Tag: Maya

Fiery Pool: The Maya, the Mythic Sea and the Turtle

After a successful stay at the Peabody Essex Museum, ‘Fiery Pool: The Maya and the Mythic Sea’ opens this weekend at Forth Worth’s Kimbell Art Museum. The exhibition offers a new interpretation of the ancient culture, beyond the traditional view of the Maya as a land-based civilisation.

Expect supernatural crocodiles breathing forth rain; cosmic battles taking place between mythic beasts and deities; and art works adorned with shark teeth, stingray spines, sea creatures and waterfowl all part of the new and vivid picture the exhibition paints of the Maya world view: the Maya did not just navigate river and streams, they navigated the cosmos.

They had this fundamental notion of the Maya world as a giant turtle, floating on the primordial sea. Not an everyday day turtle, floating in the pond this is the cosmic turtle on which all of us float, explains Stephen Houston, Professor at Brown University, who organized the exhibition together with Daniel Finamore, Curator at the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM).

Also presentaround 3100BC were:

Newgrange & Skara Brae
Otzi the Iceman
The Minoans
Egypt’s first mastabas
Stonehenge earth bank &ditch
Cuneiform

13.0.0.0.0 4 Ahaw 8 Kumk’u (August 11, 3114 BC*), is the mythicaldate is recorded throughout the entire Maya area as the beginning of the current creation, when -as described inthePopol Vuh creation myth- themaker let made the earth appear where there before was only the calm sea and the great expanse of the sky.

However, it must be noted, according to ‘accepted history’ (and wikipedia) the first clear Maya settlements weren’t established until approximately 1800 BC on the Pacific Coast – and the oldest discoveries of Maya occupation discovered so far (at Cuello, Belize) have been carbon dated to around 2600BC.

Fast forward to the Classical period (300-900AD) -whenthe civilization reached its peak – and ‘Maya’ ment hundreds of cities across Mexico and Central America andtheir territoryreached as far as the Gulf of Mexico, the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. The Maya practised a complex religion and used a refined pictorial writing system composed of more than 800 glyphs.

While today 90% of these glyphs are understood (an introduction on ancientscripts.com),it was only in the late eighties that the glyph for ‘sea’ was identified. Until then, the importance of the sea in Maya culture had not been fully understood. The identification of this glyph, translated literally as ‘fiery pool’, brought to attention how important the oceanic, inland and atmospheric waters were for the Maya’s existence resulting in the exhibition ‘Fiery Pool’ and its companion book.

Click the images to see a larger version.

In 1986, the Kimbell Art Museums landmark exhibition The Blood of Kings: Dynasty and Ritual in Maya Art shed new light on the importance of dynastic lineage and blood sacrifice to the Maya, commented Eric Lee, director of the Kimbell Art Museum.

This exhibition is the next important chapter in Maya research, and I am thrilled that the Kimbell Art Museum will showcase it.The museum has dedicated part of its website to the exhibition, find it at kimbellart.org/mayaand try their (addicting) Glyphs game.

Over 90 works, focusing on the sea as a defining feature of the spiritual realm, offer insights into the culture of the ancient Maya. The artefacts, displayed in four sections,reflect the broad range of media used by Maya artists: massive, carved stone monuments and delicate hieroglyphs, painted pottery vessels, sculpted human and animal figurines, and an assortment of precious goods crafted from jade, gold and turquoise.

Water and Cosmos

Surrounded by the sea in all directions, the ancient Maya viewed their world as inextricably tied to water, an idea that is explored in the first section of the exhibition, Water and Cosmos. More than a necessity to sustain life, water was the vital medium from which the world emerged, gods arose and ancestors communicated.

A limestone panel from Cancuen, Guatemala, is an exceptional example of Maya sculpture, depicting a ruler known as Tajchanahk, TorchSkyTurtle, seated on a water-lily throne in the royal court while simultaneously inhabiting the watery realm. For the Maya, the realms of earth, sea, sky and cosmos may have been perceived as flowing into each other rather than as distinct territories of being.

Creatures of the Fiery Pool

The world of the Maya brims with animal life animated, realistic and supernatural all at once. The objects in the second section, Creatures of the Fiery Pool, portray a wide array of fish, frogs, birds and mythic beasts inhabiting the sea and conveying spiritual concepts.

An effigy of a Caribbean spiny lobster is the only known Maya representation of the creature, excavated in 2007 from Lamanai, one of the oldest sites in Belize. It dates from the turbulent early colonial period, when traditional Maya life was disturbed by the incursion of Spanish soldiers and missionaries.

