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Mexico - The Mexican National Institute of Anthropology and History have admitted that they have a second reference to the date 2012 as "end of the world" on a carved fragment found at an archaeological site in southern Mexico. Salt Lake Tribune reports that archaeologists have long acknowledged that reference to date 2012 as "end of the world" is found on a stone tablet from the Tortuguero site in the Gulf coast state of Tabasco. But on Thursday, the Mexican National Institute of Anthropology and History announced that there is what appears another reference to the same date in an...

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.

I have come across a piece which looks like a Mayan death mask, anyone know much about this type of possible artifact?

A University of Colorado Boulder-led team excavating a Maya village in El Salvador buried by a volcanic eruption 1,400 years ago has unexpectedly hit an ancient white road that appears to lead to and from the town, which was frozen in time by a blanket of ash. The road, known as a "sacbe," is roughly 6 feet across and is made from white volcanic ash from a previous eruption that was packed down and shored up along its edges by residents living there in roughly A.D. 600, said CU-Boulder Professor Payson Sheets, who discovered the buried village known as Ceren...

The skeleton of a Maya Queen - with her head mysteriously placed between two bowls - is just one of the treasures found in a 2,000-year-old rodent-infested tomb. Priceless jade gorgets, beads, and ceremonial knives were also discovered in the cavern - which was found underneath a younger 1,300-year-old tomb which also contained a body - in the Guatemalan ruins of Nakum. The two royal burials are the first to be discovered at the site, which was once a densely packed Maya centre.

Reeking of decay and packed with bowls of human fingers, a partly burned baby, and gem-studded teeth—among other artifacts—a newfound Maya king's tomb sounds like an overripe episode of Tales From the Crypt. But the tightly sealed, 1,600-year-old burial chamber, found under a jungle-covered Guatemalan pyramid, is as rich with archaeological gold as it is with oddities, say researchers who announced the discovery Friday. "This thing was like Fort Knox," said Brown University archaeologist Stephen Houston, who led the excavation in the ancient, overgrown Maya town of El Zotz. Alternating layers of flat stones and mud preserved human bones, wood...

A team of Mexican specialists discovered remnants of a 2,000-year-old Mayan palace at an archaeological site in the southeastern state of Chiapas. "The discovery constitutes the first architectural evidence of such an early occupation of the ancient Mayan cities of the Upper Usumacinta basin" in the Lacandona Jungle, the National Institute of Anthropology and History said in a statement Wednesday. The project's director, Luis Alberto Martos, said this new discovery was made in a sunken courtyard located in the northern part of the the Plan de Ayutla archaeological site and represents the first evidence of occupation of that area between...

For Palenque inhabitants, marine fossils were the convincing proof of the land being covered by the sea long time ago, and parting from this fact they created their idea of the origin of the world, declared archaeologist Martha Cuevas, responsible, with geologist Jesus Alvarado, of research conducted by the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) and the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). Ongoing for 3 years, the investigation is oriented to understand symbolism given by ancient Mayas to Prehistoric vestiges, specifically the 31 specimens found at the archaeological site. The INAH researcher mentioned that petrified rests have been...

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...

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...

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

EL MIRADOR, Guatemala (Reuters) - One of Guatemala's greatest ancient Mayan cities may have died out in a bloody battle atop a huge pyramid between a royal family and invaders from hundreds of miles away, archaeologists say. Researchers are carrying out DNA tests on blood samples from hundreds of spear tips and arrowheads dug up with bone fragments and smashed pottery at the summit of the El Tigre pyramid in the Mayan city of El Mirador, buried beneath jungle vegetation 8 km from Guatemala's border with Mexico. Many of the excavated blades are made of obsidian which the archaeologists have...

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...

CIUDAD ARCE, El Salvador - El Salvador's Maya Indians on Sunday invoked the forces of nature in an ancient ritual to help US President Barack Obama - set to visit the Central American nation - make wise decisions. The ceremony for Obama was part of an annual equinox ritual held by members of the country's Maya community. "We beg the volcanoes, the mountains, and the grandmothers and grandfathers, to call on the energy of the sun to surround ... Obama as he makes decisions," an indigenous shaman named "Tata" Neto said. Five Maya priests, including Neto - also known as...

Both sculptural fragments were recovered in 1993 by archaeologist Arnoldo Gonzalez, from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) and were recently incorporated to the Northern Tableau at the Archaeological Site of Palenque, in the Mexican state of Chiapas. Epigraphist Guillermo Bernal Romero has interpreted the secondary text of the tableau, integrated by the pair of fragments salvaged. In a preliminary expression of the glyphs ordered in columns, the date that corresponds to September 9th 687 is mentioned, when Palenque forces broke into the city of Po' (Tonina) "by the work" of its ruler K'inich Kan B'ahlam, firstborn child...