# The Man Who Burnt the Maya Books: Diego de Landa

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-conquistadors-exploration-greed-and-destruction-fexingo-history-7864470/the-man-who-burnt-the-maya-books-diego-de-landa
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-conquistadors-exploration-greed-and-destruction-fexingo-history-7864470/the-man-who-burnt-the-maya-books-diego-de-landa.md
Podcast: [The Conquistadors: Exploration, Greed, and Destruction — Fexingo History](https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-conquistadors-exploration-greed-and-destruction-fexingo-history-7864470)
Published: 2026-07-23T03:06:38+00:00
Episode link: https://audio.fexingo.com/history/the-conquistadors/episode-0171.mp3
Audio file: https://audio.fexingo.com/history/the-conquistadors/episode-0171.mp3
Processing state: not_requested
JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-conquistadors-exploration-greed-and-destruction-fexingo-history-7864470/episodes/the-man-who-burnt-the-maya-books-diego-de-landa
Duration seconds: 507

## Resource

In 1562, in the town of Maní on the Yucatán Peninsula, Spanish Franciscan friar Diego de Landa ordered the destruction of thousands of Maya codices — bark-paper books containing centuries of knowledge about astronomy, ritual, history, and medicine. Only four authenticated Maya codices survive today. This episode explores who Landa was, why he burned the books, and the paradox of his legacy: the same man who erased the Maya literary tradition also wrote the single most detailed account of Maya culture and religion, the Relación de las Cosas de Yucatán, without which much of what we know about the ancient Maya would be lost. Lucas and Luna examine the context of Landa's auto-da-fé, the content of the lost books, and the ongoing debate over whether Landa was a destroyer or a preserver of Maya heritage. They also discuss the surviving codices — the Dresden, Madrid, Paris, and Grolier — and the challenges of reading Maya hieroglyphs today. This episode touches on Inquisition procedures in the New World, the clash between European and Indigenous worldviews, and the complicated question of what is gained and lost when one culture's books burn in the flames of another's faith. #DiegoDeLanda #MayaCodices #Yucatan #Maya #RelacionDeLasCosasDeYucatan #Mani #Franciscan #AutoDaFe #Inquisition #DresdenCodex #MadridCodex #ParisCodex #GrolierCodex #MayaHieroglyphs #MesoamericanHistory #SpanishConquest #History #FexingoHistory Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo

## Actions

- request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-conquistadors-exploration-greed-and-destruction-fexingo-history-7864470/episodes/the-man-who-burnt-the-maya-books-diego-de-landa/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.
- read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-conquistadors-exploration-greed-and-destruction-fexingo-history-7864470/the-man-who-burnt-the-maya-books-diego-de-landa.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.

A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed.

## Transcript

Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.