Navigating the Cosmos

The section Navigating the Cosmos explores water as a source of material wealth and spiritual power. All bodies of water rivers, cenotes and the sea were united, and connected the land of the living to the underworld.

A magnificent head of a deity with characteristics of the Sun God is one of the most exquisite works discovered in the Maya world. It was found in the tomb of an elderly man, likely cradled in his arm upon burial at the sacred site of Altun Ha. Weighing nearly ten pounds, the sculpture was created from a single piece of jadeite, the colour of which was directly associated with the sea.

Birth to Rebirth

The final section of the exhibition, Birth to Rebirth, addresses the cyclical motion of the cosmos as the Maya pictured it. The sun rose in the morning from the Caribbean in the east, bearing the features of a shark as it began to traverse the sky. Cosmic crocodiles exhaled storms and battled with gods of the underworld.

An elaborate ceramic incense burner from Palenque (where they had an ingenious water system), Mexico, portrays a deity central to a creation myth. Water-curls on his cheeks and ear ornaments, which link him to the rain god (Chahk), speak of his connection to the watery world. A shark serves as his headdress, topped by a toothy crocodile. From this censer, ritual smoke curled through the city of Palenque, suffusing it with scent and mystery.

‘Fiery Pool: The Maya and the Mythic Sea’ at the Kimbell Art Museum runs from Sunday August 29 until the end of the year and is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue, available at the museum.

On October 10th, the museum invites everybody to experience the rich culture of the ancient Maya at ‘10.10.10, Celebracion de los Mayas’, a free family festival with Maya-inspired art activities, film and live music. Admission to the exhibition will be free that day.

Taking your kids to see ‘Fiery Pool’? You want to download (and print) the exhibition discovery kit from the PEM website.

The exhibition ends January 2, 2011. ‘Fiery Pool’ will then travel toSaint Louis, where it opens at the Art Museum February 13th.

Maya Pool the Size of a Football Field Discovered in Uxul, Mexico

The German-Mexican excavation team exposes the floor of the Maya pool, covered in ceramic shards. These would have sealed the reservoir. - Image copyright Institute for Ancient American Studies, University of Bonn Archaeologists digging at the ancient Maya city of Uxul, Mexico, havelocated an artificial lake the size of a football field. The two metres deep pool its floor a mosaic of ceramic shards was constructed about 1,500 years ago.

Uxul is located on the Mexican Yucatn Peninsula, near the Guatamalan border and only twentysix kilometres southwest of Unesco World Heritage Site Calakmul. German and Mexican archaeologists started systematically excavating and mapping its ruins in 2009.

In doing so, we stumbled upon two square water reservoirs, each about 100 metres by 100 metres, says Dr Iken Paap from the University of Bonn.

Massive pools for storing drinking water called ‘aguadas’ are well known from other Maya cities. What makes these newly discovered reservoirs and exceptional find, is that the Uxul peoples seem to have devised an ingenious and previously unkown way to seal their water storage systems.

We’ve carried out atrial excavation, right in the middle of one of the reservoirs, explains Nicolaus Seefeld.We found that the floor, at two metres deep, was almost completely covered with ceramic shards probably pottery fragments. If it is like this throughout the entire aguada, we don’t know yet.

Click the map to see a larger version. The two artificial lakes are marked in blue on this map of Uxul’s ruins. Both measure about 100×100 metres (a football field is about 90 by 120 metres.) – Image copyright Institute for Ancient American Studies, University of Bonn.

If so, the pools are an extraordinary find not at least because of the sheer amount of pottery needed; each of the Uxul aguadascould contain approximately ten Olympic swimming pools.

It is possible future excavations will reveal additional reservoirs. The aguadas needed to store enough water for Uxul’smore than2,000 residents to make it through the three-month dry season.

The German-Mexican excavation team alsofound Uxul’s first intact graves.

From these, and new research on the water provisions and vegetation history, we expect to gain new insights into the inhabitants of this Maya city, says Bonn University’s Dr Nikolai Grube.

All burials found so far were destroyed by grave robbers in search for pottery or jade.

Analysis of the different layers at Uxul shows it was populated throughout the different periods of Maya civilization. We excavated more than three meters deep, revealinga sequence of layersranging from the late Preclassic to the late Classic or Postclassic period,” tells Dr Paap.Inscriptionshave revealedthat around 630 AD, the city of Uxul was annexedto the kingdom of Calakmul.

