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The countdown to the apocalypse is on. We're one year away from Dec. 21, 2012, the date that the ancient Mayan Long Count calendar allegedly marked as the end of an era that would reset the date to zero and signal the end of humanity. But will it? There have been many end of times predictions over the years. Christian radio host Harold Camping faced widespread ridicule when his predictions that the world would end twice this year - on May 21, and then on Oct. 21 - failed to materialize. But in the flurry of doomsday predictions - there...

Various Mayan scholars have attempted to debunk this reading, including Sven Gronemeyer of Australia’s La Trobe University, who has studied the Tortugero tablet in great detail. On Wednesday he presented his decoding of the inscription, suggesting that Bolon Yokte’s prophesied appearance on December 21, 2012, represents the start of a new era and not the end of days. Proponents of the apocalyptic interpretation have misunderstood the poorly preserved hieroglyphs, he said.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico's archaeology institute downplays theories that the ancient Mayas predicted some sort of apocalypse would occur in 2012, but on Thursday it acknowledged that a second reference to the date exists on a carved fragment found at a southern Mexico ruin site. Most experts had cited only one surviving reference to the date in Mayan glyphs, a stone tablet from the Tortuguero site in the Gulf coast state of Tabasco.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican archaeologists have found two 1,300-year-old limestone sculptures of captured Mayan warriors that they say could shed light on the alliances and wars among Mayan cities during the civilization's twilight. The life-size, elaborate sculptures of two warriors sitting cross-legged with hands tied behind their backs were found in May in the archaeological site of Tonina in southern Chiapas state along with two stone ballgame scoreboards. The 5-foot (1.5-meter) tall sculptures have hieroglyphic inscriptions on their loincloths and chest that say the warriors belonged to the city of Copan, archaeologist Juan Yadeun said in a news release...

A Mayan tomb closed to the world for 1,500 years has finally revealed some of its secrets as scientists snaked a tiny camera into a red-and-black painted burial chamber. The room, decorated with paintings of nine figures, also contains pottery, jade pieces and shell, archaeologists from Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) reported Thursday (June 23). The tomb is located in Palenque, an expansive set of stone ruins in the Mexican state of Chiapas. According to the INAH, the tomb was discovered in 1999 under a building called Temple XX. But the stonework and location prevented exploration. By...

When they first discovered them, the slender tubes perplexed the Ivy League Archaeologists exploring the ancient Mayan ruins. Nothing in their experience would have prepared them to contemplate an elite whose highest rites included pumping fermented Lonchocarpus tree bark up their anuses. At the time, our society still held to the ancient covenants that prohibited inserting foreign objects up our rectums. Imagine how surprised these same academics would have been if they would have known that thirty years later the health services and administrators of the universities where they worked would be promoting such practices.

Scientists working at a Guatemalan archaeological site that's more than 1,400 years old have reported finding a hieroglyphic-covered stone panel that, they say, conclusively identifies the ancient settlement as the enigmatic Site Q, a Maya city about which researchers have long speculated. Yale University archaeologist Marcello Canuto found the well-preserved panel last April at a site called La Corona. "[The] writing on the panel opens up a new chapter in Maya history," says anthropologist David Freidel of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, codirector of the expedition. "This new panel provides the critical test for establishing that La Corona is Site...

Murder victims suggest female strength in ancient culture.Archaeologists have entered a long-sealed crypt in Guatemala to find an ancient murder scene. The tomb, in the ancient city of Waká, contains the remains of two women, one pregnant, arranged in a ritual tableau. Researchers say the young, wealthy women were probably slaughtered as part of a power struggle between Mayan cities. And that, they say, sheds new light on the role of women in the Mayan culture 1,600 years ago. "This tomb tells us that women were extremely powerful," says Dorie Reents-Budet, a Maya specialist who works for the Smithsonian Institution...

For two weeks we had been tunnelling beneath the surface of the acropolis hill at the ancient Maya city of Waká in Guatemala's Petén rainforest. It was the spring of 2006, and we knew that under the surface of the acropolis was a virtual layer cake of earlier structures. The acropolis had been one of the city's enduring spiritual centers before it was abandoned around A.D. 820. A large pyramid and several buildings still stand there today.We were at the bottom of a shaft we had dug the previous spring, working our way up the stairs of a buried building...

GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) – Scuba divers are exploring the depths of a volcanic lake in Guatemala to find clues about an ancient sacred island where Mayan pilgrims flocked to worship before it was submerged by rising waters.

GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) – Scuba divers are exploring the depths of a volcanic lake in Guatemala to find clues about an ancient sacred island where Mayan pilgrims flocked to worship before it was submerged by rising waters. Samabaj, the first underwater archaeological ruins excavated in Guatemala, were discovered accidentally 12 years ago by a diver exploring picturesque Lake Atitlan, ringed by Mayan villages and popular with foreign tourists. "No one believed me, even when I told them all about it. They just said 'he's mad'," said Roberto Samayoa, a businessman and recreational diver who grew up near the lake where...

It is known that the fragments of this enigmatic sculptures were placed into the buildings during the second part of the Late Pre- Classic Period (Phase Ruth 200 BC - 150 AD), which is when the early Mayan culture was florishing. Therefore this sculpture must have been carved before this time. There are two possibilities, it was carved at the start of the early Mayan era, or a little earlier, when the changes in Tak'alik Ab'aj from the Olmec era to the Mayan era was taking place, what is called the transition period. Could it be that the early Mayan...

A major royal tomb has been unearthed beneath the principal pyramid in the western center of Waka'. The discovery was made by Dr. Héctor Escobedo of Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala, co-director of the Waka' Project, and his student, Juan Carlos Melendez. This marks the second royal tomb discovered at Waka'. In the spring of 2004, SMU archaeologist David Freidel and his students discovered a queen's tomb more than 1,200 years old and dating to the Late Classic period of Maya civilization. The new tomb was discovered in a different pyramid and dates to the Early Classic period between...

Andrew L. DemarestThe remains of a Maya king, Kan Maax, who was killed about A.D. 800 in Cancuén with dozens of his royal associates and courtiers. Despite the puzzling slaughter, the bodies were treated with respect. Archaeologists and forensic experts in Guatemala have made a grisly discovery among the ruins of an ancient Maya city, Cancuén. In explorations during the summer, they found as many as 50 skeletons in a sacred pool and other places, victims of murder and dismemberment in a war that destroyed the city and, it seems, served as a beginning of the collapse of the...

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras - Scientists working at the Copan archaeological site in western Honduras said Sunday they have unearthed the 1,450-year-old remains of 69 people, as well as 30 previously undiscovered ancient Mayan buildings. Copan, about 200 miles west of Tegucigalpa, the capital, flourished between A.D. 250 and 900, part of a vast Mayan empire which stretched across parts of modern-day Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. The site was eventually abandoned, due at least in part to overpopulation, historians believe. Seiichi Nakamura, one of a team of Japanese scientists working alongside Honduran counterparts, said the human remains likely belong...

Just in time for the 2012 craze, CNN reports on a brand new massive Mayan pyramid discovery, including an amazing stone frieze showing the Maya sacred creation story, the Popol Vuh: World’s Largest Myran Pyramid Discovered VIDEO

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...

At the recent Society for American Archaeology meeting in Sacramento, California, archaeologist Michael Callaghan from the University of Texas presented his team's findings from the ancient site of K'o (now modern-day Guatemala) and what they believe to be the oldest known royal Mayan tomb. Excavating under a wealthy home, they discovered a lid leading to a tunnel of about 16 inches wide. Following the tunnel, they discovered a chultan, or storage chamber, where a burial was performed. Within this storage chamber they discovered a body they believe to have been a man in his fifties who was reasonably healthy when...

March 14, 2002 Archaeologists Find Mayan 'Masterpiece' in Guatemala By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD rchaeologists exploring deep in the rain forest of Guatemala have uncovered what they think is the earliest intact wall painting of the Maya civilization. A depiction of scenes from mythology and ritual, the 1,900-year-old mural is being hailed by experts as a masterpiece. Even though only part of the mural has been exposed so far, scholars said the scenes and portraits promised rare insights into the society and religion of the Maya. The paintings, dated about A.D. 100, are described as more extensive and better preserved than...

Now overgrown by jungle, the ancient site was once the thriving capital of the Maya civilization Had we been traveling overland, it would have taken two or three days to get from the end of the road at Carmelita to El Mirador: long hours of punishing heat and drenching rain, of mud and mosquitoes, and the possibility that the jungle novice in our party (that would be me, not the biologists turned photographers Christian Ziegler and Claudio Contreras) might step on a lethal fer-de-lance or do some witless city thing to provoke a jaguar or arouse the ire of the...