When the Spanish invaded the Yucatán Peninsula in the 16th century, they were met with a system of beliefs, practices, art and language so sophisticated and complex that they neither comprehended nor trusted it. Desperate to root out an Indigenous culture they considered “pagan,” the Catholic colonizers destroyed everything they could — hieroglyphic texts, artworks, “idols” — across a region that includes modern-day Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and Belize.
