NOVA Science Trust Logo

Maya

<div class="rich-text">NASA archeologists use satellites to pinpoint ancient ruins buried deep in the jungle.</div>
<div class="rich-text">(This video is no longer available for streaming.)&nbsp;This NOVA scienceNOW video shows how experts are using NASA satellite photography to find ancient Maya architecture hidden deep in the rain forest of Guatemala. It&#39;s a marriage of 21st-century technology and centuries-old archeological techniques that has already unearthed some striking Maya remains, including a jungle-covered temple containing an extremely rare, 2,000-year-old mural.
</div>
<div class="rich-text"><h3>
 MAYA
</h3>

 PBS Airdate: January 9, 2007


 
 WILLIAM SATURNO:
 
 It's difficult to convey what this place would have
been like when it was inhabited. As you look out around, none of this
rainforest was here at that time. Instead, you were looking at this bustling
metropolis of 100,000 people gathered here: the sounds, the smells, smoke
rising up from the houses, the thousands of houses that littered the
countryside.


 
 PETER STANDRING
 
 (Correspondent)
 
 :
 
 For 1,200 years, the
Maya civilization dominated Central America, and here, in the jungles of
northern Guatemala, the great city of Tikal was one of the wonders of the New
World, with centuries of art, architecture and astronomy while Europe was still
in the dark ages. Limited by poor farmland and a yearly drought, the Maya
somehow supported a population that numbered in the millions. But just at the
peak of Maya power, their world suddenly fell apart, about 12 centuries ago.


 How such a civilization could collapse so quickly remains one of the great
unsolved mysteries of archeology. Tikal lasted for 1,000 years, but somehow it
reached a tipping point where it could no longer support its population. And
so, within a generation or two, 80 percent of the people who lived here
disappeared.


 
 WILLIAM SATURNO:
 
 Within about 40 years of this city's height, we see
this place almost entirely abandoned. And trees were beginning to grow on the
surfaces where kings once walked.


 
 PETER STANDRING:
 
 For archeologist Bill Saturno, understanding
the end of the Maya civilization has always involved finding evidence of how it
began, 3,000 years ago. In the spring of 2001, he and a group of local guides
were hot on the trail of three rare carved monuments; so eager to find them,
they nearly met their own end.


 
 WILLIAM SATURNO:
 
 The rumor was that this site was only one day's journey
away. And so we planned a journey of a day, and we brought food and water for
one day. And it turned out that the journey was three days. Now, how one gets
two days into the woods without food or water is that they need to make a
series of bad decisions. In fact, they need to be committed to making bad
decisions again and again and again, because there are opportunities to turn
back, and you simply don't.


 
 PETER STANDRING:
 
 But turning back would have caused Saturno to
miss the discovery that changed his life, as his group wandered into the ruins
of a small Maya city in an area the locals called San Bartolo. There, among the
buried Maya buildings was an 80-foot pyramid with a deep trench that looters
had cut into its side. Saturno had stumbled on an ancient temple, but in his
dehydrated state, it simply meant relief from the hot sun and 100-degree heat.


 
 WILLIAM SATURNO:
 
 I thought to myself, "It's got to be much cooler inside
there, and if I just crawl into that, I can sit down, it'll be shady and, and
at least I won't feel as bad as I feel now." And I walked in past where the
light entered, and I sat down, just in the darkness. And when I shone my
flashlight up on the wall, I saw the face of the Maya maize god there.


 
 PETER STANDRING:
 
 Despite his exhaustion, Saturno still knew he
was looking at an incredible find.


 
 WILLIAM SATURNO:
 
 This was clearly the discovery of a lifetime, but pity
my life will be so short. I thought that when I sort of laid down to rest, that
I was lying down to rest for the final time.


 
 PETER STANDRING:
 
 As the expedition's most experienced guide,
Anatolio Lopez knew the situation was dire.


 
 ANATOLIO LOPEZ
 
 (Guide, Proyecto San Bartolo)
 
 :
 
 And then I went out
to see if I could find something that would ease the thirst. So I found a
flowering plant they call Pinuela.


 
 PETER STANDRING:
 
 The fruit of the Pinuela measures only a
couple of inches, but its moisture saved Saturno's life and got the group
moving again, revived enough to walk out of the rainforest alive. Bill Saturno
had discovered the oldest Maya paintings ever found, depicting religion and
government as far back as 100 B.C.


 
 WILLIAM SATURNO:
 
 The murals at San Bartolo are really our earliest
example of this relationship between god and kings, spelled out in this
wondrous work of art. And these are the earliest hieroglyphic texts we have in
the Maya lowlands. They predate the text that we can read by five centuries.


 
 PETER STANDRING:
 
 Can you think of an analogy, in terms of the
impact, something like this has?


