Cogburn
11-01-2009, 04:23 PM
"This is not a mountain, it is a [man-made] pyramid."
"... an amount of labor unprecedented in human history ..."
"... this discovery will rewrite Mayan history ..."
z]voY8jNcuGe8z]
[offsite=http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSTRE52A7FP20090312:wdvw7ypz]Rare Maya panels found in Guatemala
GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) - Archeologists have uncovered carved stucco panels depicting cosmic monsters, gods and serpents in Guatemala's northern jungle that are the oldest known depictions of a famous Mayan creation myth.
The newly discovered panels, both 26 feet long and stacked on top of each other, were created around 300 BC and show scenes from the core Mayan mythology, the Popol Vuh.
It took investigators three months to uncover the carvings while excavating El Mirador, the biggest ancient Mayan city in the world, the site's head researcher, Richard Hansen, said on Wednesday.
The Maya built soaring temples and elaborate palaces in Central America and southern Mexico, dominating the region for some 2,000 years, before mysteriously abandoning their cities around 900 AD.
The El Mirador basin was deserted much earlier with the large urban population leaving a complex network of roads and waterways and a massive pyramid now covered under thick vegetation.
The earliest written version of the Popol Vuh was discovered in the early 1700s by a Spanish colonial priest and the panels are the first known sculptural depictions of the main characters in the myth -- two hero twins, Hansen said.
"This is pre-Christian, it has tremendous antiquity and shows again the remarkable resilience of an ideology that's existed for thousands of years," Hansen, an Idaho State University archeologist who has worked at El Mirador for over a decade, said.
On one panel, the twins are depicted surrounded by cosmic monsters and above them is a bird deity with outstretched wings. On the other, there is a Mayan corn god framed by an undulating serpent, said Hansen who worked as a consultant for Mel Gibson's 2006 movie about the Maya, "Apocalypto."
TOURIST TRAIN
Spread over more than 500,000 acres (2,000 square km), El Mirador is three times the size of Guatemala's famous Tikal ruins, a popular tourist destination.
But El Mirador's conservation is threatened by drug traffickers who use the area to ship cocaine and heroin across the porous border with Mexico, deforestation by locals, looters who steal ancient artifacts to sell on the black market and wild animal poachers.
Last year, President Alvaro Colom announced the creation of a massive park in the dense jungle of northern Guatemala's Peten region, which would encompass both El Mirador and the already excavated Tikal.
The plan includes the construction by 2020 of a silent, propane powered train to carry thousands of tourists to the ruins, currently only accessible by helicopter or a two-day hike through the jungle.[/offsite:wdvw7ypz]
[offsite=http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-42207620090903:wdvw7ypz]Guatemala Mayan city may have ended in pyramid battle
By Sarah Grainger
EL MIRADOR, Guatemala (Reuters) - One of Guatemala's greatest ancient Mayan cities may have died out in a bloody battle atop a huge pyramid between a royal family and invaders from hundreds of miles away, archaeologists say.
Researchers are carrying out DNA tests on blood samples from hundreds of spear tips and arrowheads dug up with bone fragments and smashed pottery at the summit of the El Tigre pyramid in the Mayan city of El Mirador, buried beneath jungle vegetation 8 km from Guatemala's border with Mexico.
Many of the excavated blades are made of obsidian which the archaeologists have traced to a source hundreds of miles away in the Mexican highlands. They believe the spears belonged to warriors from Teotihuacan, an ancient civilization near Mexico City and an ally of Tikal, which was an enemy city of El Mirador.
"We've found over 200 of the obsidian tips alone, as well as flint ones, indicating there was a tremendous battle," said excavation leader Richard Hansen, a senior scientist in Idaho State University's anthropology department who is pushing the pyramid battle theory.
"It looks like this was the final point of defense for a small group of inhabitants," told Reuters.
El Mirador is one of the biggest ancient cities in the Western Hemisphere and is thought to have been home to between 100,000 and 200,000 people at its height. Historians believe it was built up from around 850 BC and flourished for hundreds of years before it was mysteriously abandoned in 150 AD.