The name ‘Uxul’, meaning’at the end’, was given to the city by explorers Karl Ruppert and John Denison when they tired and ill after a long expedition through the Yucan Peninsula’s rainforest discovered the ruins in 1934. Not much has changed since the thirties; Uxul is still at the end of the world, far away from modern roads and cities (photographs from the 2010 excavation season seem to confirm this).

To reach the ruins, it takes travelling 120km of jungle paths through the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve, explains Dr Iken.

A thousand years ago, Uxul wasn’t isolated at all. Excellently positioned between the great Mayan cities of El Mirador in the South and Clakmul, the city was trading as far as modern-day southern Guatemalaand the highlands of central Mexico.

Underwater Archaeology: Diving the Maya Underworld

Videographer Marty O'Farrell captures divers taking a core sample from the bottom of pool 6. Steering clear of crocodiles and navigating around massive submerged trees, a team of divers started mapping some of the 25 freshwater pools of Cara Blanca, Belize, which were of importance to the ancient Maya civilisation.

So far, the divers found fossilized animal remains, bits of pottery and in the largest pool explored an enormous underwater cave.

The underwater archaeology project, led by University of Illinois anthropology professor Lisa Lucero, was the first of what the professor hopes will be a series of dives into the pools of the southern Maya lowlands in central Belize.

The divers so far have explored eight of the 25 known pools of Cara Blanca, with the volunteer divers returning this summer to assess whether archaeological excavation is even possible at the bottom of the pools, some of which are more than 60 meters deep.

They could have been making offerings to the rain god and other supernatural forces to bring an end to the drought

“We don’t know if it’s going to be feasible to conduct archaeology 200 feet below the surface,” Lucero said. “But they are going to try.”

After three weeks of surveying(see this slideshowon the University’s website), Maya structures have been found near two of the eight pools.

“The pools with the most substantial and most obvious settlement at the edge also turn out to be the deepest that we know,” Lucero said.

No vessels other than water jars were found in the structures built near the pools.

The use of these pools at the end of the Late Classic period (roughly 800-900AD) corresponds to an enduring drought that deforested parts of Central America and some believe ultimately drove the Maya from the area.

University of Illinois anthropology professor Lisa Lucero, who led the expedition, surveys Pool 1, the deepest of the pools her team explored. The need for fresh water could have drawn the Maya to the pools.

“They could have been making offerings to the rain god and other supernatural forces to bring an end to the drought,” Lucero said.

The chemistry of the water in each of the pools is distinct and the water in Pool 1, containing the submerged cave and a Maya structure at its edge, held the freshest water of the pools surveyed.

Yet the water contained a lot of soluble minerals,problematic for anyone who used it as their primary water supply. Those who drank the water over an extended period would have been at risk of developing kidney stones,Lucero explained.

The divers also extracted core samples of the sediment at the bottoms of two of the pools. Analysis of the soil, debris and pollen in the cores isexpected to offer insight into the pool’s natural history and their surrounding region.

The Maya believed that all land was covered bywater in ancient times.An understanding possibly inspired byfossils, which served as proof that land was once covered by the sea.

‘The surface of the earth had not appeared. There was only the calm sea and the great expanse of the sky,‘ reads the Popol Vuh creation myth.

It is only when the gods ordered the water to retire, and land emerged, that the actual era began.

Thus, tothe Mayans, openings in the earth, including caves and water-filled sinkholes called cenotes from the Maya word for ‘well’represented portals to the underworld, and they often left offerings there.

Ceremonial artefacts of the Maya have been found in pools and lakes in Mexico, but not yet in Belize.

Maya Royal Tomb Found Beneath El Diablo Pyramid

Mayan Treasure from the burial beneath the El Diablo pyramid, Guatamale - Image credit Arturo Godoy Archaeologists excavating in the Guatamalanjunglehave discovered a royal tomb, filled with colourful 1,600-year-old Mayan artefacts, beneath the El Diablo pyramid. The well preserved tombis packed with carvings, ceramics, textiles, and the bones of six children, possibly the remains of a human sacrifice.

The archaeological team, led by Stephen Houston, professor of anthropology at Brown University, uncovered the tomb beneath the El Diablo pyramid in the city of El Zots, Guatamalain May. Last week, the discovery of the tomb, dated to between 350 and 400AD, was made public.

Houston said the first pointer to the discovery was something odd in the deposit the team was digging, at a small temple built in front of a sprawling structure dedicated to the sun god, an emblem of Maya rulership.

