Maya 2012 Apocalypse - Upcoming Lecture I'm presenting

So, this is happening.

Update - Aztec Ritual Depost and possible "tomb"

As noted 2.5 years ago, Mexican archaeologists found a carved slab which they believed covered the tomb of Aztec emperor Ahuizotl. This has not immediately turned out to be the case, as shown in today's presentation of the materials to the press. The researchers still believe they are near such a tomb.

Did Maya Architects Tie Fossils to Creation?

Art Daily posts an announcement of research at the Maya city of Palenque, Chiapas, Mexico, suggesting fossils may be tied to Maya ideas of Creation. This new study notes the use of fossil-bearing stones in ritual and elite funerary contexts at Palenque, and combining historical and epigraphic evidence, suggests that the fossils hearkened back to a watery world at the dawn of Creation.

This would not be the first discovery of fossils in Mesoamerican ritual contexts. At La Venta (I believe, I don't have the original reports here at my fingertips) at least one fossil shark teeth was part of an Olmec ritual cache.

The idea of pre-19th century people conducting different forms of paleontology is a compelling and common sensical notion, one discussed by Adrienne Mayor in her books, as profiled in the New York Times.

I would need to see more about the Palenque research to comment further, but it raises a potentially fascinating possibility.

Electronic Atlas of Maya Sites: Now on Google Earth

Database of locations and rough size/scale of over 6000 Maya archaeological sites. And now, they have a kmz version for Google Earth.

http://mayagis.smv.org/

Soviet-Era Maya-Themed Playing Cards

Amazing.

Note: one is Moche.

h/t BoingBoing

Pipil document found at Brown University

My colleague Kathryn Sampeck has recently written a short piece about her rediscovery of a "lost" seventeenth-century Pipil Nahua historical document in Brown University's John Carter Brown library. Includes image of the document.

Chocolate stirrer discovered at St. Augustine

Not a big surprise, but nice confirmation. The role of Mesoamericans and their culture in the Spanish Empire is a story that still hasn't gotten the attention it deserves

http://staugustine.com/news/local-news/2009-12-28/sweet-discovery

Google Streetview Archaeological Sites - Pompeii, Stonehenge, Amongst Others

Stonehenge

Pompeii

This isn't in the park at Teotihuacan, but you can see the major pyramids

Cahokia

Poverty Point

Moundville, AL

El Mirador - Destroyed by Teotihuacanos?

Press reports coming from the El Mirador project are intriguing, to say the least. This will complicate the arguments over the relationships between Teotihuacan and Tikal, and El Mirador and Calakmul.

"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."

...

"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."

http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-42207620090903?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0

Immigrants and Abandonment at Kiuic

UPDATE: August 2010 - USA Today returned for a multimedia exploration of Kiuic

Friends and colleagues from the past have made news this weekend with their work at Kiuic, Yucatan, and its Terminal Classic florescence and abandonment. Some choice bits

"Both the pyramids and the palaces look like latter-day additions to Kiuic, built in the 9th century, just as Maya centers farther south were being abandoned. "The influx of wealth ... may spring from immigration," Bey says, as Maya headed north."

...

"the archaeologists found tools, stone knives and axes, corn-grinder stones called metates ... and pots still sitting in place. "It was completely unexpected," Bey says. "It looks like they just turned the metates on their sides and left things waiting for them to come back.""

...

"The only sign of warfare is a collection of spear points found in the central plaza of Kiuic. There are signs that construction halted there — a stucco-floored plaza sits half-complete, for example. "Drought seems more likely, that would halt construction," Bey says."

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/columnist/vergano/2009-09-19-mayan-collapse_N.htm

Aztec Burials from Spanish Conquest w. elements of Spanish Culture

A recently excavated mass grave in Mexico City dates to roughly the time of the Spanish Conquest of the Aztec Empire.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iPF6IUn8CskP1_rkiUjuU-UZ3mXgD9690QB02

Some elements in particular are of note

"The men also were carefully buried Christian-style, lying on their backs with arms crossed over their chests, though many appear to have been wrapped up in large maguey cactus leaves, rather than placed in European coffins.