 
 WILLIAM SATURNO:
 
 Well, I mean, essentially, this would be like finding
sort of the story of Christ, but written at the time of Christ.


 
 PETER STANDRING:
 
 News of Saturno's discovery quickly spread to
Maya experts everywhere.


 
 TOM SEVER:
 
 Well, we had heard that Bill had come across something major,
that he had...what ultimately became the discovery of the murals.


 
 PETER STANDRING:
 
 Tom Sever is the only archeologist on the
NASA payroll using the space agency's aircraft and satellites to survey ancient
sites on the ground. It's a technology called "remote sensing," and it can
reveal hidden details in the landscape below. From space, satellites record
invisible wavelengths like infrared. What we perceive as heat, satellite
cameras turn into light.


 
 TOM SEVER:
 
 It can see beyond the range of our vision. It can detect
features that we can't see. And through the use of computers, we can record
that invisible information and bring it back into visible light.


 
 PETER STANDRING:
 
 Using remote sensing, Sever proved the Maya
used innovative agriculture on land poorly suited to grow crops. Satellite
photography peered through layers of the modern rainforest to reveal intense
cultivation, connected by a pattern of ancient roadways.


 
 TOM SEVER:
 
 From the perspective of space, we can look down, and we can
see how the Maya were able to feed this intense population. We could see the
Maya roadways, causeways. We could find their water reservoirs, water storage
areas and canal systems.


 
 PETER STANDRING:
 
 The images charted areas right next to Bill
Saturno's excavation at San Bartolo. And when Tom Sever sent satellite maps to
help his colleague, Saturno immediately noticed one very curious detail in the
satellite imagery.


 
 WILLIAM SATURNO:
 
 In looking at the satellite image, it immediately
became clear to me that the forest in San Bartolo was of a lighter color than
the forest outside of San Bartolo. And so, in looking farther afield, looking
across that image, you could see other areas that shared that same color. And,
of course, the thought is, "Well I wonder if those are archaeological sites
too."


 
 PETER STANDRING:
 
 So with a GPS locator in his hand, Saturno
plotted a course to the other brightly colored spots on his NASA map, scattered
all over the landscape.


 
 WILLIAM SATURNO:
 
 And as you get closer to them, you're saying to
yourself, "In 10 meters, we should be walking into an archaeological site. Now,
if this works, we have five meters to go until we find architecture. And then
you walk that five meters and sure enough, you walk up onto a Mayan
building.


 
 PETER STANDRING:
 
 Buried under a thousand years of vegetation
was the unmistakable shape of a Maya pyramid, precisely where the satellite
image had predicted it would be. Saturno found three Maya sites around San
Bartolo in the areas where the maps showed a change in the color of the
vegetation. He reported back to Tom Sever, it seemed to work every time.


 
 TOM SEVER:
 
 We were skeptical at first. We had no doubt that this was
working sometimes, but that it was working accurately all the time, we just
couldn't buy into that. So as we started looking at the imagery, we started
wondering, "What's causing that in the vegetation?"


 
 PETER STANDRING:
 
 Sever theorized that, over the centuries, the
limestone that the Maya used as building material had seeped into the soil,
changing the vegetation growing on Maya sites, but nowhere else. The
chlorophyll in plants glows brightly in infrared, and satellite cameras picked
up that subtle difference.


 
 TOM SEVER:
 
 If this was true, this is big news. I've been working on
Mayan archaeology for a long time, and we've had great success, but this would
be the crowning achievement, if we were able to map where all the Maya sites
were.


 
 PETER STANDRING:
 
 There was only one way to find out. Sever
came down to Guatemala to join Saturno, to see for himself. The road to San
Bartolo runs 50 kilometers through the seasonal wetlands called "the Bajos."


 
 WILLIAM SATURNO:
 
 Once the rains start, the Bajos become impassible.


 
 PETER STANDRING:
 
 They need to push beyond San Bartolo to
remote locations never explored by archeologists. But it's already becoming a
very long day.


 
 WILLIAM SATURNO:
 
 We spent more than two hours in four vehicles, with
winches and people pushing, and we achieved less than a kilometer.


 
 PETER STANDRING:
 
 After several days, and on drier ground, the
archeologists use only the NASA maps to thread their way deep into the
rainforest, towards a bright site on the satellite image: the brighter the
color, the more Maya limestone, the bigger the potential site. But would the
theory actually work?


 
 TOM SEVER:
 
 It was just mind-blowing. We're in this dense vegetation,
incredibly hot, 119 degrees.


 You see it?


 
 WILLIAM SATURNO:
 
 We should be right there, but, we're in it.


 
 TOM SEVER:
 
 We're close.


 
 WILLIAM SATURNO:
 
 And we get about 10 meters away from where the site is
supposed to be, but I don't see an archaeological site. I thought, "Oh," You
know? "Great."


