GHF Mirador Project International Press Features

Maya Myth Revealed

March 12, 2009

Idaho State University anthropologist Richard Hansen shows a 2,300-year-old stucco frieze found at the El Mirador archaeological site in northern Guatemala.  Moises Castillo / AP

Archaeologists have unearthed a pair of monumental stucco panels in Guatemala that appear to depict one of the New World's oldest-known creation stories, going back thousands of years to what experts call "the cradle of Maya civilization." The discovery suggests that the saga, known as the Popol Vuh, was a centerpiece of Maya beliefs for well more than a millennium and stands as one of the world's enduring religious stories.

The Popol Vuh chronicles how the Maya gods created the world and made several attempts to fashion people to live in it, including "mud people" and "wooden people" that didn't quite meet the grade. Finally, the gods got it right, creating the people who inhabited the urban site now known as El Mirador - where the panels were found - and the hundreds of thousands of acres comprising the Serpent Kingdom.

A Quiche Maya text of the Popol Vuh was found in the highland town of Chichicastenango in 1700 and transcribed by a Dominican monk named Francisco Ximenez. The saga's two main characters are the Hero Twins, named Hunahpu and Xbanlanque, who are sort of like a double dose of Hercules. The 26-foot-long (8-meter-long) El Mirador panels were made of carved and modeled lime plaster, and lined a water collection system in a part of the city known as the Central Acropolis. They date back to the Late Preclassic period of Maya culture, which goes from about 300 B.C. to the early 1st century A.D., according to an account of the find from Idaho State University.

The amazing thing about the panels is that they show a pair of swimmers, framed by cosmic monsters including an undulating serpent and an old-man deity with outstretched wings. Idaho State University's Richard Hansen, president of the Idaho-based FARES Foundation, said the swimmers appear to represent the fabled Hero Twins.

"One of the swimmers has a decapitated head on his flanks, which is likely the decapitated head of his father, who was known in Maya mythology as Hun Hunahpu," Hansen is quoted as saying in the university's account. The other swimmer wears a jaguar headdress, which would typically be associated with Xbalanque ("Young Jaguar Sun.").

"All in all, the scene is a complex blend of early Maya mythology and cosmology," Hansen said.

Hector Escobedo, Guatemala's vice minister of culture, said the find "suggests that the antiquity of the Popol Vuh as an authentic creation story extends far into the Preclassic eras." The find also adds to the importance attached to the Mirador Basin as a center of ancient Maya culture. Hansen has been doing research for years in the remote Mirador Basin, which is at the center of a major forest conservation program established by the Guatemalan government. The Idaho researcher served as a consultant to actor/director Mel Gibson on the controversial movie "Apocalypto." And although that film is now far back on the DVD shelves, Gibson is still taking an interest in Mirador. Recently, he called the site "arguably the greatest archaeological find in the Western Hemisphere."

See NBC Video: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/29677016#29677016

Thu Mar 12, 2009  By Sarah Grainger

One of two newly discovered Mayan panels is seen in the northern Guatemalan Peten jungle in this handout taken March 7, 2009. REUTERS/Eduardo González-SCSPR/Handout

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 palaces in Central America and southern Mexico, dominating the region for some 2,000 years, before mysteriously abandoning their cities around 900 AD. The El Mirador basin was deserted much earlier with the large urban population leaving a complex network of roads and waterways and a massive pyramid now covered under thick vegetation.

The earliest written version of the Popol Vuh was discovered in the early 1700s by a Spanish colonial priest and the panels are the first known sculptural depictions of the main characters in the myth -- two hero twins, Hansen said.

"This is pre-Christian, it has tremendous antiquity and shows again the remarkable resilience of an ideology that's existed for thousands of years," Hansen, an Idaho State University archeologist who has worked at El Mirador for over a decade, said. On one panel, the twins are depicted surrounded by cosmic monsters and above them is a bird deity with outstretched wings. On the other, there is a Mayan corn god framed by an undulating serpent, said Hansen who worked as a consultant for Mel Gibson's 2006 movie about the Maya, "Apocalypto."

TOURIST TRAIN
Spread over more than 500,000 acres (2,000 square km), El Mirador is three times the size of Guatemala's famous Tikal ruins, a popular tourist destination. But El Mirador's conservation is threatened by drug traffickers who use the area to ship cocaine and heroin across the porous border with Mexico, deforestation by locals, looters who steal ancient artifacts to sell on the black market and wild animal poachers. Last year, President Alvaro Colom announced the creation of a massive park in the dense jungle of northern Guatemala's Peten region, which would encompass both El Mirador and the already excavated Tikal.

