NARRATOR: Up next on NOVA, Cracking the Maya Code. NARRATOR: In the 16th century, the flames of the Spanish Inquisition scorched the New World, decimating the Maya civilization. One blaze was ignited ...

From bizarre ancient markings to random numbers and letters, codes and ciphers have been used for millennia to send secret messages, hide identities and operate outside the law. Unravelling these ...

NPR's Melissa Block talks to Oliver and Sheila Lawn, former code-breakers in World War II who have been called in to try to decipher the meaning of mysterious letters carved into a monument at ...

The encrypted initiation rite of an ancient German secret society preoccupied with ophthalmology has fallen to modern language analysis tools including an online automatic translator. The 19th Century ...

The telegraph without wire -- An extension of mouth : how the bàtá talks -- Other voices : the Omele Méta and the Ìyáàlù Dùndún -- Speaking in codes : Enà ...