Tomb Raiders Threaten Mayan City's History

At the famed Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, you can sit in the cafe, have a slice of basil pesto quiche, and gaze up at stunning evidence of the looting of the ancient world.

The dining room is dominated by an 8-foot-tall carved limestone monument, or stela, of a Mayan king.

"He's shown in all his regalia, with an elaborate headdress, various ornaments hanging from his belt and jade belt pendants," says Timothy Potts, the Oxford-educated director of the Kimbell. "It's so rich. It's so lively. It's a tapestry; every square inch is covered with something."

Despite his obvious admiration for the stela, Potts says that it was likely looted from its original site in the 1960s, taken out of Guatemala and sold.

So how did this stela get from the jungles of Central America to a Forth Worth art museum?

El Peru-Waka

In Guatemala's Peten Province, not far from the Mexican border, is the archaeological site of the Mayan city El Peru-Waka, which means literally "centipede place with water in it." The city of about 4,000 people flourished between 100 B.C. and A.D. 800, with plazas and pyramids and orchards. It was ruled by the dynasty of the Centipede Kings.

Now, all that's left of the limestone structures are great mounds covered with vegetation. In the trees, militias of howler monkeys defend their real estate.

Read the full story here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10416454

Aztec Offerings Found in Bottom of Mexico Lake

Artifacts of wood sit in a bucket in an archaeological site in the crater of the extinct Nevado de Toluca volcano. Archaeologists have found wooden lightning bolts that Aztecs offered to their rain god Tlaloc at the lake. Credit: Marco Ugarte/AP

MEXICO CITY — Archaeologists diving into a lake in the crater of a snowcapped volcano found wooden scepters shaped like lightning bolts that match 500-year-old descriptions by Spanish priests and conquerors writing about offerings to the Aztec rain god.

The lightning bolts — along with cones of copal incense and obsidian knives — were found during scuba-diving expeditions in one of the twin lakes of the extinct Nevado de Toluca volcano, at more than 13,800 feet above sea level.

Scientists must still conduct tests to determine the age of the findings, but the writings after the Spanish conquest in 1521 have led them to believe the offerings were left in the frigid lake west of Mexico City more than 500 years ago.

Lightning bolt scepters “were used by Aztec priests when they were doing rites associated with the god Tlaloc,” said Johan Reinhard, an anthropologist and explorer-in-residence for National Geographic Society who took part in more dives Thursday at the Lake of the Moon. “We think it is pretty clear that the Aztecs considered this one of the more important places of Tlaloc.”

Read the full story here: http://www.livescience.com/history/070527_ap_aztec_artifacts.html

Aztec Math Decoded, Reveals Woes of Ancient Tax Time

Brian Handwerk
for National Geographic News

April 3, 2008

Today's tax codes are complicated, but the ancient Aztecs likely shared your pain.

To measure tracts of taxable land, Aztec mathematicians had to develop their own specialized arithmetic, which has only now been decoded.

By reading Aztec records from the city-state of Tepetlaoztoc, a pair of scientists recently figured out the complicated equations and fractions that officials once used to determine the size of land on which tributes were paid.

Two ancient codices, written from A.D. 1540 to 1544, survive from Tepetlaoztoc. They record each household and its number of members, the amount of land owned, and soil types such as stony, sandy, or "yellow earth."

"The ancient texts were extremely detailed and well organized, because landowners often had to pay tribute according to the value of their holdings," said co-author Maria del Carmen Jorge y Jorge at the National Autonomous University in Mexico City, Mexico.

The Aztecs recorded only the total area of each parcel and the length of the four sides of its perimeter, Jorge y Jorge explained.

Officials calculated the size of each parcel using a series of five algorithms—including one also employed by the ancient Sumerians—she added.

Read the full story here: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/04/080403-aztec-math.html

Ancient Seeds Sow Debate Over Sunflower-Farming Origins

Scott Norris
for National Geographic News

April 28, 2008

Sunflowers were grown as a domesticated crop in Mexico more than 2,000 years ago, according to a new study. The new findings run counter to a theory that sunflower farming began in what is now the U.S. East and then trickled south into Mexico.

Plant remains discovered in a dry cave suggest that farmers in Mexico were cultivating sunflower strains with large seeds by around 300 B.C.

A 2001 study by the same team had found evidence of Mexican sunflower domestication as early as 2600 B.C., but that finding was controversial.

A Smithsonian Institution expert on early agriculture has argued that the remains described by the team in 2001 had been incorrectly identified as sunflowers.

Eastern U.S. Origins

Sunflowers were a cultivated food crop in what is now the eastern United States 4,000 to 5,000 years ago, most experts agree.

