Breaking the Maya Code - Interview Archives - Night Fire Films - Films that explore the rich ways humans have made sense of their world through myth, ritual, art and science.

This archive contains the transcripts of 24 interviews filmed for Breaking the Maya Code. Totaling almost a thousand pages, these interviews explore a wealth of topics in the history of the Maya decipherment and in Maya epigraphy, iconography, linguistics, archaeology, and ethnography.

There’s something here for everybody, not just for scholars, as Ian Graham discovers a vast city in the jungle… Barbara MacLeod explores Maya caves filled with clues to ancient rituals… Nikolai Grube encounters a shape-shifting shaman…. Federico Fahsen unearths a hieroglyphic stairway with clues to the Maya collapse. Dig in and see what you unearth!

CLICK HERE FOR INDEX OF INTERVIEWS

Please note: Because these are transcripts of interviews made for use in a film, they have certain stylistic idiosyncrasies. Crew talk and false starts have generally been eliminated here to make for easier reading. Sometimes the interviewee was asked to repeat a statement for technical reasons or so that a second angle could be filmed; in these cases both statements have been retained if they contain uniquely interesting material.

These are informal discussions and reminiscences. As in all conversations, there may be errors in the recall of specific facts and dates, and past events are often recalled differently by several participants. Single statements should therefore not be taken as historically authoritative without corroboration from other sources.

It should also be kept in mind that these are transcripts prepared for film use by a transcription service. The transcripts have been reviewed by our production staff and in many cases by the interviewees, but not with the scholarly care one would apply to documents intended for publication. Errors, particularly in the spelling of personal names and Maya words, no doubt remain. We welcome corrections; if you discover errors, please go to contact us on this web site and send us an email.

The interview with Linda Schele was conducted by Michael Coe and David Lebrun; the interview with Angél Xiloj was conducted by Dennis Tedlock and David Lebrun; all other interviews were conducted by David Lebrun.

INTERVIEW INDEX

Ricardo Agurcia Archaeologist Copán, Honduras	Elizabeth Benson Pre-Columbian Scholar and Curator Washington, DC	Michael D. Coe Archaeologist and Author Yale University
Federico Fahsen Epigrapher and Architect Guatemala City, Guatemala	William. L. Fash Archaeologist Director, Peabody Museum Harvard University	David Freidel Archaeologist Southern Methodist University
Lolmay Garcia Matzar Linguist and Educator OKMA, Antigua, Guatemala	Ian Graham Director Emeritus Maya Corpus Project Harvard University	Gillett Griffin Art Historian Princeton, New Jersey
Nikolai Grube Epigrapher and Ethnographer University of Bonn, Germany	Kathryn Josserand & Nicholas Hopkins Linguists Florida State University	David Kelley Archaeologist and Epigrapher University of Calgary
Justin Kerr Photographer New York City	Barbara MacLeod Linguist and Epigrapher Austin, Texas	Simon Martin Epigrapher and Historian University of Pennsylvania Museum
Peter Mathews Archaeologist and Epigrapher La Trobe University, Melbourne	Merle Greene Robertson Artist and Photographer Director, Pre-Columbian Art Research Institute, San Francisco	Linda Schele Art Historian and Epigrapher University of Texas, Austin
Nikté Sis Iboy Director, OKMA Antigua, Guatemala	David Stuart Art Historian and Epigrapher University of Texas	George Stuart Archaeologist and Historian Boundary End Research Center North Carolina
Barbara and Dennis Tedlock Anthropologists State University of New York, Buffalo	Angél Xiloj Daykeeper Momostenango, Guatemala