya individuals show genetic ...

it is good to see that more secrets of the Classical Mayan society are being recovered. With modern day Maya still living where their ancestors once did, these discoveries help them to recover and ...

Maya people in the Yucatán Peninsula have prepared it this way since at least 400 AD. But people have abandoned these traditions, swapping pibs for modern stoves. More from Still Standing ...