The plan includes the construction by 2020 of a silent, propane powered train to carry thousands of tourists to the ruins, currently only accessible by helicopter or a two-day hike through the jungle.

 (Writing by Mica Rosenberg; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Translated to English Using Google Translate
Discovery of the oldest Mayan Frescos in Guatemala
A group of archaeologists, led by Richard Hansen, announced the discovery of a frieze built about 300 years before Christ by emphasizing that the heyday of the ancient Maya is much older than  what the experts previously believed.

The frieze, about four meters long and three high, was built in limestone and stucco (fine lime retouched) in the El Mirador archaeological site, anchored in the heart of the Peten jungle, about 650 km north of the capital, and unveiled on Saturday by Hasen and Culture Minister, Jeronimo Lancerio.

In the mural, which is in good condition, one of the sons of the gods of the Mayan sacred book, the "Popol Vuh, 'known as Ixbalanque and Hunapú, are swimming in a river in the presence of " celestial monsters, "said Hansen.

The discovery was fortuitous because Hansen and other archaeologists were studying water storage used at that time of the Maya due to the lack of rivers and aquifers in the thick jungle and the border with Mexico.

"This is architectural art which goes to show that the Maya of that era were not simple peasants but they had already developed an advanced civilization before we were aware," he added in the presence of the ambassadors of France and Norway.

He recalled that the discovery of the oldest 'Popol Vuh' was made in 1700 when the Spanish friar Francisco Jimenez discovered a document written by the Maya and translated it, so it was felt that this book had a lot of Christian influence.

However, this finding shows that Ixbalanque and Hunapú existed 300 years before Christ, which confirms the uniqueness of God's creation in the Mayan civilization, he said.

The expert explained that the major discoveries about the Maya at Mirador dating from 200 to 150 BC include the famous La Danta pyramid, considered to be one of the largest structures of the ancient world in terms of volume.

La Danta, which is not yet fully discovered, so far is the largest built by the Maya because it is 300 meters wide by 600 long and reaches an altitude of 72 meters.  However, the consolidation of ruins has been slow due to limited funding, as the project needs about $ 250,000 a month to be in full operations. In El Mirador pyramids there are approximately 4000, of which 300 are in the process of exploration.

Annual visitors is limited to about 3,000 people due to its difficult access because they need two days to enter by land, while the time is reduced to 30 minutes by helicopter from the Mundo Maya airport, located in Santa Elena, about 520 km north of the capital.

MONDAY, 09 MARCH 2009 11:45     
BARBARA SCHIEBER   
Guatemala - A new Mayan archaeological discovery of a 2,200 year old carving was found at El Mirador, Guatemala. The archaeological site El Mirador continues to astound the world. A team of archaeologists, mostly Guatemalans, under the coordination of Richard Hansen made the discovery of a carving of the Mayan Pre-Classic Period which dates from 200 BC. This new finding was presented by the Minister of Culture and Sports, Jeronimo Lancerio and businessmen who support the project. Vice- President Rafael Espada and important members of the Guatemalan Press where also present.

"This finding is impressive as finding the Mona Lisa. It is an impressive example of Mayan art", Hansen stated. The carving is in structures that were used to store water and shows a Mayan mythological passage, where the twin heroes Ixbalanque and Hunacpú leave the underworld carrying the head of their father, Hun Hunapú.

The archaeological site "El Mirador" is being developed to be the crown jewel within the Park "Cuatro Balam". This is a development project which aims to create the largest archaeological park in the world, containing over four thousand Mayan pyramids. The project started under President Berger and is now being continued by President Alvaro Colom and a group of entrepreneurs.

As a fantastic and very impressive experience described Dr. Rafael Espada his visit to the Mirador, Petén, where he arrived accompanied by a working committee to assess options for protecting the natural and archaeological reserves in the country.

Vice-President Dr. Rafael Espada is the coordinator of the Socio- Environmental cabinet, as such he expressed his support for the project and the need to establish the legal framework to protect El Mirador.

"We have to protect this cultural heritage which preserves important elements of Mayan culture. This jungle which has existed for thousands of years also needs our protection. We need to take the necessary steps to provide legislation for the protection of the area and to respect this sacred land" said the Vice President Espada.