 
 TOM SEVER:
 
 No indicator, and, my thought was, again, this, you know,
"Why am I out here? Why did I fall for this?"


 
 WILLIAM SATURNO: "
 
 So this is the time it doesn't work. They're really
going to think I'm nuts. I bring them all the way down here, we're going to go
out and find this place, Ten meters, nothing."


 
 TOM SEVER:
 
 And then, five meters, we'd move forward, and there's a giant
temple, right on target.


 
 WILLIAM SATURNO:
 
 Fourteen hundred years, that's been here.


 
 TOM SEVER:
 
 We did this for many days. We saw many sites, with incredible
accuracy, and I became absolutely convinced.


 
 WILLIAM SATURNO:
 
 Pretty impressive structures—two stories, from
the first floor to the second floor.


 
 PETER STANDRING:
 
 The satellite imagery was flawless. The huge
temple was exactly where the map coordinates predicted it would be.


 
 WILLIAM SATURNO:
 
 This is a pretty impressive room. These walls are a
good two meters high. It's a great vault.


 
 TOM SEVER:
 
 The paint hasn't faded too much.


 
 WILLIAM SATURNO:
 
 You can see it's really thin plaster that they're
using. It's in great shape, but you can tell it's a resource that's really at
its end.


 
 PETER STANDRING:
 
 The site at San Bartolo has now become a
pilgrimage for shamans of the Maya religion, descendants of the ancient
civilization that once ruled here.


 It's pretty incredible that satellites miles and miles and miles up in
space are seeing things that you and I can't see here.


 
 WILLIAM SATURNO:
 
 This is revolutionary, and it changes the entire way
that we approach archaeology in a tropical environment.


 
 PETER STANDRING:
 
 Thanks to the collaboration of archeology and
space technology, scientists are beginning to learn how the Maya conquered this
harsh landscape as no modern civilization ever has, and how they, quite
suddenly, lost control of it.


 
 TOM SEVER:
 
 Now, from space, we can see where these sites are. And now we
have enough material to understand the rates of deforestation that might have
taken place here—as a result from the construction of all of these
buildings and temples and roadways—and ultimately contributed to their

own drought, their own destruction.


 
 WILLIAM SATURNO:
 
 All of a sudden, for the first time, we're able to look
at the big picture and understand the extent to which the Maya expanded these
cities.


 When you think about how many sites are out there, just in the Mayan
lowlands...And we can see how many there are in these satellite images. Think
about how many San Bartolos are out there waiting to be discovered.
</div>

<div class="rich-text">NASA archeologists use satellites to pinpoint ancient ruins buried deep in the jungle.</div>

Canada

United States

Northern Mariana Islands

Puerto Rico

American Samoa

Guam

U.S. Virgin Islands

U.S. Minor Outlying Islands

US, US Territories, Canada

US & Territories

Ancient Maya Metropolis

Explore ancient Maya cities and learn why their inhabitants abandoned them

Cracking the Maya Code

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
<head>

<title>NOVA Online | Teachers | Program Overview | Cracking the Maya Code | PBS</title>

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />
<meta name="description" content="Program Overview for the NOVA program Cracking the Maya Code" />

<script src="/wgbh/nova/js/novagen_teac.js" type="text/javascript" language="Javascript1.1"></script>
<script src="/wgbh/nova/js/teachers03.js" type="text/javascript" language="Javascript1.1"></script>


<link rel="stylesheet" href="/wgbh/nova/css/navbar-06-funder-banner.css" type="text/css" media="screen,print" />

</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000" link="#003399" vlink="#333333" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" topmargin="0" leftmargin="0" onresize="fixNN();">

	
	<table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" bgcolor="#000000">
	<tr><td height="1"><script type="text/javascript" language="javascript">document.write(makeIt('1','IE'));document.close();</script></td></tr>
	<tr><td align="left" valign="top"></td></tr>
	</table>
	

	
	<table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
	<tr><td height="1" bgcolor="#CCD1D7"><script type="text/javascript" language="javascript">document.write(makeIt('1','IE'));document.close();</script></td></tr>
	<tr><td bgcolor="#5B6678">
		<table border="0" width="800" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" bgcolor="#5B6678" background="/wgbh/nova/teachers/images03/nav_header.jpg">
		<tr>
			<td rowspan="2" width="534" align="left" valign="bottom"><a href="/wgbh/nova/teachers/"><img src="/wgbh/nova/images02/spacer.gif" alt="" width="534" height="86" border="0" /></a></td>
			<td width="266" align="left" valign="top">
			<img src="/wgbh/nova/images02/spacer.gif" alt="" width="266" height="10" border="0" />
			</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
		<form method="get" action="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/teachers/search-results.html">
		<td width="266" align="left" valign="top">
			<img src="/wgbh/nova/teachers/images03/nav_searchnovateachers.gif" alt="Search NOVA Teachers" width="122" height="17" border="0" />
	