Many archaeologists think the size and elaborate stucco decoration of the buildings in the city are to blame as the inhabitants used up stone, trees and lime plaster in their construction until their resources were entirely depleted.
Hansen's team believes a group of some 200 people, thought to be the last remnants of the royal family, stayed in the ruined metropolis until they were attacked by warriors from Teotihuacan.
They believe the invaders were allies of Tikal, around 60 km to the southeast, which resented being dwarfed by the enormous pyramids of El Mirador and was eager to make sure the enemy never recovered. They think Teotihuacan warriors trapped the survivors in a siege before a bloody battle that sealed the city's fate.
MODERN THREAT
Hansen's archaeologists found graffiti they believe was left by Teotihuacan fighters who smashed up carved Maya monoliths and left crudely etched skull drawings, known as Tlalocs, on the rock as proof of their victory.
"The Tlaloc is the war god image of the highland Mexicans (and we found it) crudely pecked on these monuments, suggesting that perhaps a hostile event had taken place here," Hansen said.
The team sent excavated spear tips to a lab in Missouri where scientists are trying to extract blood samples for DNA tests. They expect to find one DNA type in blood on the obsidian objects and a different type on the Maya-made flint fragments, suggesting a battle between two racial groups.
El Mirador is home to one of the world's biggest pyramids by volume, La Danta, named after the tapirs that roam the dense jungle that hid the pre-Columbian treasures for decades until the site was discovered in the early 20th century.
American archeologists who made an aerial survey of the El Mirador Basin in Guatemala's northern Peten region in the 1930s mistook the tree- and vegetation-covered pyramid for a volcano.
Hansen has worked with teams digging at El Mirador for some 30 years. The site is at risk from looters, poachers and loggers trying to make a living out of the forest, as well as drug traffickers seeking to move cocaine into Mexico.
Last year, President Alvaro Colom announced the creation of a huge park in the Peten region to encompass both El Mirador and the already excavated Tikal, a popular tourist site.
The park will include a silent propane-powered train to lug tourists to the El Mirador ruins, currently only accessible by helicopter or a two-day hike through the jungle.[/offsite:wdvw7ypz]
"... an amount of labor unprecedented in human history ..."
"... this discovery will rewrite Mayan history ..."
z]voY8jNcuGe8z]
[offsite=http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSTRE52A7FP20090312:wdvw7ypz]Rare Maya panels found in Guatemala
GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) - Archeologists have uncovered carved stucco panels depicting cosmic monsters, gods and serpents in Guatemala's northern jungle that are the oldest known depictions of a famous Mayan creation myth.
The newly discovered panels, both 26 feet long and stacked on top of each other, were created around 300 BC and show scenes from the core Mayan mythology, the Popol Vuh.
It took investigators three months to uncover the carvings while excavating El Mirador, the biggest ancient Mayan city in the world, the site's head researcher, Richard Hansen, said on Wednesday.
The Maya built soaring temples and elaborate palaces in Central America and southern Mexico, dominating the region for some 2,000 years, before mysteriously abandoning their cities around 900 AD.
The El Mirador basin was deserted much earlier with the large urban population leaving a complex network of roads and waterways and a massive pyramid now covered under thick vegetation.
The earliest written version of the Popol Vuh was discovered in the early 1700s by a Spanish colonial priest and the panels are the first known sculptural depictions of the main characters in the myth -- two hero twins, Hansen said.
"This is pre-Christian, it has tremendous antiquity and shows again the remarkable resilience of an ideology that's existed for thousands of years," Hansen, an Idaho State University archeologist who has worked at El Mirador for over a decade, said.
On one panel, the twins are depicted surrounded by cosmic monsters and above them is a bird deity with outstretched wings. On the other, there is a Mayan corn god framed by an undulating serpent, said Hansen who worked as a consultant for Mel Gibson's 2006 movie about the Maya, "Apocalypto."
TOURIST TRAIN
Spread over more than 500,000 acres (2,000 square km), El Mirador is three times the size of Guatemala's famous Tikal ruins, a popular tourist destination.
