(narrator) courtly life at palenque and other maya city-states brought with it responsibility. maya rulers literally paid for their status with their own blood. this sne relief depicts the rituals required of maya kings and queens. lady xok kneels before her husband, the lord of yahilan. she draws a rope studded with thorns through her tongue. her blood, dripping down the rope onto bark paper, will be burned as an offering to the gods to insure that the cycle of life would endure. the story continues in a second relief. lady xok, perhaps in a pain-induced trance, has a vision. from the mouth of a giant serpent her ancestor emerges as an armed warrior. in a third relief she appears again, arming her husband with a shield and jaguar-helmet in preparation for war. in the absence of a central authority, the various petty kingdoms inevitably battled for control of resources. palenque waged war against tonina, a warlike city-state lodged in the rugged mountains to the south. their grim rivalry persisted for generations. themes of war, sacrifice and captivity became common in maya art,

archaeologists believe the king of each maya city probably controlled a large piece of the best farm land -- land that could produce a surplus beyond the needs of his royal household. but no maya king controlled a large food producing system like the aztec chinampas. consequently, the real power of maya kings was limited. so it was natural that they sought to control their subjects in other ways. one of those ways is being explored by honduran archaeologist ricardo agurcia. agurcia is tunneling in the ruins of a huge pyramid built by the last king of copan. he believes the pyramid may contain a more complete building of an earlier king. he first drove one tunnel northward from the main shaft and discovered the remains of a wall. these are the remains of earlier building on the acropolis. behind one of the walls, agurcia found another, and followed it farther inward and upward toward the heart of the pyramid. agurcia: the next thing we knew, we hit this incredible building. keach: what agurcia found astounded him -- the roof of a buried building, decorated with elaborate plaster sculpt

(narrator) courtly life at palenque and other maya city-states brought with it responsibility. maya rulers literally paid for their status with their own blood. this sne relief depicts the rituals required of maya kings and queens. lady xok kneels before her husband, the lord of yaxchilan. she draws a rope studded with thorns through her tongue. her blood, dripping down the rope onto bark paper, will be burned as an offering to the gods to insure that the cycle of life would endure. the story continues in a second relief. lady xok, perhaps in a pain-induced trance, has a vision. from the mouth of a giant serpent her ancestor emerges as an armed warrior. in a third relief she appears again, arming her husband with a shield and jaguar-helmet in preparation for war. in the absence of a central authority, the various petty kingdoms inevitably battled for control of resources. palenque waged war against tonina, a warlike city-state lodged in the rugged mountains to the south. their grim rivalry persisted for generations. themes of war, sacrifice and captivity became common in maya ar

europeans were amazed by catherwood's written descriptions of ancient maya cities. architecture, sculpture and painting -- all the arts that embellish life had flourished in this overgrown forest. who built this city ? in the ruined cities of egypt, the stranger knows the story of the people whose vestiges are around him. america, say the historians, was peopled by savages. but savages never reared these structures, never carved these stones. we asked the indians who made them ? and their answer was "quien sabe ?" -- who knows ? during the next century, other explorers revealed the amazing variety of new-world civilizations. a great city, teotihuacan, dominated the basin of mexico. atop a hill in the valley of oaxaca, sits monte alban, the royal center of a mighty kingdom. and in the forests and jungles of guatemala, maya city states once reigned over thousands of square miles. this is mesoamerica. at about a.d. 700, three great civilizations had emerged here. the realms of the maya. the power of the great city of teotihuacan. the zapotec kingdom of monte alban. for

yet today, as in mexico city, life continues amidst the ruins of rome's former glory. the collapse of maya civilization was quite different. warfare and conquest cannot explain the total abandonment of these once grand cities. even if warfare had taken many lives, the maya population should have revived within a few generations. what could have caused such a widespread disaster ? 2,000 miles from the maya heartland, a similar puzzle intrigues archaeologists in the american southwest. nestled into the cliffs at mesa verde in colorado are the abandoned ruins of the anasazi, the ancient ones. at chaco canyon, in new mexico, the anasazi built great residential and ceremonial centers. sometime between the 11th and 13th centuries a.d., all of these communities were abandoned. in the southwestern corner of colorado, one group of anasazi flourished at a place called sand canyon. now overgrown with juniper and pinyon, sand canyon pueblo was once a thriving, densely populated town. here, a team of archaeologists is excavating an abandoned anasazi settlement. woman: the bubble in the center. about 50

city in tanzania. >> arkadina is a character. >> luna is the third child for uma who is 42 and had two other children, maya 13 and levon with ethaning to "forbes?" >> according to "forbes." let's go from five down to -- okay. >> the top two are -- >> ashton kutcher is number one. >> he took over for martin sheen. >> $24 million. >> charlie, excuse me. >> hugh lorie of "house." >> and that's gone off the air. >> $18 million. how about ray romano. $18 million for the reruns of his show and all those great movies he does. >> collecting residuals and his "ice age" voice. >> alec baldwin. >> $15 million. that show is also coming to an end. if you see them in the unemployment line. and mark harmon. you never hear about him. he is still married to pam dawber. he is a really lovely guy and "csi" is one of the highest rated shows. they take it away so fast. >> i no. you note five-second rule. you drop something on the floor and quickly scoop it up. >> i totally believe it. >> you eat it. >> yeah. not if you're in grand central you don't. >> every year the folks from clorox want to remind us the five-second rule isn't true. let's watch thi