Before the 1970s, ancient Maya history was impenetrable. The civilization's grand ceremonial buildings and striking art, created in parts of Mesoamerica during the Classic Maya period (ad 150-900) had tantalized foreign visitors since the arrival of Spanish conquistadors in the sixteenth century. But no one, including several million twentieth-century speakers of Maya languages, could read the ancient Maya hieroglyphs.
The wheel, a monumental invention, likely originated in the Carpathian Mountains by miners using innovative transport methods, profoundly impacting human progress and labor.