But did sunflower farming spread south from eastern North America to Mexico and beyond? Or did ancient Mexicans develop sunflower farming on their own?

The latest evidence supports an independent origin for Mexican sunflower farming, said study leader David Lentz of the University of Cincinnati.

Read the full story here:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/04/080428-sunflowers-mexico.html

Ancient Maya Tomb Found: Upright Skeleton, Unusual Location

Kelly Hearn
for National Geographic News

Archaeologists working in Honduras have discovered an entombed human skeleton of an elite member of the ancient Maya Empire that may help unravel some longstanding mysteries of the vanished culture.

The remains, seated in an upright position in an unusual tomb and flanked by shells, pottery, vessels, and jade adornments, suggest a surprisingly diverse culture and complex political system in the influential Maya city of Copán around A.D. 650.

Located at the western edge of modern-day Honduras near the border with Guatemala, Copán, was one of the most important Maya sites, flourishing between the fifth and ninth centuries A.D. (Honduras map).

But until now, much about the political makeup and cultural range of the city—famous for its funerary slabs—has been poorly understood. (Related: "Ancient Maya Royal Tomb Discovered in Guatemala" [May 4, 2006].)

The position of the body, the structure of the tomb, and several unexpected artifacts suggest the interred individual was a political or priestly figure, said discoverer Allan Maca, an archaeologist at Colgate University in New York State.

The entombed individual was found with "a jade pectoral hung from a necklace of dozens of jade beads of various sizes," Maca said. Because jade was a precious commodity, he added, the jewels represent "a level of control over economic resources."

Read the whole story here: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/05/070517-maya-tomb.html

Maya Suspension Bridge

James O'Kon spotted a bridge that wasn't there; now he is using technology to reconstruct the pre-Columbian road

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By John Dunn

James O'Kon is using modern technology and forensic engineering techniques to uncover the mysteries of a vanished Mayan civilization. It began with a pile of rocks in the middle of the Usumacinta River deep in the rain forest between Mexico and Guatemala-the site of an ancient Mayan kingdom,

Approaching the Mayan ruins by dugout canoe, O'Kon, CE '61, immediately realized the significance of the rock formation.

"That's a bridge pier!" he declared.

That was in February 1989, O'Kon's first visit to the Mayan ceremonial center Yaxchilan (pronounced YashSHE- Ian), which flourished during the classic Mayan period between 500 and 700 A.D. Archeologists had been studying the site for more than 110 years, and the mound of rocks had been dismissed as a minor mystery, possibly explained as a once-dry part of the city engulfed by a shifting river.

A former chairman of the forensic council of the American Society of Civil Engineers, O'Kon turned to modern technology to help prove a bridge existed, a technique he has used Professionally. O'Kon is president of

O'Kon and Co., an Atlanta engineering firm that has conducted such forensic engineering investigations as the deadly walkway collapse at the Hyatt Regency in Kansas City, Mo., in the 1980s.

He compiled field information collected at the Mayan site and used computers to integrate archeological studies, aerial photos and maps to develop a three-dimensional model of the site and determine the centerline, discover the location of the bridge abutment and hypothetical construction of the bridge.

O'Kon made a startling discovery: The Mayans built the longest bridge span in the ancient world.

The pre-Columbian bridge was a 600-foot, hemp-rope suspension structure with two piers and three spans built in the seventh century, O'Kon said. Connecting the Yaxchilan ceremonial center in Mexico with its agricultural domain in what is now Guatemala, the bridge had a middle span of 203-feet-the longest span in the world for almost 700 years. In 1377, a bridge with a longer span was built in Europe, O'Kon said.

Link to the "Island City"

The Mayan city was strategically located on high ground. An omega-shaped bend in the river circles the city on three sides, and its only land approach is cut off by steep mountains. Heavy rains made the Usumacinta River virtually impassable from June until January.

"Six months of the year, there is almost 170 to 200 inches of rainfall, and the river is 40 feet above its banks," O'Kon said. During flood stage, Yaxchilan became "an island city," he said.

A bridge was essential for the inhabitants of the densely populated city to have year-round access to their domain, their agricultural fields and for commerce, O'Kon said.

The rock pile--12 feet high and 35 feet in diameterwas part of a masonry structure, O'Kon said. Aerial pho tos taken in 1992 revealed the remains of a second support pier on the opposite side of the river, which was almost completely submerged.

Both piers were constructed with an interior of castin- place concrete and an exterior of stone masonry, O'Kon said. "They formed a circle and filled the inside with cast-in-place concrete forming pillars, just like they did their temples and pyramids."