			<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
				<tr>
				<td align="left" valign="top">
			<input type="text" name="q" size="20" maxlength="40" class="novanav" />
				</td>
				<td width="6"><img src="/wgbh/nova/images02/spacer.gif" alt="" width="6" height="1" border="0" /></td>
				<td width="22" align="left" valign="top">
			<input name="submit" type="image" src="/wgbh/nova/teachers/images03/nav_search_go.gif" width="22" height="15" border="0" />
				</td>
				</tr>
			</table>
			</td>
		</form></tr>
		</table>
	</td></tr>
	<tr><td bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
	<img src="/wgbh/nova/teachers/images03/home_greyline_bot.jpg" alt="" width="1000" height="3" border="0" />
	</td></tr>	
	</table>
	



<table width="800" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0">
	<tr align="left">
		<td rowspan="3" width="30" align="left" valign="top"><a id="fea_top" name="fea_top"><img src="/wgbh/nova/images02/spacer.gif" alt="" width="30" height="1" border="0" /></a></td>
		<td width="465" align="left" valign="top">
		<img src="/wgbh/nova/images02/spacer.gif" alt="" width="465" height="1" border="0" />
		

<img src="/wgbh/nova/images02/spacer.gif" alt="" width="475" height="10" border="0" />

		
	</td>
		
	<td rowspan="3" width="30"><img src="/wgbh/nova/images02/spacer.gif" alt="" width="30" height="1" border="0" /></td>


	<td width="275" valign="top"><img src="/wgbh/nova/images02/spacer.gif" alt="" width="275" height="1" border="0" />
	<a href="/wgbh/nova/teachers/">Back to Teachers Home</a>
	</td></tr>

	<tr><td rowspan="2" width="465" align="left" valign="top">




<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0">
	
	<tr align="left">
		<td class="titleborder-h" align="left" valign="top">
		<img src="/wgbh/nova/images02/spacer.gif" alt="" width="1" height="15" border="0" />
		</td>
	</tr>
	<tr align="left">
		<td align="left" valign="top">
		
	

Cracking the Maya Code

		</td>
	</tr>
	
	<tr align="left">
		<td class="titleborder-h" align="left" valign="top">
		<img src="/wgbh/nova/images02/spacer.gif" alt="" width="1" height="15" border="0" />
		</td>
	</tr>
	<tr align="left">
		<td align="left" valign="top">
		
	

Program Overview
</td>
</tr>

<tr align="left">
<td class="titleborder-h" align="left" valign="top">
<img src="/wgbh/nova/images02/spacer.gif" alt="" width="1" height="15" border="0" />
</td>
</tr>
</table> 







NOVA chronicles
the 200-year worldwide quest by linguists, mathematicians, artists, architects,
archeologists, and others to decipher the Maya hieroglyphs.


The program:

<ul type="circle">
<li>describes
where the Maya region is located.</li>

<li>recounts the
first documented discovery by an expedition from Spain, in 1785, of tablets
with hieroglyphs.</li>

<li>notes that
the complexity of the hieroglyphs presented the greatest obstacle to
deciphering the images.</li>

<li>reports that
Alfred Maudslay was the first to photograph the ruins in 1881.</li>

<li>relates how
the Maya language faded to obscurity after, in 1562, Bishop Deigo de Landa and
other Spaniards destroyed&#8212;for religious reasons&#8212;all the Maya texts
he could find.</li>

<li>reports on
how one of the first breakthroughs in deciphering the code came in 1810, when a
scholar first determined that some of the glyphs stood for numbers.</li>

<li>pieces
together the puzzle of how numerous scientists and laypeople unraveled the mystery
behind the hieroglyphs, including what sound each glyph represented.</li>

<li>reports on
present-day efforts to teach the original Maya language to children in the
region.</li>
</ul>


Taping Rights: Can be used up to one year after program is recorded off the air.



		
	</td>
	<td width="275" valign="top">
	<img src="/wgbh/nova/images02/spacer.gif" alt="" width="275" height="6" border="0" />




