Latin America

Judi Lynn

(160,515 posts) Thu Sep 24, 2020, 06:39 PM Sep 2020

In Guatemala, the Maya world untouched for centuries

In Guatemala, Lidar has revealed 60,000 structures, including temples and pyramids (Credit: Credit: Amanda Ruggeri)

Archaeologists have suspected there was more to Tikal, El Zotz and Holmul. But it wasn’t until recently that proof came – in the form of Lidar, a type of remote sensing technology

By Amanda Ruggeri
15 September 2020

There is no path through the jungle. Every step requires navigation: winding around a tree; stepping over a root; ducking under a branch. In front of me, a man swings a machete, trying to cut an easier path.

“Don’t touch anything,” my guide, José María Anavisca, warns me. You can’t be sure what snake or spider or other creature might be on a branch or tree. Despite my caution, I soon feel a sensation on my back, somewhere between being pricked and electrified, and wriggle in shock. “An ant,” Anavisca says knowingly. I hope he’s right. Whatever it is, it’s dropped under my collar and taken a bite.

In Guatemala, the jungle encroaches on monuments like this one at the Mundo Perdido ceremonial complex (Credit: Amanda Ruggeri)
It’s 32C and 100% humidity, typical for Tikal, Guatemala, in June. Where we’re going looks exactly like where we came from, a tangle of green, glossy leaves spiked with elegant trunks. We stop several times, turn, retrace our steps. “Are we lost?” I ask finally, wiping sweat from my forehead.

“No, no,” Anavisca says. He grins, quipping: “The Lost World” – one of Tikal’s best-known ceremonial complexes – “is that way.” I’m not sure how he can tell.

Tikal

Once the greatest city in the Maya world, today Tikal is Guatemala’s most famous archaeological site. But even on the well-trodden, signposted tourist route, it’s impossible to forget you’re in the rainforest. Birdsong fills the air, spider monkeys loop across the treetops, and at dusk, the area around the Lost World is taken over by coatimundis – long-tailed, raccoon-like mammals that nose through the ground for insects.

Today we’ve gone off the beaten track completely. Anavisca wants to show me something few tourists see, and which far fewer would recognise: a Maya pyramid, unexcavated and overgrown with jungle.