Identification of the bridge abutment that led to the city's grand entrance was the "clincher" necessary to reconstruct the complete ceremonial function of the bridge, O'Kon said. A platform situated in an ancient plaza area and located on the centerline of the bridge was a "classic bridge-approach structure," he said. A stairway leading to the top of the platform and covered in hieroglyphics was also discovered. These stairs were the ceremonial gateway to the city. Carved stone devices were also found, which O'Kon believes were guide- ways for the rope-cable suspension bridge.

"I plugged all of that into the computer," O'Kon said. "I digitized the maps and put in all the information. Everything lined up-the pillars, the abutments and the ceremonial platform."

Artist David Morgan, who had been to the Yaxchilan site, drew an illustration of the bridge based on the computer renderings.

Read the full story here:http://gtalumni.org/news/ttopics/win97/bridge.html

Scientists Help Restore Aging Artworks

Restoring “The Storming of the Teocalli by Cortez and His Troops"

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — When white masquerades as yellow and green might actually be blue, a call goes out to Henry DePhillips.

DePhillips, a Trinity College chemistry professor, is among a cadre of specialists using cutting-edge science to solve the color mysteries of paintings and other cultural treasures often several centuries old.

Art collectors and museums, including Hartford's Wadsworth Atheneum, increasingly are turning to DePhillips and other experts to analyze artwork that has deteriorated over time.

With tiny samples invisible to the naked eye, they use special microscopes and other equipment to sleuth out the compounds that comprise the color pigments and materials.

The result: a glimpse into the long-ago artist's materials and methods, and a road map to preserve or restore the piece as close to its original state as possible.

DePhillips, 69, has projects under way or slated for the Lyman Allyn Art Museum in New London, the Mark Twain and Noah Webster houses, the Yale Center for British Art, and other institutions in Connecticut and nationwide.

“The whole goal of art conservation is to preserve the original vision of the artist, not my vision of what it could or should be,'' said DePhillips, who also uses chemistry to sniff out frauds as an authentication specialist.

“If you're going to restore a piece of art to the way it was on the day it was finished, you need to know exactly what materials they used.''

DePhillips' latest project, an analysis of an 1848 painting by Emanuel Leutze at the Wadsworth, is particularly ambitious because of its massive size — 8 feet wide and 7 feet high — and historical significance.

“The Storming of the Teocalli by Cortez and His Troops,'' which Leutze painted four years before his classic “Washington Crossing the Delaware,'' is one of the museum's gems. But it also is showing its age — yellowing varnish discolors white backgrounds, fading blue skies have a greenish tint and blotches are evident from past restoration efforts by previous owners.

Read the full story here: http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/070423_ap_paint_repair.html

SKULLDUGGERY?

Skull for scandal

Temples, human sacrifices and a mysterious crystal skull draw visitors to Nim Li Punit, Lubaantun
Robert Crew

LUBAANTUN, BELIZE–It's a nondescript area of the Mayan ruins here, the original entrance to what is now known as Lubaantun, or "place of falling stones." But it's the site of an enduring modern mystery.

Mayan guide Nathaniel Mas gestures beyond a stone altar towards to a grassy corner. "The crystal skull was found there," he says, casually. And thereby hangs a tale.

The mystical skull was supposedly discovered on New Year's Day of 1924, by Anna Mitchell-Hedges, an orphan from Port Colborne, Ont. Anna had been adopted by British adventurer and story-spinner Frederick Mitchell-Hedges, who was excavating the Lubaantun ruins, looking for clues about the lost city of Atlantis.

Remarkably, it just happened to be Anna's 17th birthday.

She had spotted something shining deep inside a chamber of the ruins and was lowered by ropes to investigate. What she found was a wondrous piece of quartz crystal carved in the shape of a skull. The detachable crystal jawbone was found later.

Now aged 100, Anna Mitchell-Hedges still has the skull, though it is mostly kept locked away in a bank vault. Anna moved away from her Kitchener home more than a decade ago and now stays with friends in the United States.

"She's in good health," Bill Homann, one of those friends, told the Star in a recent telephone interview. "She has some aches and pains but we all have that."

There's still intense interest in the skull, Homann says – he and Mitchell-Hedges are planning to give a couple of lectures on it in New York and Arizona later this year.

But controversy continues to swirl around the skull and the story of its discovery, particularly after it was revealed that Frederick Mitchell-Hedges had bought the skull at a Sotheby's auction in 1943.

It is one of 13 such crystal skulls apparently discovered in Mayan and Aztec ruins. The Lubaantun skull, however, is remarkable for the clarity of the crystal and the skill and detail of the carving. Other examples, including one in the British Museum in London, are cruder, more stylized and lack the detachable jawbone.