The mass grave contained evidence of an Aztec-like ritual in which offerings such as incense and animals were set alight in an incense burner, but Spanish elements including buttons and a bit of glass also were present."

This mix of goods and especially practices suggests a number of possibilities, though speculating further based on the limited information here is not the best course of action.

Update: More details (in Spanish)

Chocolate spread from Ancient Mesoamerica into the US Southwest

Testing of Chaco cylinder vessels shows chocolate consumption, another important Mesoamerican domesticate and social practice to filter at some point into the Southwest.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/04/us/04cocoa.html?_r=1&em

Xibalba Update: INAH Article

INAH, Mexico's National Institute for Anthropology and History, has released an English-language short release on the cave complex discussed in my previous post. It's a lot more interesting than I thought, with not just one building within the caves, but several.

Particularly interesting is the presence of a sacbe. These white limestone raised roads radiate out between and within Maya settlements, and are particularly well-documented in western Yucatan. Roads are an important aspect of Maya thought, similar to the idea of one's path or journey having a lot more significance than literally where one will travel. The equivalent in Yukatek to "How's it going?" is "How's your road?," which come to think of it is a fairly similar sentiment. When one gets married, it is said "their road came to an end." While this is humorously close to the English colloquialism "End of the road, pal," it would be better understood as meaning that the married people began a new road together as a pair.

There has long been debate on whether the roads were primarily for ritual pilgrimages and processions, for transportation of goods and people, to demonstrate political allegiance, or some combination. The discovery of one inside a heavily sacralized cave complex will likely give some heft to arguments for ritual.

Subterranean Maya Temple Complex Suggested as Road to Xibalba

http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSN1442474520080815?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0

The image of the building constructed within the cavern is impressive. The article doesn't mention where specifically this is, other than in Mexico and the Yucatan peninsula. Apparently it dates to the Classic.

Aztec Death Whistle!

Ok, it's not just the "Whistle of Death," though that's getting the most attention for obvious reasons. Plus, it is actually an exceedingly creepy. But check out this story on replication of Aztec flutes, and then the video linked below for the actual sounds

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVinnWp1Pck

Maya Textiles From Copan Show Impressive Craftworking

Textiles are obviously rare in archaeological contexts, especially in the tropics. Nonetheless, textile fragments from Copan are some of the few leaving any evidence of Classic Maya fabrics, and apparently the work was extraordinary.

The History of Crystal Skulls

Interesting article from Archaeology Magazine on the history of supposedly Mesoamerican crystal skulls (soon to be even more famous due to the Indiana Jones movie) and how they swirl around one antiquities dealer in the second half of the 19th century.

Update: The British Museum and Smithsonian skulls also have tool marks like those used about a century ago.

Maya hieroglyphic decipherment on NOVA, April 8

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/mayacode/

The show appears to be a history of the decipherment. But regardless of that, there are a few neat aspects on the website, such as a translation of Piedras Negras Stela 3, with audio for the entire text. This is of course similar to the audio elements of the dictionaries at FAMSI, which are well worth checking out.

Aztec Measurements Deduced

Using a mix of history, mathematics, and survey, two researchers have uncovered smaller units of measure employed in Aztec surveys, that are not part of a vigesimal (20-base) scaling but are instead unique prime numbers.

Dissertation Now Available

My doctoral dissertation on the ceramics of early colonial San Salvador is now available if you have access to the UMI/Proquest dissertation database. I went the extra mile and gave them a pdf of my creation, so it is text searchable and has color imagery.

The citation is

Card, Jeb J.
2007 The Ceramics of Colonial Ciudad Vieja, El Salvador: Culture Contact and Social Change in Mesoamerica. Ph.D. dissertation, Tulane University. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor.