Posted on 07/22/2012 8:12:13 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
Some 1,600 years ago, the Temple of the Night Sun was a blood-red beacon visible for miles and adorned with giant masks of the Maya sun god as a shark, blood drinker, and jaguar.
Long since lost to the Guatemalan jungle, the temple is finally showing its faces to archaeologists, and revealing new clues about the rivalrous kingdoms of the Maya.
Unlike the relatively centralized Aztec and Inca empires, the Maya civilization -- which spanned much of what are now Guatemala, Belize, and Mexico's Yucatán region (Maya map) -- was a loose aggregation of city-states.
"This has been a growing awareness to us since the 1990s, when it became clear that a few kingdoms were more important than others," said Brown University archaeologist Stephen Houston, who announced the discovery of the new temple Thursday.
El Zotz, in what's now Guatemala, was one of the smaller kingdoms, but one apparently bent on making an big impression.
By 2010 archaeologists working on a hilltop near the ancient city center had discovered 45-foot-tall (13-meter-tall) Diablo Pyramid, Atop it they found a royal palace and a tomb, believed to hold the city's first ruler, who lived around A.D. 350 to 400.
Around the same time, Houston and a colleague spotted the first hints of the Temple of the Night Sun, behind the royal tomb on Diablo Pyramid. Only recently, though, have excavations uncovered the unprecedented artworks under centuries of overgrowth.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.nationalgeographic.com ...
Thanks for posting. I’ve always wanted to go see this stuff.
Bring LOTS of bug dope if you do go. I got malaria there. It is incredible though.
“Dramatic” New Maya Temple Found, Covered With Giant Faces [ El Zotz ] Covered With Giant Zitz [ El Zitz ]
One can only imagine what sadism and butchery occurred within its walls. Then again, one doesn’t have to imagine too much, given how their ancestors behave these days.
Of course these same people had the ability to predict the end of the world as we know it...
Right!!!
Not according barry
I thought so too.
Karig his heart to old El Zotzy.
That’s kinda offensive to the Mayan night sun god.
The ones who used to do that finally burned out their retinas.
Wholeheartedly agree. I hope there are more pics — archaeologica had two earlier articles linked last week, and I didn’t get around to posting either one; there’s some other pics there.
;’) El Zatz not all, folkz.
...one doesn't have to imagine too much, given how their ancestors behave these days.Another one of Douglas Adams' accidents with a contraceptive in a time machine?
There were 95 of ‘em. /stolenjokerimshot
It did, but the mods changed it. ;’)
LOL!
Didn’t Barry Weiss find one of those stucco masks in a storage bin auction in Azusa?
Just in time for the Mayan-end-of-all-things!
According to their legends, "visitors" told them of these things. One such diety, Kukulcan, was known by many names by different past cultures.
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