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An auction house in Colorado recently sold several historic Mayan artifacts, despite Mexican officials requesting the cancellation of the sale. On March 26, Mexico‘s culture minister Alejandra Frausto Guerrero posted on social media that Artemis Gallery in Louisville, Colorado was selling “pieces that belong to the cultures of Mexico” and demanding the business stop its sale. “There is nothing more immoral than put a price on the heritage of a nation,” Frausto Guerrero wrote. It was tagged with the campaign “My Heritage Is Not for Sale”. Mexico’s first lady, Beatriz Gutiérrez Müller, also wrote a post about the March 28...

Ruins,Of,The,Ancient,Mayan,City,Of,Kabah,In,The Shutterstock/Yucatan Peninsula A team of archaeologists discovered a long-lost Mayan city beneath the jungle in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula in June, filled with pyramids, palaces and even a sports complex. The ancient Mayan ruins, currently named Ocomtun, were identified in the Balamku ecological reserve, which is more than 50 hectares in size, big enough to hide pyramids that rise some 50 feet into the sky, according to a news release from Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History. The site is believed to have been built and in use sometime around 250-1,000 A.D. and contained a number of large buildings,...

A team of archaeologists has made a discovery in Mexico, where they have uncovered the remains of a long-lost Maya city hidden within the dense jungle of the Yucatán Peninsula. Upon further investigation, these experts have come across multiple structures that resemble pyramids, towering over 15 meters (50 feet) in height. The archaeologists have given the site a name: Ocomtún, which means “stone column” in the Mayan language. The Maya civilization is one of the most remarkable societies in the Western Hemisphere. They gained renown for their majestic pyramid temples and grand stone structures, which once adorned the regions we...

The stone shows two people playing a Mesoamerican ball gameImage: Lorenzo Hernandez/REUTERS The piece displays Mayan hieroglyphic writing surrounding two players standing next to a ball. The Pok Ta Pok ball game was a traditional practice of Mesoamerican peoples. An apparent stone scoreboard has been discovered at the Chichen Itza archaeological site in southeastern Mexico, archaeologists have said. The piece measures just over 32 centimeters (12.6 inches) in diameter and weighs 40 kilograms (around 90 pounds). It dates from between A.D. 800 and 900. It displays Mayan hieroglyphic writing surrounding two players standing next to a ball, according to Mexico's...

Evidence for the earliest known Maya calendar has been found in San Bartolo, Guatemala, by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin. While excavating murals at a site in San Bartolo, two fragments were found and pieced together to form the notation "7 Deer," which dates back more than 2,000 years to 300 B.C., several centuries older than previously obtained evidence..."The Maya calendar is one of the most distinctive and well-known features of the culture and of traditional Mesoamerican peoples. It was in use for centuries before the arrival of Europeans, and some of it is still being used...

Toxic levels of a pollutant commonly associated with the wastes of modern industry have been uncovered amid the most unlikely of archaeological sites. Long before conquistadors from far-off lands introduced the decay of war and disease, Maya cultures were dusting the soils of their urban centers with the heavy metal mercury. - snip - "Discovering mercury buried deep in soils and sediments in ancient Maya cities is difficult to explain, until we begin to consider the archaeology of the region which tells us that the Maya were using mercury for centuries." - snip - Perhaps the most widely used form...

Frontal and lateral view of a Muna-type (AD 750-900) paneled flask with distinctive serrated-edge decoration. Credit: WSU ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scientists have identified the presence of a non-tobacco plant in ancient Maya drug containers for the first time. The Washington State University researchers detected Mexican marigold (Tagetes lucida) in residues taken from 14 miniature Maya ceramic vessels. Originally buried more than 1,000 years ago on Mexico’s Yucatán peninsula, the vessels also contain chemical traces present in two types of dried and cured tobacco, Nicotiana tabacum and N. rustica. The research team, led by anthropology postdoc Mario Zimmermann, thinks the Mexican marigold was...

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Archaeologists in Mexico said Tuesday they have identified a ship that carried Mayan people into virtual slavery in the 1850s, the first time such a ship has been found. The wreck of the Cuban-based paddle-wheel steamboat was found in 2017, but wasn’t identified until researchers from the National Institute of Anthropology and History checked contemporary documents and found evidence it was the ship “La Unión.” The ship had been used to take Mayas captured during an 1847-1901 rebellion known as “The War of the Castes” to work in sugarcane fields in Cuba. Slavery was illegal in...

Reservoirs in the heart of an ancient Maya city were so polluted with mercury and algae that the water likely was undrinkable. Researchers from the University of Cincinnati found toxic levels of pollution in two central reservoirs in Tikal, an ancient Maya city that dates back to the third century B.C. in what is now northern Guatemala. UC's findings suggest droughts in the ninth century likely contributed to the depopulation and eventual abandonment of the city. "The conversion of Tikal's central reservoirs from life-sustaining to sickness-inducing places would have both practically and symbolically helped to bring about the abandonment of...