"It's a remarkable piece of craftsmanship but that's all it is," paranormal investigator Joe Nickell told the Kitchener-Waterloo Record's Colin Hunter in 2005, adding that he doubted Anna's story: "I would say (Anna's) veracity seems no better than her father's."

Nathaniel Mas gives a dismissive shrug when I ask him what he thinks. "There are different stories and lots of rumours," he says.

Tucked away in southern Belize, neither Lubaantun or nearby Nim Li Punit are as well known as some of the major Mayan sites in Mexico and Guatemala. Nor have they been as extensively restored; you need to bring your imagination with you, along with a bottle of water and some stout shoes.

Read the whole story here: http://www.thestar.com/Travel/article/196456

Archaeological bookends in Copán Valley

Archaeological team en route to Yaxchilan

By Alvin Powell
Harvard News Office

COPÁN RUINAS, Honduras - A short drive from the main Maya ruins at Copán, a forested hillside holds a cluster of mounds that Peabody Museum archaeologists believe date from near the end of the great Maya civilization that once dominated the region.

On [April 17, 2007], Peabody Museum director and Bowditch Professor of Central American and Mexican Archaeology and Ethnology William Fash, along with director of the Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions Program Barbara Fash and two Harvard graduate students, walked the site with Honduran government officials charged with regulating and overseeing archaeological activity in the Central American nation.

The site, called Rastrojón, provides a "before" look at an archaeological site, a bookend in time to compare with the simultaneously soaring and crumbling remains a short distance away in what was once the city center.

At the main ruins, a draw for tourists from around the world, generations of archaeologists have toiled, tunneling beneath the pyramid-like main acropolis, reconstructing tumbled stonework, and piecing together sculpture that once adorned the buildings and the carved stone pillars called stelae.

Though much work remains to be done there, their toil has already paid off. Tourists walk leisurely among the splendor of the main ruins‚ adeptly climbing stone steps that were little more than a mound of earth with trees growing out of the top when Barbara Fash first saw the site in 1977. Now, Fash was taking time out of her preparations for the Peabody's trip to Yaxchilan in Chiapas, Mexico, to walk two visitors through the main ruins and the associated sculpture museum.

To read the full article go to: http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2007/04.19/99-copan.html

Mexico finds bones suggesting Toltec child sacrifice

By Monica Medel

TULA, Mexico (Reuters) - The grisly find of the buried bones of 24 pre-Hispanic Mexican children may be the first evidence that the ancient Toltec civilization sacrificed children, an archeologist studying the remains said on Monday.

The bones, dating from 950 AD to 1150 AD and dug up at the Toltecs' former capital Tula, north of present day Mexico City, indicated the children had been decapitated in a group.

The way the children, aged between 5 and 15, were placed in the grave, and the fact they were buried with a figurine of Tlaloc, the God of rain, also pointed to a group sacrifice, archeologist Luis Gamboa said.

"To try and explain why there are 24 bodies grouped in the same place, well, the only way is to think that there was a human sacrifice," he said.

"You can see evidence of incisions which make us think they possibly used sharp-edged instruments to decapitate them."

Read the whole story here: http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSN1636567520070417

Earliest Mixtec Cremations Found; Show Elite Ate Dog

Willie Drye
for National Geographic News

April 9, 2008

An ancient burial site in Mexico contains evidence that Mixtec Indians conducted funerary rituals involving cremation as far back as 3,000 years ago.

The find represents the earliest known hints that Mixtecs used this burial practice, which was later reserved for Mixtec kings and Aztec emperors, according to researchers who excavated the site.

Evidence from the site also suggests that a class of elite leaders emerged among the Mixtecs as early as 1100 B.C.

(Related news: "Aztec Pyramid, Elite Graves Unearthed in Mexico City" [January 4, 2008].)

In addition, the burials hold clues that dogs were an important part of the diet of Mixtec elite.

"The Mixtec area is one area where civilization emerged," said lead study author William Duncan, an anthropologist at St. John Fisher College in Rochester, New York. "This [burial ceremony] is one part of that emergence."

Read the entire story here: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/04/080409-cremations.html

New Maya Website Reveals Temples Through Time

This web site provides some 250 19th and early 20th century drawings,
prints, and photographs, most rare or previously unpublished,
revealing how these Maya sites were imaged by early explorers and
scholars.

There are also over 1000 recent photographs with descriptive captions,
many recording information not previously available in print or on the
web. These may be opened side-by-side, making possible comparison of
these sites before and after the extensive restoration campaigns of
the 20th century.

There is an extensive annotated bibliography.

Visit the website here: http://academic.reed.edu/uxmal/