The project will benefit local communities, protect the tropical forests of the Basin "El Mirador", and will generate tourism and development for the department of Petén.

	One of two newly discovered Mayan panels is seen in the northern Guatemalan Peten jungle in this handout taken March 7, 2009. REUTERS/Eduardo González-SCSPR/Handout

Guatemala City, Guatemala – The government of Guatemala has announced the recent discovery of a series of major archaeological discoveries – including ancient detailed panels – in an area known as the Mirador Basin of northern Guatemala and part of southern Campeche, Mexico.

The area has been under extensive exploration and investigation for more than two decades by the Mirador Basin Project, directed by Richard Hansen, senior scientist in the Institute for Mesoamerican Research at Idaho State University and president of the FARES Foundation based in Idaho.

The discoveries, announced March 7, include major finds in the ancient city of El Mirador and the newly discovered ancient city in the southern part of the Basin known as El Pesquero, Spanish for “The Fishermen.” The area, which was known anciently as the “Kan” (serpent) Kingdom, consists of about 810,000 acres of pristine tropical forest in northern Guatemala and contains a concentration of very large and early ancient Maya cities, dating to the Middle and Late Preclassic periods of Maya civilization, between about 1000 B.C. and A.D. 150.

Scholars have labeled the area as the “Cradle of Maya Civilization” because of the size, scale and antiquity of ancient Maya cities contained in the area. The Mirador Basin also is the heart of a major new conservation program called “Cuatro Balam” designed by Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom Caballeros to protect a substantial forested area of northern Guatemala’s Peten region.

The research and conservation program being conducted in the Mirador area is supported by the Global Heritage Fund of Palo Alto, Calif., a coalition of Guatemalan citizens known as APANAC, in Guatemala City, and perhaps most significantly, the formation of group of the most prominent Guatemalan companies and industries into a foundation known as PACUNAM to support the investigation and conservation of the Mirador area.

The discovery at the site of El Mirador, which is considered the largest of all ancient Maya cities in Mesoamerica, consists of a detailed series of panels made of carved and modeled lime plaster that lined a water collection system in an area of the city known as the Central Acropolis. The panels and water collection tanks date to the Late Preclassic period, from 300 B.C. to about the time of Christ.  Idaho State University student Joseph Craig Argyle, who has been investigating the water collection systems at El Mirador under the direction of Hansen, excavated the panels.

The panels, which flank the series of pools of a unique water control system that included the capture of rainwater from surrounding massive architecture, depict two “swimming” individuals that are framed by cosmic monsters of importance in ancient Maya art. “We tentatively believe that the ‘swimmers’ represent the Hero Twins of the Popol Vuh,” said Hansen, referring to the Quiche Maya text of the Maya creation story, which was found in the highland town of Chichicastenango in A.D. 1700 and transcribed by a Dominican monk named Francisco Ximenez by about 1704.

“One of the swimmers has a decapitated head on his flanks, which is likely the decapitated head of his father, who was known in Maya mythology as Hun Hunahpu.” The other swimmer has a headdress with jaguar features, which would possibly associate him with his twin brother, known as ‘Xbalanque’  (Young Jaguar Sun), according to Hansen.“This suggests that the antiquity of the Popol Vuh as an authentic creation story extends far into the Preclassic eras,” said Hector Escobedo, vice minister of Culture in the Guatemalan Ministry of Culture. Additional upper panels of the water frieze show what appears to be an undulating serpent, which frames Deity images of an old man with wings.

 “All in all, the scene is a complex blend of early Maya mythology and cosmology,” said Hansen.

Another important discovery was made in the southern part of the Mirador Basin by a team from the Guatemalan Institute of Anthropology and History and the Mirador Basin Project, supervised by project co-director Hector Mejia.  Looters had penetrated the upper portion of a large mound and had revealed the remains of an ancient roof comb, which is a decorative panel on the summit of a pyramid structure.  Excavations, stabilization, and consolidation of the art and architecture by the Mirador Basin project indicated that the roof comb was also unusually early, consistent with other sites in the area.

“The Pesquero structure is of extraordinary importance,” Hansen said, “because it indicates that many of the features commonly thought to be unique to the great Classic periods of Maya history (A.D. 300-A.D. 900) extend well into the Middle and Late Preclassic periods of Maya history, from by about 800 B.C. to the time of Christ.”