Stalagmites & Hieroglyphs: Investigating the Maya Demise

You think you have interesting work, and indeed you may, but chances are it doesn’t involve hieroglyphs, fieldwork at a Belize geological site, a 2,000-year-old stalagmite or coordinating a team of diverse experts across oceans to help solve a centuries-old mystery that may hold important lessons for us today.

But if this work, which is that of environmental archaeologist Douglas Kennett, sounds a little bit like Indiana Jones, it is in fact, often a slog. For his late 2012 published research related to the role of climate in the collapse of the Classic Maya (300 to 1000 C.E.), his team extracted and analyzed thousands of samples from a 2,000-year-old stalagmite. Read more.

Tourists flocking to Guatemala for “end of the world” parties have damaged an ancient stone temple at Tikal, the largest archeological site and urban center of the Mayan civilization. “Sadly, many tourists climbed Temple II and caused damage,” said Osvaldo Gomez, a technical adviser at the site, which is located some 550 kilometers (340 miles) north of Guatemala City. “We are fine with the celebration, but (the tourists) should be more aware because this is a (UNESCO) World Heritage Site,” he told local media. Gomez did not specify what was done, although he did say it was forbidden to climb the stairs at the site and indicated that the damage was irreparable. Temple II, which is about 38 meters (125 feet) high and faces the central Tikal plaza, is one of the site’s best known structures. Friday marked the end of an era that lasted 5,200 years, according to the Mayan “Long Count” calendar. Some believed the date also marked the end of the world as foretold by Mayan hieroglyphs. More than 7,000 people visited Tikal on Friday to see native Mayan priests hold a colorful ceremony and light fires as the sun emerged to mark the new era. Critics complained that the event was really for tourists and had little to do with the Mayans. About 42 percent of Guatemala’s 14.3 million residents are native Mayans, and most live in poverty and endure discrimination. The ancient Mayans reached their peak of power in Central America between the years 250 and 900 AD.

A TEMPLE built 1600 years ago to honour a Mayan king by streaming sunlight around his tomb is being excavated in the dense forests of Guatemala.

“The sun was a key element of Maya rulership,” lead archeologist Stephen Houston explained in announcing the discovery by the joint Guatemalan and American team that has been excavating the El Zotz site since 2006.

“It’s something that rises every day and penetrates into all nooks and crannies, just as royal power presumably would,” said Houston, a professor at Brown University, Rhode Island.

“This building is one that celebrates this close linkage between the king and this most powerful and dominant of celestial presences.”

Archeologists say the temple was likely built to honour the leader buried under the Diablo Pyramid tomb, the governor and founder of the first El Zotz dynasty called Pa’Chan, or “fortified sky.”

Mayan civilisation, which spread through southern Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Belize, was at its height between 250 and 900 AD.

Carbon dating places construction of the temple at the early part of that era, somewhere between 350 and 400 AD, the archeologists said.

It is ornately decorated with massive stucco masks, 1.5 meters tall, each depicting the phases of the sun as it moves east to west, and a painted stucco frieze that the team described as “incredible.”

More than half the temple is still to be excavated, co-project leader Thomas Garrison of the University of Southern California told a press conference on Wednesday at Guatemala City’s National Palace of Culture.

“The temple probably had 14 masks at the height of the frieze, but only eight of them have been documented” so far, which is why excavations must continue, added University of Austin archeologist Edwin Roman.

Excavations by the Guatemalan and American team began at the El Zotz dig in 2006, but the temple wasn’t uncovered until three years ago.

If you want to save an ancient archaeological site from impending destruction, here is one way to do it: Buy it.

That is exactly what happened in 2011 as the monumental remains of a Classic period Maya kingdom located in northwestern Belize faced destruction from bulldozing. Action from...