When we sunk a pit into the small chamber of the temple, we hit almost immediately a series of caches – blood-red bowls containing human fingers and teeth, all wrapped in some kind of organic substance that left an impression in the plaster. We then dug through layer after layer of flat stones, alternating with mud, which probably is what kept the tomb so intact and airtight.

The tomb itself is about 6 feet high, 12 feet long, and four feet wide. I can lie down comfortably in it, Houston said, although I wouldnt want to stay there.

Then, on May 29th 2010, Houston was with a worker who came to a final earthen layer.

I told him to remove it, and then, a flat stone. Wed been using a small stick to probe for cavities. And, on this try, the stick went in, and in, and in. After chipping away at the stone, I saw nothing but a small hole leading into darkness.

They lowered a bare light bulb into the hole, and suddenly Houston saw an explosion of color in all directions – reds, greens, yellows. It was a royal tomb filled with organics Houston says hed never seen before: pieces of wood, textiles, thin layers of painted stucco and cord.

When we opened the tomb, I poked my head in and there was still, to my astonishment, a smell of putrification and a chill that went to my bones, the dig’s director said. The chamber had been so well sealed, for over 1600 years, that no air and little water had entered.

artefact from the discovery of mayan royal tomb at el diablo pyramid, el zotz The tomb itself is about 6 feet high, 12 feet long, and four feet wide. I can lie down comfortably in it, Houston said, although I wouldnt want to stay there.

It appears the tomb held an adult male, who was between 50 and 60 he died from natural causes, but the team’s bone analyst, Andrew Scherer, assistant professor of anthropology at Brown, has not yet confirmed the finding.

And who was this man buried with such a wealth? Though the findings are still very new, the group believes the tomb is likely from aruler they only know about from hieroglyphic texts.

These items are artistic riches, extraordinarily preserved from a key time in Maya history, said Houston. From the tombs position, time, richness, and repeated constructions atop the tomb, we believe this is very likely the founder of a dynasty.

According to Houston, the tomb shows that the ruler is going into the tomb as a ritual dancer: He has all the attributes of this role, including many small bells of Spondylus shell with, probably, dog canines as clappers. There is a chance too, that his body, which rested on a raised bier that collapsed to the floor, had an elaborate headdress with small glyphs on them. One of his hands may have held a sacrificial blade.

The blade was probably used for cutting and grinding through bone or some other hard material, and its surface seems to be covered with red organic residue. Though the substance still needs to be tested, it doesnt take too much imagination to think that this is blood, Houston said.

So far, it seems likely that there are six children in the tomb, some with whole bodies and probably two solely with skulls. The children – ranging in age from 1to 5 – were “probably sacrificed”in honour of the ruler.

We still have a great deal of work to do, Houston said. Remember, weve only been out of the field for a few weeks and were still catching our breath after a very difficult, technical excavation. Royal tombs are hugely dense with information and require years of study to understand. No other deposits come close.

The ancient Maya kingdom of El Zotz is located within a day’s walk (about 20kms) from Tikal, the capital of one of the largest and most powerful kingdoms of the ancient Maya.Yet, El Zotzflourished in the midst of the 1st millennium AD- after Tikal was defeated by Caracol (Belize) and Calakmul (Mexico).It is likely thatEl Zotz allied with Tikal’s enemies and that relations between the two cities were hostile. According to a textfound atTikal, in the 8th century AD,El Zotz wasengaged in battle against Tikal, and the last known hieroglyphic inscription to refer to El Zotz describes the city as being the target of an attack by Tikal.

LiDAR Survey Uncovers Ancient Maya City of Caracol

data gathered by a lidar suvey over caracol Using NASA laser technology, researchers have discovered thousands of new structures and illustrated the complex urban centres built at the ancient Maya city of Caracol, Belize. The equivalent of 25 years worth of data (if gathered through machete-wielding means) was gathered in only four days using a technique of emitting laser beams from a plane to penetrate the thick canopy that covers the site.

LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) equipment brought aboard a small Cessna 337 bounced laser beams to sensors on the ground, penetrating the thick tree canopy to see ‘beyond the rainforest’, allowing for the detecting of many previously unknown features.

Until now, exploring large sites and the nature of landscape modifications by the ancient Maya civilisation was a challenging and time consuming mission. Most of the features archaeologists are looking for are hidden within heavily forested and hilly terrain and are difficult to record. 25 years of excavations hard work of removing the trees by research scientists and students alike have resulted in the mapping of some 23 square kilometres of the Caracol site.

