纪录片《大英博物馆世界简史》 051玛雅宫廷放血仪式浮雕（8）（在线收听）

Environmental factors are a popular explanation. There is some evidence of a prolonged drought, and given the density of the population, the decline in resources a drought would cause could well have been catastrophic. But, in all events, the Maya people of course, did not vanish. Mayan settlements continued in a number of areas and a functioning Mayan society lasted right up to the Spanish Conquest.

Today there are about six million Mayans, and their sense of their heritage is strong. You have just heard the sound of a Maya uprising in 1994, when the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, as they call themselves, declared war on the Mexican State. Their independence movement profoundly shook modern Mexico. "We are in the new 'Time of the Mayas' ", a local play proclaimed, as statues of the Spanish conquistadors were toppled and beaten into rubble. Today, the Maya use their past to renegotiate their identity, and seek to restore their monuments and language to centre-stage in public life. New roads now open up access to the formerly "lost" cities. Yaxchilan, where our sculpture came from, used to be accessible only by light plane or a river trip across hundreds of miles, but since the 1990s it's just an hour's boat ride, and it's a big draw for tourists.

The disturbing image on our sculpture shows a powerful woman using self-mutilation to induce a vision of divinely ordained authority. In the next programme, we're going to be looking at an altogether more appealing aspect of privilege. We're moving from the politics of pain in Mexico to the politics of pleasure in the Middle East... to the world of the Arabian Nights.