Landa Burns Maya Codices at Maní — Catastrophic Knowledge Destruction

On July 12, 1562, Franciscan Provincial Diego de Landa conducted an auto-da-fé at the town of Maní in the Yucatán, burning at least 27 Maya hieroglyphic books (codices) and approximately 5,000 cult images, believing them to contain 'nothing but superstition and lies of the devil.' He also subjected hundreds of Maya to interrogation and torture to extract confessions of continued idolatry, killing or permanently crippling some. When reports of his excesses reached Spain, Landa was recalled and tried before the Council of the Indies; he was ultimately acquitted and later appointed Bishop of Yucatán. In a profound historical irony, Landa himself wrote the Relación de las cosas de Yucatán — the most comprehensive early account of Maya civilization — which preserved the Maya calendar, cosmology, and the 'Landa alphabet' later used by scholars to begin decoding Maya hieroglyphs. Of perhaps thousands of Maya codices that existed at contact, only four pre-Columbian examples survive today: the Dresden, Madrid, Paris, and Grolier codices. The burning at Maní represents one of history's most consequential single acts of cultural destruction.