Airborne LiDAR makes research significantly easier, and faster. The laser survey produced images of the ancient settlement and its surroundings and covered a 200 square kilometre radius in just four days. It took about 24 hours of flight time for the National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping to capture the images and then three weeks for remote sensing experts from the University of Florida to analyse the data.

It is very exciting, said Arlen Chase, Anthropology Professor at the University of Central Florida, in a statement. The images not only reveal topography and built features, but also demonstrate the integration of residential groups, monumental architecture, roadways and agricultural terraces, vividly illustrating a complete communication, transportation and subsistence system.

The results of the LiDAR mapping are indeed astonishing: 11 new causeways, 5 new termini, tens of thousands of agricultural terraces and many hidden caves were located. The survey data was also used to confirm the previous estimates for the size of the settlement and population. The Maya city of Caracol was spread out over 177 square kilometres, with at least 115,000 residents by 650 AD.

Researchers are hoping that now Caracol’s entire landscape can be seen in 3D, it will will offer new understanding of how the Maya were able to build such a huge empire and clues to what may have caused its destruction.

Technology is becoming more and more important in archaeology, allowing for non-invasive research and more thorough surveying.

X-ray analysis can tell us which metal alloys were used to create certain weapons, making it easier to decipher the time and date of manufacture. CT-scans, Isotope analysis and DNA analysis can teach us about ancient human remains, including their medical history and their lineage, and scientists have now even unlocked the Neanderthal genome. Ground penetrating radar (GPR) allows archaeologists to detect and map archaeological remains without putting a shovel into the ground and robot explorers are send down pyramid shafts too narrow for man to access, let alone excavate.

Our favourite technological innovation, which is used more and more frequently in archaeology and history research, is 3D modelling. These projects utilise data gathered by surveying projects such as those of the Great Sphinx, the catacombs in Rome, ancient skulls and the landscape around Stonehenge (a LiDAR survey as well), or even data crowd-sourced from Flickr. The digitalisation of our heritage keeps information (at least dimensional and textural information) safe for the future. It also allows for easy access to whoever needs or desires it, be they archaeologists using specialised gear such as VR-systems to ‘dig virtually’, or members of the public who want to explore history in a virtual environment such as our King Tut & Stonehenge Virtual or Giza 3D, which will hopefully be released soon by the Giza Archives Project and Dassault Systemes.

Mayan Plumbers or Hydraulic Engineers at Palenque?

This is a depiction of Piedras Bolas aqueduct functioning as a fountain. This illustrates one plausible explanation of how the feature used water pressure. Due to destruction of the aqueduct, exact details of the its use are unknown. Note that during the monsoon, excess runoff flows over the freature while the buried conduit continues to function. A water feature excavated in the Maya city of Palenque, in Chiapas, southern Mexico, is the earliest known example of engineered water pressure in the New World, according to a collaboration between an archaeologist and a hydrologist from Penn State University. The spring-fed conduit has a restricted opening that would cause the water to exit forcefully, under pressure, to a height of 6 metres. How the Maya used the pressurized water is, however, still unknown. Such water pressure systems were previously thought to have entered Mexico with the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th century.

“Water pressure systems were previously thought to have entered the New World with the arrival of the Spanish,” the researchers said in a recent issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science. “Yet, archaeological data, seasonal climate conditions, geomorphic setting and simple hydraulic theory clearly show that the Maya of Palenque in Chiapas, Mexico, had empirical knowledge of closed channel water pressure predating the arrival of Europeans.”

The area of Palenque was first occupied about the year 100 but grew to its largest during the Classic Maya period 250 to 600. The city was abandoned around 800. More than 50 springs have been recorded at the Palenque site, and aside from these springs, the site can expect more than 2000mm of rainfall annually. For comparison, on average, London receives just below 650 millimetres per annum. No wonder the Maya citys central district was named Lakam Ha, meaning Big Water.

Kirk French Penn State University The feature PB-A1, first identified in 1999 during a mapping survey of the area, while similar to the aqueducts that flow beneath the plazas of the city, was also unlike them. In 2006, Kirk French, lecturer in anthropology, returned to Palenque with Christopher Duffy, professor of civil and environmental engineering, to examine the unusual water feature.

It is a spring-fed passage located on steep terrain, dropping about 6 metres from the entrance of the tunnel to the outlet about 60 metres downhill. The cross section of the feature decreases from about 3 square metres near the spring to about 0.15 square metres where water emerges form a small opening. The combination of gravity on water flowing through the Piedras Bolas Aqueduct and the sudden restriction of the conduit causes the water to flow out of the opening forcefully, under pressure. At the outlet, the pressure exerted could have moved the water upwards of 6 metres.