But El Mirador's conservation is threatened by drug traffickers who use the area to ship cocaine and heroin across the porous border with Mexico, deforestation by locals, looters who steal ancient artifacts to sell on the black market and wild animal poachers.
Last year, President Alvaro Colom announced the creation of a massive park in the dense jungle of northern Guatemala's Peten region, which would encompass both El Mirador and the already excavated Tikal.
The plan includes the construction by 2020 of a silent, propane powered train to carry thousands of tourists to the ruins, currently only accessible by helicopter or a two-day hike through the jungle.[/offsite:wdvw7ypz]
[offsite=http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-42207620090903:wdvw7ypz]Guatemala Mayan city may have ended in pyramid battle
By Sarah Grainger
EL MIRADOR, Guatemala (Reuters) - One of Guatemala's greatest ancient Mayan cities may have died out in a bloody battle atop a huge pyramid between a royal family and invaders from hundreds of miles away, archaeologists say.
Researchers are carrying out DNA tests on blood samples from hundreds of spear tips and arrowheads dug up with bone fragments and smashed pottery at the summit of the El Tigre pyramid in the Mayan city of El Mirador, buried beneath jungle vegetation 8 km from Guatemala's border with Mexico.
Many of the excavated blades are made of obsidian which the archaeologists have traced to a source hundreds of miles away in the Mexican highlands. They believe the spears belonged to warriors from Teotihuacan, an ancient civilization near Mexico City and an ally of Tikal, which was an enemy city of El Mirador.
"We've found over 200 of the obsidian tips alone, as well as flint ones, indicating there was a tremendous battle," said excavation leader Richard Hansen, a senior scientist in Idaho State University's anthropology department who is pushing the pyramid battle theory.
"It looks like this was the final point of defense for a small group of inhabitants," told Reuters.
El Mirador is one of the biggest ancient cities in the Western Hemisphere and is thought to have been home to between 100,000 and 200,000 people at its height. Historians believe it was built up from around 850 BC and flourished for hundreds of years before it was mysteriously abandoned in 150 AD.
Many archaeologists think the size and elaborate stucco decoration of the buildings in the city are to blame as the inhabitants used up stone, trees and lime plaster in their construction until their resources were entirely depleted.
Hansen's team believes a group of some 200 people, thought to be the last remnants of the royal family, stayed in the ruined metropolis until they were attacked by warriors from Teotihuacan.
They believe the invaders were allies of Tikal, around 60 km to the southeast, which resented being dwarfed by the enormous pyramids of El Mirador and was eager to make sure the enemy never recovered. They think Teotihuacan warriors trapped the survivors in a siege before a bloody battle that sealed the city's fate.
MODERN THREAT
Hansen's archaeologists found graffiti they believe was left by Teotihuacan fighters who smashed up carved Maya monoliths and left crudely etched skull drawings, known as Tlalocs, on the rock as proof of their victory.
"The Tlaloc is the war god image of the highland Mexicans (and we found it) crudely pecked on these monuments, suggesting that perhaps a hostile event had taken place here," Hansen said.
The team sent excavated spear tips to a lab in Missouri where scientists are trying to extract blood samples for DNA tests. They expect to find one DNA type in blood on the obsidian objects and a different type on the Maya-made flint fragments, suggesting a battle between two racial groups.
El Mirador is home to one of the world's biggest pyramids by volume, La Danta, named after the tapirs that roam the dense jungle that hid the pre-Columbian treasures for decades until the site was discovered in the early 20th century.
American archeologists who made an aerial survey of the El Mirador Basin in Guatemala's northern Peten region in the 1930s mistook the tree- and vegetation-covered pyramid for a volcano.
Hansen has worked with teams digging at El Mirador for some 30 years. The site is at risk from looters, poachers and loggers trying to make a living out of the forest, as well as drug traffickers seeking to move cocaine into Mexico.
Last year, President Alvaro Colom announced the creation of a huge park in the Peten region to encompass both El Mirador and the already excavated Tikal, a popular tourist site.
The park will include a silent propane-powered train to lug tourists to the El Mirador ruins, currently only accessible by helicopter or a two-day hike through the jungle.[/offsite:wdvw7ypz]