Posted on 08/13/2016 6:43:09 PM PDT by MtnClimber
The ambitious Snake kings used force and diplomacy to create the most powerful alliance in their culture’s history.
The ancient city of Holmul isn’t much to look at. To the casual observer it’s just a series of steep, forested hills in the middle of the jungle in northern Guatemala, near the Mexican border. The jungle here in the Petén Basin is thick and warm but drier than you might expect. And silent, except for the drum of cicadas and the occasional calls of howler monkeys.
Take a closer look, and you may notice that most of these hills are arranged in massive rings, like travelers huddled around a fire on a cold night. An even closer look reveals that parts of the hills are made of cut stone, and some have tunnels carved into their sides. In fact they’re not hills at all but ancient pyramids, left to decay after the collapse of the Maya civilization a millennium ago.
The site was a thriving settlement during the Classic Maya period (A.D. 250-900), a time when writing and culture flourished throughout what is today Central America and southern Mexico. But it also was a time of political upheaval: Two warring city-states were locked in perennial conflict, grappling for supremacy. For a brief period one of those city-states prevailed and became the closest thing to an empire in Maya history. It was ruled by the Snake kings of the Kaanul dynasty, which until just a few decades ago no one even knew existed. Thanks to sites around this city-state, including Holmul, archaeologists are now piecing together the story of the Snake kings.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalgeographic.com ...
Tulum is the original beach house
My husband and I visited Tulum several years ago, when we were on a cruise that had a day long stop in Cozumel.
Tulum has no pyramids. However, the whole city is laid out in a mathematical grid, and only the priests knew how to use the buildings as a guide to when to plant, harvest crops, get pregnant, and guide ships in to port from the open ocean. The priests were master mathematicians and astronomers.
Tulum is definitely worth visiting, if you ever get a chance.
The last scene of “Against All Odds” was shot there...
“I wonder if the markings were not for a fer de lance or a jumping pitviper marking. They are vicious and present in central america, but I am not aware of diamond back rattlesnake territory ranging to there or even much into Mexico.”
I’m in Belize and have killed a rattler on the front porch, but my rock missed the fer de lance (known locally as the Tommy Goff) earlier in the tool shed.
http://consejo.bz/belize/snakes/snakes.html
I have seen and formed the option it was comet.
Pop. Bomb was hustler Paul Ehrlich.
A fun read from back then was Sex vs Civilization by
Elmer Pindell.
Societies are severely harmed when problem makers
outbreed problem solvers.
This site makes Tikal look like gumdrops (I did some exploratory surveys (1966) around the outer areas of Tikal and got to climb to the top of Temple IV which overlooked the Peten.
We heard that other large complexes lay further out, but couldn’t see them because of the high jungle tree growth, so could be one of them.
Congrats to the archaeologists for this great find.
Gone as in deceased or gone as in kicked? He will be missed here.
Are the full color tapestries at Tulum still in existence?
My wife is Guatemalan so I have been to Guatemala a few times to visit her family. I been able to go to several Mayan sites from the Classical Era: Tikal, Copan and Ceibal. Great experience.
kicked
kicked
That’s an Aztec picture, though, not Mayan. The Aztecs probably made the Maya look like pikers in the bloodthirsty category.
Don’t know...
How different is this than the war on poverty, global warming, Black lives matter, European invitation of Muslims to resettle? Stupid is a human trait.
I've often wondered HOW some people think they can predict the weather pattern for the next day, year, eon.
This planet has been around some BILLIONS of years with all kinds of weather, volcanoes, storms and whatnot. So, given that we've had "weather" predictors for only a few thousand years, AT LEAST, there is no way that anyone really has a clue what's going to happen in the future.
Who knows? There might be a planetary collision happening right now a zillion light years from here which will eventually affect our earthly weather pattern.
Oh well, no sense worrying.
Yes, it is.
There have been geniuses in humanity ever since there have been humans. You know there had to have been a genius hunter and a genius with finding herbs and making hunter's meat tasty. The same for those humans who lived on islands and had to deal with water, fish and a small amount of land.
The Egyptians, Indians, Sumerians, Chinese...all old cultures which left us things produced by the geniuses of their time.
All remarkable. And WE landed on the MOON. THAT was a dream of humanity for a long time. ALSO remarkable.
If they are smart they will call this culture sick, godless and doomed by our own self righteousness and pride.
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