
Largest Known Maya Structure Found - dsavant
https://www.insidescience.org/news/largest-known-maya-structure-found-more-4000-feet-long-and-nearly-3000-years-old
======
spaced-out
It's tragic how little we know about the Maya compared to what we could have
known. Thousands of books were destroyed, primarily by one Spanish bishop, and
only four survive today[1]. If that hadn't of happened, it's possible we could
have known as much about the Maya as we do about the Ancient Greeks.

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_codices](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_codices)

~~~
nkoren
The destruction of those codixes is, without a doubt, one of the greatest acts
of cultural vandalism in history. Absolutely tragic.

At the same time, I've read a bit more about that incident, and... this is
probably not politically correct to say, but I did develop some sympathy for
that bishop. Yes, he was a religious zealot who couldn't distinguish other
cultures from "satanism". But also, well, the Maya were in a pretty rough
state when he encountered them. They'd been experiencing severe drought and
civil war and plagues brought by the Europeans and more. Their way of dealing
with this was mass human sacrifice. The Maya didn't have a sacrificial-
industrial complex the way that the Aztecs did, but when nothing else would
appease the gods, that's what they'd do.

So anyhow, the Bishop had apparently witnessed a mass human sacrifice. Of
children. And it really got to him, convincing him that their religion was
strictly satanic. Given his own cultural frame, and what he witnessed, it's
hard for me to say that I would have done any differently under the
circumstances. That would've gotten under my skin too. Hard to say I would've
kept perspective after that.

~~~
kilroy123
That's a pretty fair stance. I've actually been to Southern Mexico where their
descendants live today. Even today, to my American frame, the indigenous
people are strange. But that's what drew me to check out some of their
villages.

I highly recommend these places out! Their churches which mix Catholicism with
their own believes are very far out.

~~~
nkoren
You don't even need to go to Southern Mexico for that. There's a small enclave
town in Phoenix, Arizona, called Guadalupe. It's a Mexican / native community.
In the centre of town, there's a public square flanked by two Catholic
churches.[1] One is a very traditional Catholic church. The other is a
syncretic church which (according to people I knew in the community) mixed in
many elements of Yaqui spirituality.

The survival of native spirituality, even within syncretic religion, is always
somehow reassuring to me, given how much cultural vandalism occurred during
the colonisation of the Americas.

1:
[https://www.google.com/maps/@33.3690036,-111.9644457,3a,15.4...](https://www.google.com/maps/@33.3690036,-111.9644457,3a,15.4y,244.62h,93.27t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sfMKLbVmw0T5Q5OX4lR52gQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192)

------
stinos
Again shows what you can do with lidar images. I'm not sure how widely they
are publicly available but if you can get lidar footage of an area you (think)
you know definitely check it out. There's a lot of man-made things to
discover.

E.g. here's a little story from my area: we were on a walk once and someone
pointed to a certain plant which is known to only thrive on very limey soil.
And acoording to her used in the past by people as indicator for figuring out
where they could get lime for making mortar. Nothing special to see though. A
couple of months later, unrelated, a geologist showed lidar images of that
area and in a spot close to where said plant was found, there was obvisouly a
quite huge round sink in the terrain. Turns out this was once, many centuries
ago, essentially a lime mine (which the geologist knew because of history).
Nice how history, biology, geology can all come together like that. Yet if you
don't know it it's pretty much invisible. Sattelite also doesn't give even the
slightest hint. But with a height model and applying some shade it suddenly
becomes quite obvious.

------
29athrowaway
What many people do not know is that the Maya are still around, mostly in
Guatemala.

There's a recent movie about the challenges affecting modern Mayans called
Ixcanul, watch it if you can.

~~~
anthonypasq
huh? Nearly every southern Mexican is Mayan.

~~~
29athrowaway
Guatemala has ~40% of the total Maya population so that makes sense.

Are the Maya communities in Mexico still speaking Maya languages?

~~~
josephmosby
Yes! The biggest community is in Yucatan with over 800K speakers:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayan_languages#:~:text=Yucate...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayan_languages#:~:text=Yucatec%20Maya%20\(known%20simply%20as,of%20Quintana%20Roo%20and%20Campeche).

------
coolreader18
I unironically thought this was about Maya the 3d modelling software when I
first read the headline, like that the maximum size limit for a Maya model had
been found out or something like that. ️

Very interesting article though!

------
meddlepal
It's kind of impressive they accomplished so much without inventing the
wheel... or has that been debunked and is just long outdated information?

~~~
elboru
Some wheeled toys have been found in Mexico, it’s not like the wheel was never
invented. But The Americas didn’t have domesticable large animals that could
be used to pull wheeled carriages (bisons were not domesticated at the time),
that’s why the wheel was never used for that purpose.

Indeed it’s very impressive how much they accomplished by themselves without
the wheel, without big domesticated animals and without contact with other
civilizations.

