As you saw in the video, Spanish priests burned thousands of Mayan books, called codices (KO-duh-seez). To save the books from the priests, the Maya buried some of the books in the ground. However, over time, the hot and humid climate destroyed them. Today, only four codices remain.

Luckily, archaeologists—scientists who learn about the past by studying the things people left behind—have found other artifacts on which the Maya painted or carved their writings. For example, the Maya wrote on buildings, pottery, and stone columns. Archeologists were at first unable to read the writings. It took hundreds of years before they could decipher, or decode, what the writings meant.