<table width="220" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0">
<tr>
<td class="caption" align="right" valign="top">
<img src="/wgbh/nova/teachers/images03/nav_sideround_top.gif" alt="" width="220" height="11" border="0" />
<img src="/wgbh/nova/teachers/images03/nav_side_tguide.gif" alt="Teacher's Guide" width="220" height="33" border="0" />
<table width="220" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0">
<tr><td width="22"><img src="/wgbh/nova/images02/spacer.gif" alt="" width="22" height="1" border="0" /></td>
<td width="176" class="caption" align="left" valign="top">
Cracking the Maya Code
<img src="/wgbh/nova/images03/ticon_3506_mayacode.jpg" alt="Cracking the Maya Code" width="175" height="75" border="0" />
Original broadcast: April 8, 2008<img src="/wgbh/nova/images02/spacer.gif" alt="" width="176" height="1" border="0" />
</td><td width="22"><img src="/wgbh/nova/images02/spacer.gif" alt="" width="22" height="1" border="0" /></td></tr>
</table>
<img src="/wgbh/nova/teachers/images03/nav_side_rule.gif" alt="" width="220" height="1" border="0" />
<a href="/wgbh/nova/preview/i_3506.html" onmouseover="res_on('prev0prev', 'prev'); return false;" onmouseout="res_off('prev0prev', 'prev'); return false;"><img src="/wgbh/nova/teachers/images03/nav_side_watchpreview.jpg" alt="WATCH A PREVIEW" id="prev0prev" name="prev0prev" width="220" height="22" border="0" /></a>
<a href="http://shop.wgbh.org/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CatalogSearchResultView?storeId=11051&catalogId=10051&langId=-1&nomem=true&pageSize=20&searchText=cracking+maya+code" onmouseover="res_on('buyt0buyt', 'buyt'); return false;" onmouseout="res_off('buyt0buyt', 'buyt'); return false;"><img src="/wgbh/nova/teachers/images03/nav_side_buyvideo.jpg" alt="BUY THE VIDEO" id="buyt0buyt" name="buyt0buyt" width="220" height="22" border="0" /></a>
<a href="/wgbh/nova/mayacode/program.html" onmouseover="res_on('watc0watc', 'watc'); return false;" onmouseout="res_off('watc0watc', 'watc'); return false;"><img src="/wgbh/nova/teachers/images03/nav_side_watchonline.jpg" alt="WATCH THE VIDEO ONLINE" id="watc0watc" name="watc0watc" width="220" height="22" border="0" /></a>
<img src="/wgbh/nova/teachers/images03/nav_side_rule.gif" alt="" width="220" height="1" border="0" />
<img src="/wgbh/nova/images02/spacer.gif" alt="" width="22" height="6" border="0" />
<img src="/wgbh/nova/teachers/images03/nav_side_programoverview_d.jpg" alt="PROGRAM OVERVIEW" id="prog1594prog" name="prog1594prog" width="220" height="22" border="0" />
<a href="/wgbh/nova/teachers/activities/3506_mayacode.html" onmouseover="res_on('clas1596clas', 'clas'); return false;" onmouseout="res_off('clas1596clas', 'clas'); return false;"><img src="/wgbh/nova/teachers/images03/nav_side_classroomactiv.jpg" alt="CLASSROOM ACTIVITY" id="clas1596clas" name="clas1596clas" width="220" height="22" border="0" /></a>
<a href="/wgbh/nova/teachers/overviews/3506_mayacode.html" onmouseover="res_on('rnre1595rnre', 'rnre'); return false;" onmouseout="res_off('rnre1595rnre', 'rnre'); return false;"><img src="/wgbh/nova/teachers/images03/nav_side_relatednovareso.jpg" alt="RELATED NOVA RESOURCES" id="rnre1595rnre" name="rnre1595rnre" width="220" height="22" border="0" /></a>
<a href="/wgbh/nova/mayacode/translate.html" onmouseover="res_on('inte1597inte', 'inte'); return false;" onmouseout="res_off('inte1597inte', 'inte'); return false;"><img src="/wgbh/nova/teachers/images03/nav_side_interactive.jpg" alt="INTERACTIVE FOR STUDENTS" id="inte1597inte" name="inte1597inte" width="220" height="22" border="0" /></a>
<img src="/wgbh/nova/teachers/images03/nav_sideround_bot.gif" alt="" width="220" height="12" border="0" />
</td>
</tr>
</table>




	</td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
	<td align="left" valign="bottom">




	</td>
</tr>
<tr><td colspan="4" width="700"><img src="/wgbh/nova/images02/spacer.gif" alt="" width="1" height="30" border="0" /></td></tr>

<tr><td width="30" align="left" valign="bottom">&nbsp;</td>
	<td align="left" valign="bottom">
	<div class="footer">
	<a href="/wgbh/nova/">NOVA Home</a> | 
	<a href="/wgbh/nova/teachers/">Teachers Home</a> | 
	<a href="/wgbh/nova/teachers/schedule.html">TV Schedule</a> | 
	<a href="/wgbh/nova/teachers/mailing/">E-Mail Bulletin</a> | 
	<a href="/wgbh/nova/teachers/faq.html">Help</a> | 
	<a href="/wgbh/nova/novastore.html">Shop NOVA</a> 
	<a href="/wgbh/nova/teachers/resources/title.html">Teacher's Guide by Title</a> | 
	<a href="/wgbh/nova/teachers/resources/subject.html">by Subject</a> | 
	<a href="/wgbh/nova/transcripts/">Transcripts</a> | 
	<a href="/wgbh/nova/about/cred.html">Credits</a> | 
	<a href="/wgbh/nova/teachers/sitemap.html">Site Map</a> 
	<a href="http://www.pbs.org/teachers/">PBS Teachers</a>
	</div>
	</td>
	<td width="30" align="left" valign="bottom">&nbsp;</td>
	<td align="left" valign="bottom">
	<div class="footer"><a href="/wgbh/nova/novacopyright.html">&copy;</a> | 
	