~~~
monadic2
Furthermore the land in southeast mexico is very hilly, and when it's not,
it's often swampy or waterlogged (or was at the time of the maya). It's
certainly more straightforward to use barges.

Related, I very much recommend the book "Mexico: From the Olmecs to the
Aztecs".

~~~
autocorr
I second this book too, it's a great introduction to Mesoamerican
civilization. The author, Michael D. Coe, also has another excellent book
"Breaking the Maya Code" on the decipherment of the Maya glyphs The
fundamentals were done in 1950-60's by Knorozov and Proskouriakoff, but the
decipherment was only widely accepted until as recently as the 1970's[1]!

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_script#Decipherment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_script#Decipherment)

~~~
ncmncm
Apparently Richard Feynman made fundamental contributions, being more numerate
than your average archaeologist.

------
baxtr
I once visited a Maya site in the Jungle, off the beaten path, away from the
usual tourist site. It was probably the most amazing experience I've ever had.
It was almost magical.

------
latortuga
There's a show on Netflix I think, called Lost Cities that uses Lidar in this
way.

~~~
colordrops
Speaking of Lost Cities, I've been watching the 80s cartoon Mysterious Cities
of Gold with my kids. Highly recommended. It's a lost gem about the time of
conquistadors in southern and central America - well written for a kids show,
entertaining for adults, continuous story arc like modern shows, and a nice
mix of history and science fiction.

~~~
stevekemp
I remember watching (and loving) that as a child, and it was only somewhat
recently that I learned it was inspired upon a book:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_King%27s_Fifth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_King%27s_Fifth)

Not a great read, but I was certainly feeling nostalgic when I finished it.

~~~
JoeDaDude
Here is a write up about the history behind The Mysterious Cities of Gold:

[http://jeffzurita.com/2019/05/19/estevan-and-the-cities-
of-g...](http://jeffzurita.com/2019/05/19/estevan-and-the-cities-of-gold/)

------
nsajko
> Abstract: Archaeologists have traditionally thought that the development of
> Maya civilization was gradual, assuming that small villages began to emerge
> during the Middle Preclassic period (1000–350 BC; dates are calibrated
> throughout) along with the use of ceramics and the adoption of sedentism1.
> Recent finds of early ceremonial complexes are beginning to challenge this
> model. Here we describe an airborne lidar survey and excavations of the
> previously unknown site of Aguada Fénix (Tabasco, Mexico) with an artificial
> plateau, which measures 1,400 m in length and 10 to 15 m in height and has 9
> causeways radiating out from it. We dated this construction to between 1000
> and 800 BC using a Bayesian analysis of radiocarbon dates. To our knowledge,
> this is the oldest monumental construction ever found in the Maya area and
> the largest in the entire pre-Hispanic history of the region. Although the
> site exhibits some similarities to the earlier Olmec centre of San Lorenzo,
> the community of Aguada Fénix probably did not have marked social inequality
> comparable to that of San Lorenzo. Aguada Fénix and other ceremonial
> complexes of the same period suggest the importance of communal work in the
> initial development of Maya civilization.

The "the community of Aguada Fénix probably did not have marked social
inequality comparable to that of San Lorenzo" claim seems to be explained by:

> It is also likely that social inequality at Aguada Fénix was not as
> pronounced as at San Lorenzo and La Venta. Unlike those Olmec centres,
> Aguada Fénix does not exhibit clear indicators of marked social inequality,
> such as sculptures representing high-status individuals. The only stone
> sculpture found so far at Aguada Fénix depicts an animal (Extended Data Fig.
> 10).

This seems like a stretch to me considering the excavation is not complete
(?), but at least the limestone peccary was named 'Choco' :)

> Cache AF1, found in operation AF1D. It contained a limestone
> sculpture—possibly representing a white-lipped peccary—that we named
> ‘Choco’.

Free to access images (the maps at the beginning and the artifacts at the end
are the most interesting to a layman like me):
[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2343-4#Sec15](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2343-4#Sec15)

DOI:
[https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2343-4](https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2343-4)

Placement within Mexico for context:
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b1/Tabasco_...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b1/Tabasco_in_Mexico_%28location_map_scheme%29.svg)

------
gshdg
The consistent underestimation of the capabilities and development of historic
indigenous peoples outside Europe and the Middle East is both absurd and
tragic. You’d think that by now archaeologists might have adjusted their
assumptions.

------
dang
Url changed from [https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/researchers-
find-3000-year...](https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/researchers-
find-3000-year-maya-structure-larger-pyramids/story?id=71095913), which points
to this, which doesn't have an autoplaying video.

------
xhkkffbf
Aliens.

~~~
dang
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23436526](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23436526)