The reason for the collapse of Mayan civilisation has been hotly debated, but now scientists claim they have an answer - climate change. Researchers believe that hot weather made the Mayans more aggressive and therefore likely to fight one another. As crops failed due to the rising temperatures leaders waged war for power which lit the fuse of their eventual demise around 900 AD, the study says. With crops levels low Mayan leaders could no longer rely on brash festivals or building projects to keep their sujects happy. So they resorted to power struggles and war instead which finished the...

Potters at Maya cities on the Caribbean side of Central America fused volcanic ash with local limestone to form household and ceremonial pottery, because the ash made their ceramics easier to fire. The distinctive recipe was a hallmark of the Late Classic Period from A.D. 600 to 900, Ford said. With thousands of people living in cities such as El Pilar and Tikal, the Mayan potters burned through several tons of volcanic ash every year, Ford has estimated. But no one can figure out where the ash came from. The mystery begins with the fact that there just aren't any...

Shimmying through a maze of dark tunnels below the Mayan ruins of Chichén Itzá on Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula, archaeologists have rediscovered a long-sealed cave brimming with lost treasure. According to an statement from Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), the cave is stockpiled with more than 150 artifacts, including incense burners, vases, and decorative plates adorned with the faces of ancient gods and other religious icons. The trove is believed to be just one of seven sacred chambers in a network of tunnels known as Balamku — "Jaguar God" — that sits below Chichén Itzá, a city that...

To access just the first of seven ritual offering chambers identified so far within Balamku, archaeologists must crawl flat on their stomachs through hundreds of feet of tortuously narrow passages. In the original report on the cave (recently located by archaeologist and GAM investigator James Brady of California State University, Los Angeles), Segovia identified 155 artifacts, some with faces of Toltec rain god Tláloc, and others with markings of the sacred ceiba tree, a potent representation of the Maya universe. In comparison, the nearby cave of Balankanché, a ritual site excavated in 1959, contains just 70 of these objects. “Balamku...

The 20-centimeter (7.8 inch) stucco mask was found by a team with the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) during an investigation of the temple’s ancient drainage system. Palenque sits in the southern state of Chiapas, on the border of Guatemala. According to Institute Director Diego Prieto, the mask appears to show the face of K'inich Janaab' Pakal – also known as Pacal the Great. If it is, in fact, Pacal, the experts say it would be the first of its kind. The mask includes wrinkle lines around the mouth and cheeks, which would make it ‘the first representation...

Colgate anthropologist discovers ancient tomb in Honduras Wednesday, May 30, 2007 Colgate anthropology professor Allan Maca peers into a section of a tomb in Copan, Honduras, that dates back to the 7th century A.D. (Photo by Raul Mejia) Colgate anthropology professor Allan Maca and a team of researchers have found a previously unknown tomb in Copán, Honduras, dating back to the 7th century A.D. that contained the skeleton of an elite member of ancient Maya society in the city. The unusual characteristics of the tomb’s construction, the human remains, and the artifacts found near the body, according to Maca, paint...

[S]cholars digitally removed the tree canopy from aerial images of the now-unpopulated landscape, revealing the ruins of a sprawling pre-Columbian civilization that was far more complex and interconnected than most Maya specialists had supposed. “The LiDAR images make it clear that this entire region was a settlement system whose scale and population density had been grossly underestimated,” said Thomas Garrison, an Ithaca College archaeologist....who specializes in using digital technology for archaeological research. The project mapped more than 800 square miles (2,100 square kilometers) of the Maya Biosphere Reserve in the Petén region of Guatemala, producing the largest LiDAR data set...

The Gran Acuifero Maya (GAM), a project dedicated to the study and preservation of the subterranean waters of the Yucatan peninsula, said the 216-mile (347km) cave was identified after months of exploring a maze of underwater channels. Near the beach resort of Tulum, the project found that the cave system known as Sac Actun, once measured at 163 miles, is actually connected with the 53-mile Dos Ojos system. In a statement, GAM said for that reason, Sac Actun now absorbs Dos Ojos. GAM director and underwater archaeologist Guillermo de Anda hailed the discovery as an 'amazing' find. He also said...

Used by the Maya for travel and transporting goods, the causeways were identified in the Mirador Basin, which lies in the far northern Petén region of Guatemala, within the largest tract of virgin tropical forest remaining in Central America. Also known as the Kan Kingdom, El Mirador is considered the cradle of Mayan civilization. Prior to its abandonment in 150 A.D., it was the largest city-state in the world both in size — 833 square miles — and population. It boasted the largest known pyramid in Central America, and was home to at least one million people. Researchers have known...

Some 50 years ago, an area was cleared, hoops were erected and the town of San Pedro La Laguna, nestled at the foot of a volcano in Guatemala's southwestern shore, had its first basketball court. No matter that the court was made of dirt then. Today, that same ground houses the town's municipal court. By day, children participate in dribbling drills to later show off their Kyrie Irving moves or Steph Curry skills. Beginning in the 1980's, NBA games were televised, and the sport's popularity grew. The rest is history. The local Hoyas and Cavaliers square off in the municipal...

Scholars of pre-Columbian history have been trying to decipher something called the Grolier Codex ever since it was discovered by looters in a cave in Chiapas, Mexico back in the '60s.