Updated May 2008

</div>
	</td>
</tr>
</table>



<div id="pbsdoubleclick-stretch">
	
</div>

<script type='text/javascript' language='JavaScript' src='/wgbh/elqNow/elqCfg.js'></script>
<script type='text/javascript' language='JavaScript' src='/wgbh/elqNow/elqImg.js'></script>
</body>
</html>

Maya: Expert Q&A

<div id="ate-content">
<div class="ate-qa first">

Q: I grew up in the western part of El Salvador, where most of the Mayan ruins in my country have been found. When I was a kid, my friends and I would find Mayan artifacts by digging just a few feet down. I saw your segment in NOVA, and I became interested: How many archeological sites could the satellite be able to see in El Salvador? It's a part of our history that is being destroyed by looters or by time, and it needs to be discovered and protected. Mauricio Funes, Nashville, Tennessee

Bill Saturno: That is a difficult question to answer, as this particular technique is dependent upon a relatively intact tropical forest canopy. How many sites it could find in El Salvador would first depend on the area of intact forest present and then the density of sites within that forest. That said, there are other remote-sensing techniques that have been vital in the archeology of El Salvador, specifically those employed by Dr. Payson Sheets and his colleagues at El Ceren.
</div>
<div class="ate-qa">

Q: Aren't you concerned that misguided NASA personnel might pass on satellite images of archeologically valuable ruins to looters in exchange for monetary considerations? We have seen top CIA officials and agents compromising U.S. security and American lives in exchange for money. Arnaldo Dumindin, San Antonia, Texas

Saturno: I am not particularly concerned for the following reasons: 1) The looters don't actually have any money; for the most part, they are rural poor with little other economic opportunity and sell artifacts only to barely meet their subsistence needs. The real money only exists farther up the illicit trade ladder. 2) Unfortunately, of all the sites we have located with this technology, none of them is unlooted. Looters already know where all the sites are; they just don't share that information.
</div>
<div class="ate-qa">

Q: I visited a small Mexican village in the state of Chiapas along the Guatemalan border by the name of Benemerito de las Americas, Chiapas. The locals had found a site and, of course, had already looted, but the government had not stepped in yet. How long does it take before the government steps in to protect a site like that? It seems a shame that the beautiful statues and figures being taken out of there are being destroyed for lack of, well, a lot of things. Jon Cruz, Austin, Texas

Saturno: Unfortunately, the resources for government protection of each and every archeological site simply do not exist. In addition, in conditions of abject poverty, when faced with the choice of feeding one's family or protecting cultural resources, cultural resources rarely if ever win. It is a shame that other economic options aren't available and that those that fuel the market by collecting artifacts don't invest those same funds in the in situ preservation of the objects in which they see such value.
</div>
<div class="ate-qa">

Q: Most name glyphs are used in Mayan murals to denote and identify royalty. Can it be assumed that the glyphs in this mural also name royals? These glyphs look like they are from early on in the progression of the Mayan writing system, but will they still be able to be translated in the future through etymological research? How much is known about the earlier stages of glyphs in general? Erin Donnelly, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Saturno: The glyphs provide narrative detail to the scenes with which they are associated. This may come in the form of the name of an individual and/or his or her title, but may also include the date and other specifics (a verb, for instance) of the event. Not much is known about the earliest stages of Maya writing, because so little of it has been found. Without more examples, full translation remains unlikely.
</div>
<div class="ate-qa">

			Editor's note: The next three Q&amp;As refer in part to the mural featured in the NOVA web feature "A Masterpiece Revealed."

Q: When you try to understand the meaning of the mural and assumptions are made, is the chance that the mural is representing a particular legend or myth, rather than representing a general scene, considered? And if so, how could this affect the process of interpreting of the mural? Leonardo, Padova, Italy

Saturno: In short, yes. Where the mural illustrates characters that are familiar to us from a broader study of Mesoamerican art and myth, we use both those representations and stories to help elucidate the actual goings on within the pictorial narrative before us at San Bartolo. This can have the effect of obscuring changes, but every effort is made to be aware of this. Where scenes and characters are unfamiliar, we are left only with the image and our own cultural biases to interpret it.
</div>
<div class="ate-qa">

Q: What story does the mural tell? Is it a legend, a myth, social commentary, a depiction of daily life or special ceremony? Anonymous, Springfield, Missouri

Saturno: The mural tells many stories all tied to the mythology of creation. One such story is the myth of emergence seen on the North wall. Another scene is the coronation of a king upon a wooden scaffold from the West wall.
</div>
<div class="ate-qa">

Q: What do the dark footprints along the base (right side) of the mural represent? Phyllis, Glendale, Missouri

Saturno: Footprints are often used in Mesoamerican art to denote "the path." In this instance it identifies the serpent as the path out of the underworld. Footprints are often shown heading both toward and away so don't necessarily indicate the direction of overall motion.
</div>
<div class="ate-qa">

Q: Is there a book forthcoming on San Bartolo? Damaris, Connecticut

Saturno: I am working on it right now.
</div>
<div class="ate-qa">

Q: What is your theory about why the Mayan civilization crumbled? Andy Alonso-Emanuel, Aurora, Illinois

Saturno: There is no single reason for the sociopolitical collapse experienced in the Maya Lowlands at the end of the Classic Period. An overtaxed environment was likely a major contributing factor. It should also be pointed out that the Maya experienced multiple rises and falls. Many cities of the Preclassic were abandoned or greatly reduced in size and importance during the Classic period. New cities also sprung up in the wake of the Classic Maya Collapse. Collapse in this sense is best understood as a system failure followed by reboot.
</div>
<div class="ate-qa">

Q: What was the environment like before the deforestation in ancient Mayan times? Did the forests grow back the same? Or did the deforestation by the Mayans allow new species of plants/animals to colonize the area, creating the rain forests of today? I am asking because I wonder with the damage done to rain forests today what the prospects are for recovering them. Thanks. Colleen, Lansing, Michigan

Saturno: The evidence points to a dramatically different environment, not necessarily in the range of plants and animals that existed in the Maya area but certainly in the overall distribution of those species. For example, seasonal wetlands seem to make up a substantially larger portion of the landscape today than when the Maya first occupied the region. Likewise the rainforest today is far more expansive than it was when the Maya were practicing intensive agriculture and building large cities.
</div>
<div class="ate-qa">

Q: How historically acurate is the movie <cite>Apocalypto</cite>? And have you read <cite>Guns, Germs and Steel</cite> by Jared Diamond, and if so, what do you think of his theories that the advance of a civilization is determined by its geographical location? Frank Tucci, Whitestone, New York

Saturno: I must confess to not having seen the film, but judging only from what I have seen in the previews, it cannot be particularly accurate.

			As for your second question, certainly the natural environment places certain constraints on the societies that develop within it, but civilizations have always looked for ways to bypass those constraints to both their great benefit and their great detriment.
</div>
<div class="ate-qa">

Q: Do you anticipate the use of satellite technology to search for further archeological ruins/sites not only in the jungles, but also those that may have been buried by volcanic eruptions or covered by water? Rae McEntyre, Frankfort, Kentucky

Tom Sever: Yes. In fact, Dr. Saturno and I are currently investigating tropical forest regions in Southeast Asia, Bolivia, and the Amazon forest in Brazil. We see features in the remote sensing data that we believe are indicators of prehistoric settlement. In addition, we are working with Dr. Payson Sheets, University of Colorado, to map prehistoric pathways and roadways in the volcanic regions of Costa Rica using satellite imagery. Although I myself have not participated in underwater archeological research, a number of my colleagues are, and they are making wonderful discoveries.

			The use of remote sensing in archeological research is expanding. The second conference in Remote Sensing and Archeology was held last month in Rome, Italy. Dozens of papers were presented at this conference, which discussed aerial and ground-based remote-sensing research investigations that are being conducted around the world. You can find more about the conference at the following link: <a href="http://www.vhlab.itabc.cnr.it/space2place/">http://www.vhlab.itabc.cnr.it/space2place/</a>
</div>
<div class="ate-qa">

Q: Has there ever been a comprehensive satellite survey done of the Maya lands using radar or other sensors to try and find all the lost cities and structures? Anonymous, Herndon, Virginia

Sever: Several Maya investigators have been working both independently and together using remote sensing for the detection of ancient Maya sites. At this time a comprehensive inventory has not been accomplished. However, it remains a goal for the future. Not only would a comprehensive survey aid us in science and interpretation, it would also allow officials to know where these sites are so that they can monitor and protect them.
</div>
<div class="ate-qa">

Q: We have had satellite imagery of Earth from space for at least two decades or more. Why did it take so long to apply it to archeology, and why was even Thomas Sever rather skeptical of its effectiveness? No offense, but is this not yet another example of how dogmatic views in science hamstring the researchers? Or, perhaps, territorial divisiveness? Paul Kuchynskas, Brooklyn, New York

