Month: May 2007

Interactive Copan Map

PAPAC, the Proyecto Arqueologico para la Planificacion de la Antigua Copan (Copan Urban Planning Project) has announced a new interactive map of the ruins. In truth there isn’t…

Alto in Antigua

Rudy Giron at Antigua Daily Photo posted the photo above of a wall in Antigua. He makes the point that “the flavor in life is found in the…

Processual and Postprocessual, Emic and Etic

These are words you might encounter if you read archaeological writing about Mesoamerica — or anywhere else for that matter. Since the meanings aren’t transparent, I asked a…

Xoloitzcuintles

A hairless breed of Mexican dog known as Xoloitzcuintles (show-low-eets-KWEENT-les, commonly called Itzcuintles in Mexic and Xolos elsewhere) is growing in popularity. The dog’s history is said to…

Ancient Offerings Found at Nevado de Toluca

An AP article announces the find by scuba divers of what may be Aztec offerings deep in a volcanic crater lake west of Mexico City. The snow-capped volcano…

Bagel Barn in Antigua

At Antigua Guatemala Daily Photo, Rudy Giron has posted about the Bagel Barn, which offers coffee, bagels, and free WiFi. How times have changed. When I was teaching…

Mayan Languages and the Origin of the Maya

I’ve reformatted and added a bit more information to my page about Mayan languages. It remains a confusing subject, since there are a large number of languages that…

Old School Maya Archaeology

I’ve posted a look back at the work of two great Mayanists of the early and mid twentieth century, Sylvanus Morley (shown at left) and Eric Thompson. The…

Cumbia del Mole

Here’s another music video from contemporary Mesoamerica. The singer, Lila Downs, is of Mixteca descent on her mother’s side (Mixtecs are a people of Oaxaca).

Wonders

Supposedly 45 million people have voted on a new list of the seven wonders of the world, and currently Chichen Itza is ranking number two. Someone explain to…

Ancient Maya Tomb Found in Copan

The tomb is dated to 650, placing it near the beginning of the Late Classic period. With typical journalistic hype, the National Geographic article announcing the find states…

Penguins in Bed

The Guatemalan singer Ricardo Arjona is accompanied by Angentian model Chenoa in this video version of his hit Pinguinos en la cama.

Maya Architecture and the Golden Mean

Mathematicians define the golden section as a relation in which the smaller unit is to te larger unit as the larger is to the sum. In other words,…

The Great Collapse of the Classic Maya

For centuries travelers through the Maya world have encountered majestic ruins of a civilization that appears to have completely disappeared. Still today people ask what caused such a…

The Maya Region

I’ve learned that some people are confused about the location of the Maya world, so I’ve put up a new overview page about the region here.

Maya Symbology: Turtle

Like the parrot I discussed previously, this turtle is located at the Puuc Maya site of Uxmal in the Yucatan. It’s one of the many turtles decorating the…

The Hand of Time

What better way to begin than with this poignant sign of an unknown Maya reaching out through the centuries to touch our world. (I say to begin because…

in process

I’m in the process of moving my Maya materials over here to www.buriedmirror.com from the Maya World section of www.rightreading.com where they had resided. I don’t think this…