The Piedras Bolas Aqueduct is partially collapsed so very little water currently flows from the outlet. French and Duffy used simple hydraulic models to determine the potential water pressure achievable from the Aqueduct. They also found that the aqueduct would hold about 65,000 litres of water if the outlet were controlled to store the water.

The experience the Maya at Palenque had in constructing aqueducts for diversion of water and preservation of urban space may have led to the creation of useful water pressure.

“Under natural conditions it would have been difficult for the Maya to see examples of water pressure in their world,” said Christopher Duffy. “They were apparently using engineering without knowing the tools around it. This does look like a feature that controls nature.”

Underground water features such as aqueducts are not unusual at Palenque. Build on a narrow escarpment, surrounded by steep hills, inhabitants were unable to spread out. In order to increase the areas of liveable terrain, the Palenquenes constructed a large number of subterranean aqueducts, routing the pre-existing streams beneath plazas as well as bridges, damns, drains and pools. These spring-fed streams combined with the downpours during the six-month rainy season also presented a flooding hazard that the aqueducts would have at least partially controlled.

Map of the Maya city of Palenque in Mexico, the area around the Piedras Bolas aqueduct highlighted. Image credit Ed Barnhart “They were creating urban space,” said Kirk French. “There are streams in the area every 300 feet or so across the whole escarpment. There is very little land to build on. The experience the Maya at Palenque had in constructing aqueducts for diversion of water and preservation of urban space may have led to the creation of useful water pressure.”

One potential use for the artificially engineered water pressure would have been a fountain. The researchers modelled the aqueduct with a fountain as the outlet and found that even during flood conditions, water would flow in the aqueduct, supplying the fountain, and above ground in the channel running off the slope.

Another possibility could be to use the pressure to lift water onto the adjacent residential area for use as wastewater disposal.

AWiL Video Series – The History of Astronomy & the Secrets of Stonehenge

Astronomy rarely leaves today’s headlines, be it the latest shuttle exploring the limits of our galaxy, or feverish paranoia over the Maya Doomsday Prophecy. Man has always been obsessed by the stars, and since our humble beginnings we’ve always gazed up at night, asking the same questions those tens of thousands of years ago have.

We caught up with famed astronomer Paul Murdin at a special Ancient World in London event a month back, as he gave a talk about his book Secrets of the Universe. And as Paul describes, astronomical observations have been made for longer than we may think. The Ishango Bone is at first an unremarkable-looking baboon bone from the Congo. Yet the notches along its length may signify one of man’s first forays into astronomy. “It’s thought that the length of the scratches represents the phases of the moon,” says Paul. “As the moon gets bigger, the scratches get larger, until the full moon, and then the scratches get smaller.

“Maybe the owner was a woman who for some reason was keeping track of her menstrual cycle. But this person was making astronomical observations 25,000 years ago.”

“The stars are the common heritage of mankind, and we all have a right to enjoy them.”

Myths and legends have always been wrapped round the stars as a way for man to ascribe his own beliefs. In Roman legend, the Milky Way, our own galaxy, was created when milk from the goddess Juno’s breast spurted into the sky after wet-nursing her husband Jupiter’s son Hercules. There may have been a myriad great discoveries and theories since, but it’s certainly a colourful way of seeing things.

Stonehenge is one of the world’s most mysterious astronomical landmarks. Created up to 5,000 years ago, its stone circle has captivated everyone from ancient Celts to modern Druids. Today most experts see it as a monument to the sun, aligned with the sunrises and sunsets at certain points of the year. That’s why Druids still worship inside the circle at each equinox and solstice – see our AWiL video on Spring Equinox at Stonehenge. You don’t have to leave your home to witness a Stonehenge Summer Solstice – just log on to Stonehenge Virtual to explore the stone circle.

Yet archaeoastronomer (click here for a short guide to archaeoastronomy)Simon Banton says there are plenty of alignments and correspondences to suggest Stonehenge was first used as a lunar calendar:”There is some evidence to suggest that Stonehenge alignments were originally lunar. It’s not quite exactly on the solar alignment. The terminals of (its) ditches seem to be remodelled to try and coax it in that direction.”

