Final answer:
Yuri Knorozov discovered Mayan manuscripts in 1946 which led to the realization that the Mayan writing system was not an alphabet but a combination of logograms and phonetic symbols, changing the way scholars understood Mayan civilization.
Step-by-step explanation:
In 1946, a linguist named Yuri Knorozov made a groundbreaking discovery that would profoundly alter the understanding of the Mayan civilization. Knorozov, while in Berlin after WWII, came across Mayan manuscripts that helped him challenge previously held beliefs about the Mayan writing system. Despite the burning of many original Mayan texts by Bishop Diego de Landa in the 16th century, Knorozov's work, especially his 1952 article, started to reveal that the Mayan glyphs were a mixture of logograms and phonetic symbols -- not a straightforward alphabet as de Landa had claimed. This realisation eventually led to a significant shift in 1973 at a conference in Palenque, where scholars were able for the first time to decipher the names of seven Mayan rulers. The understanding of Mayan glyphs signified that the Maya had a sophisticated writing system which chronicled their history, astronomy, and mathematics, as well as elaborate narratives about their rulers and societies.