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.

In its heyday from about A.D. 300 to 900, the Maya civilization boasted hundreds ... centers where theocratic rulers practiced a complex religion based on a host of gods, a unique calendar ...

The ancient Maya civilization conquered the territories ... Each of the three reliefs offers a vision of the mythological and celestial beliefs that motivated the Maya reign.

FOR DECADES, scholars have argued about what caused the so-called Maya collapse. Several million Maya lived ... unearths remnants of a civilization of warriors, artists, and kings that still feels ...

Then, in 964, the Itzás, a Maya-speaking people from the Petén rain forest around Tikal, moved into the city. Archeologists have fully explored only about 20 or 30 of several hundred buildings ...