Stonehenge will no doubt remain an enigma. But it does hark to an age when man was more in tune with the stars and the seasons than today. Thanks to today’s cities and their accompanying light pollution we barely get a good look at the night sky nowadays, and it’s something Paul feels is a great shame: “I would hope that everybody somewhere got the chance to go to a place that was darkish, and to be told about the stars in the sky,” he says. “The stars are the common heritage of mankind, and we all have a right to enjoy them.”

READMOREABOUTANCIENTASTRONOMY:

HD Video: Episode 10 – Archaeoastronomy

Click here to view the transcript of this video.

We have many more Ancient World in London videos right here at Heritage Key, from the bloody rebellion of Boudicca to the magic of Hadrian’s Wall – you can even explore Stonehenge for yourself in Stonehenge Virtual. The Ancient World in London is much more than the videos – you can take part in our latest bloggers’ challenge, come along to an event or join the debate on the many issues raised throughout the three months.

Dragons’ Den Helps the Indiana Jones of the Perfumes Industry Release Ancient ‘Scents of Time’

David Pybus describes himself as a 21st century alchemist and aromancer, and says his mission in life is to get people to stop their frenetic living from time to time and to smell the roses. Hes underselling himself, of course. Hes really a chemist with more than 20 years experience at the worlds largest perfume makers.

During an appearance on the BBCs Dragons Den in 2007, he convinced entrepreneurs Theo Paphitis and Peter Jones to part with 40,000 each to help launch Scents of Time, a range of fragrances based on ancient themes.

Since his appearance on the show and with the backing of the two dragons, five fragrances Nenufar, Pyxis, Maya, Ankh and Night Star have been launched, with another two, Chrism (the anointing oil of European monarchs) and Aurum (a fragrance of the ancient Olympics) on the way. Nenufar is billed as “the sacred scent of Cleopatra” and used to seduce Mark Antony and Caesar, Pyxis is “the lost perfume of Pompeii“, Maya is the mystic scent of the Americas, Ankh is Tutankhamuns aroma of intrigue, and Night Star is the recreation of a rose scent discovered in the wreck of the Titanic. More than a dozen scents are being developed as part of a 20-year strategy to corner a slice of the perfume market.

The Indiana Jones of the Perfume World

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Pybus whose nicknames apparently include the Indiana Jones of the perfume industry and the Perfume Hunter (his middle name is Hunter) is to perfume what Patrick McGovern is to wine. Hes worked with archaeologists at Pompeii and other ancient sites to study and understand the use of fragrances in ancient times in order to re-create them for todays consumers. He says ancient scents have stood the test of time and are still remarkably fit for modern days.

After all cinnamon has been cinnamon, and rose rose, for millennia, he writes on his website. Nothing is new under the sun and the ancients blended perfumes just as well as any contemporary nose.

Pybus is the author of several perfume-related books, including Transports of Delight: An Aromatic Journey in Verse from East to West on the Wings of Perfume and Kodo: The Way of Calm, an exploration of the use of incense in ancient Japanese culture. Two more books are expected this year, including Scents of Time, which tells the story of the perfume range and its links to ancient times.

Cornering The Market

The perfumes in line with their ancient origins are intended to be unisex. He says the range has been popular among heterosexual men and women, as well as among gay consumers. This has convinced us simply to follow historic precedent and not to make the distinction. Less than 100 years ago, fragrances were used by all on the basis of what they liked, Pybus explains. There was no male/female distinction (think of Blackadder, when in Elizabethan times men wore ruffs, ear rings and the like.) It was those tricksy marketing people who dreamed it all up.

But, as youd expect with a product backed by Paphitis and Jones, the Scents of Time range isn’t immune to a little tricksy marketing if it helps it appeal to the modern masses. The range has been designed with the environment in mind: Pybus is against testing perfumes on animals, and he says more than 80% of the materials used in his packaging are recycled, with 97% of the resulting packaging in turn recyclable. And hes even done the maths on the products carbon footprint: The aromas for creating a perfume come for all over the world, and the formulae is secret, but taking everything into account, my best estimate is that to make and pack one bottle of fragrance ready for shipment uses up less than one tenth of a mile,” he says. “To get this figure, I divided the mileage needed to get from manufacturers of components to the factory all the raw materials, averaging one thousand miles for the fragrance materials, and took into account the weight percentage of each of the materials in the final product. Don’t forget that materials are sent out in bulk and we manufacture one thousand bottles at a time. It helps that all the component suppliers are UK-based, apart from the bottle which comes from France.

There is more about each of the perfumes including how they were created in downloadable booklets on the official website. Theres also a clip here of Pybus on Radio 4s Excess Baggage programme talking about scents and how smells can remind travellers of more exotic times long after their holiday is over.

Making Megalithic Music: Malta’s Ancient Temples

Remember the story we reported about three months ago, about the Mayan pyramids being giant musical instruments? The idea seems to have struck a chord with experts based in Malta, who – either by design or jealousy – have heralded the acoustic talents of their own megalithic landmarks. The tiny Mediterranean island was once home to a highly developed civilisation, who between the fourth and third millennia BC created some of the world’s most striking ancient architecture. Listed as a UNESCOWorld Heritage Site, the huge temple complex is a majestic wonder which predates Stonehenge by up to a thousand years.

Yet Linda Eneix, President of the island’s Old Temples Study Foundation (OTSF), thinks there’s more to Malta’s megaliths than meets the eye. And she claims the Hal Saflieni Hypogeum, a dense complex of caves and chambers, holds the key. The hypogeum’s Science Officer Joseph Farrugia explains further: “There is a small niche in what we call The Oracle Chamber, and if someone with a deep voice speaks inside, the voice echoes all over the hypogeum. The resonance in the ancient temple is something exceptional. You can hear the voice rumbling all over.”

“Standing in the hypogeum is like being inside a giant bell.”

“Standing in the hypogeum is like being inside a giant bell,” adds Eneix. “You feel the sound in your bones as much as you hear it with your ears. Its really thrilling!” Research shows most Maltese temples resonate at a frequency of between 110 and 111 hertz. This has no small significance: UCLAscientists have shown how a resonance frequency of 111hz can have huge effects on the human mind, including a switch from the left to the right, more emotional side of the brain.

Architects have long seen Malta’s megaliths as the natural successor to cave-dwelling, and Eneix claims their resonances were specifically designed to mimic those of the island’s natural shelters. “Once you know what you are looking for, you can see these same ceiling curves in natural caves in Malta,” she says. “Its logical that the ancient temple builders observed the echoes and sound characteristics in the caves and came up with the idea of recreating the same environment in a more controlled way. Were they doing it intentionally to facilitate an altered state of consciousness? There is a lot that we are never going to know.”

Music has long been thought to have played a part in some of the ancient world’s most recognisable structures. The Oracle at Delphi is said to have spoken in guidance to Greek priestesses. Even Stonehenge, Britain’s most famous Stone Age monument, is claimed to have been an ancient concert hall.

El Danta, in Lost Maya City of El Mirador, Could be World’s Biggest Pyramid

Archaeologists exploring the lost Maya city of El Mirador claim they’ve found the world’s biggest pyramid. The massive structure, called La Danta (The Tapir), may have its summit hidden beneath Guatemala’s jungle canopy. Yet its volume is reckoned to be larger than that of the Great Pyramid of Khufu in Egypt’s Giza Plateau. The city itself, dubbed the ‘Maya Cradle of Civilization‘, is the size of a modern metropolis; bigger than downtown Los Angeles. And experts believe there are thousands more pyramids yet to be found.

Yet there is more to El Mirador, tucked in Guatemala’s northern wilderness just a few miles from the Mexican border, than its headline-grabbing pyramid. Also unearthed is a 300-200 BC stone frieze depicting the Maya creation story, the Popol Vuh – the only one of its kind in the world. Nearly all written Maya history and religious material was destroyed by the Spanish Conquistadors in the 15th and 16th centuries, tainting anything recorded since.

Dr Richard Hansen, Director of the Mirador Project, has spent his life studying the enigmatic ancient city. He tells CNN La Danta shows a staggering level of people power: “The pyramid La Danta is a structure the world should know because it represents an investment in labour unprecedented in world history. Every single stone in that building, from the bottom to the top, was carried by human labour.”

Heritage in Danger

The Maya civilization, which mysteriously collapsed a thousand years ago, has long since struck a romantic chord with experts and aficionados alike – not least for a constant conveyor-belt of discovery. Another recent revelation has been the discovery of two pyramids and nine royal palaces at the Yucatan site of Kiuic. And the whole world has been agog this year at the so-called Maya Doomsday Prophecy, which has even spawned its own Hollywood blockbuster.

Yet Dr Hansen’s team are increasingly having to defend El Mirador from a number of human dangers. Cattle ranchers, loggers and illegal traffickers operate in the region, and armed guards are needed to warn off potential looters. El Mirador may succumb to these perils if it does not receive the international recognition it desperately needs. Yet for now Dr Hansen and his experts are in awe of the city’s unending surprises. “This is the summit of the Maya world,” he says proudly.