Sever: I have been conducting remote-sensing archeological research for NASA since 1981 and having been working collaboratively with researchers around the world, and we have made many discoveries. In that time, we have mapped ancient Anasazi roadways in New Mexico that are invisible to the human eye using thermal imagery. Working with Dr. Payson Sheets, we have discovered the oldest known footpaths in the world using color infrared photography and aerial thermal imagery. These footpaths were buried beneath several layers of volcanic eruptions and were visible in the tropical forest as well as pasturelands. I have also detected ancient Maya archeological features including ancient roadways, water storage areas, and canals in the northern Peten of Guatemala. Other accomplishments include mapping an ancient tower signal communication in Israel, detecting the location of the 1910 hangar of the Wright Brothers at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, and the detection of archeological features at the ancient earthworks at Poverty Point, Louisiana. You can read more about some of these by visiting my website at: <a href="http://weather.msfc.nasa.gov/archeology/">http://weather.msfc.nasa.gov/archeology/</a>

			Archeologists have been using remote sensing, in the form of black-and-white aerial photography, for over 100 years. When satellite imagery became available in the 1970s, there was limited use for archeology since the spatial resolution was 80 meters, insufficient for the detection of most archeological features. In the last few years, high-resolution satellite imagery at one-meter resolution has become available, and archeologists have been flocking to make use of the innovative technology. For an excellent description of the history of early pioneers in aerial archeology, please read <cite>Flights Into Yesterday: The Story of Aerial Archeology</cite>, by Leo Deuel.

			When Bill Saturno contacted me and stated that the satellite imagery was working 100 percent of the time, I was skeptical because he had found three sites around San Bartolo, a number too small to be statistically reliable. As a NASA scientist, I needed many more examples to document the flawless reliability of this technique. We conducted extensive research with Dr. Saturno and his research team and visited dozens of potential sites and verified that the technique was working every time. A NASA television crew joined us in the field and documented that we were able to predict the location, diameter, and perimeter of ancient Maya sites.
</div>
<div class="ate-qa">

Q: Referring to the infrared imagery, what color or shade are the sites appearing as? Also, does the correlation between the sites and the color only appear when the locations have structures of limestone? What about smaller surrounding villages? Corey, Tampa, Florida

Sever: All color in remote-sensing imagery is artificial, since the digital data are recorded as numeric values. We artificially make our features of interest "yellow" because that color is readily visible against various backgrounds. A great Web site for the discussion and tutorial of remote sensing data can be found at: <a href="http://rst.gsfc.nasa.gov/Front/tofc.html" target="_blank">http://rst.gsfc.nasa.gov/Front/tofc.html</a>

			Yes, the correlation only appears when the structures contain lime plaster remnants. Whether it is an entire large site or an individual structure, we can detect it.
</div>
<div class="ate-qa">

Q: Did you use geometry to do your research or to solve any of the problems you ran into? Mt. Anthony Middle School, Bennington, Vermont

Sever: Not only do we use geometry, but we use all forms of mathematics to help us in our data analysis, including algebra, linear regression, and statistics. Without these tools it would be impossible to make consistent discoveries from space.
</div>
<div class="ate-qa">

Q: Fascinating presentation. How did Saturno and Sever meet to combine the NASA technology and on-the-ground research? Steven Snow, Gilbert, Arizona

Sever: A NASA colleague of mine at the Marshall Space Flight Center, Daniel Irwin, who is also a member of our research team, attended a conference in 2002 in Guatemala City where Dr. Saturno presented his results. He offered to send high-resolution IKONOS satellite maps to help Dr. Saturno and his team in their fieldwork. This high-resolution imagery had just been downgraded so that it could be used for commercial purposes, and this was the first time it had used it for archeology. Based upon Dr. Saturno's initial success in the field, he visited the Marshall Space Flight Center to review his discoveries with our remote-sensing experts. We became convinced and excited about the potential for this technique and developed a five-year NASA Space Act Agreement with the University of New Hampshire to collaborate on future surveys and inventories in the Maya region. We continue to have great success!
</div>
</div>

Archeologists Bill Saturno and Tom Sever answer questions about the mural, using satellites to find lost sites, and more.

Addressing Some Misconceptions About Ancient Maya Civilization | Ancient Maya Metropolis

Learn about some common misconceptions about the Maya and how various kinds of archaeological evidence are helping to build a more accurate story about the ancient Maya, in these videos from NOVA: Ancient Maya Metropolis.

These Artifacts and Foods Tie Modern Maya to the Past

Oral tradition talks about the importance of these foods for Maya.
“The contemporary Maya people still practice not only Maya traditions, but Mesoamerican traditions,&quot; anthropologist Iyaxel Coteji Ren told NOVA. &quot;It&#x27;s one of the traits that distinguish Maya culture.&quot;
These Artifacts and Foods Tie Modern Maya to the PastPublished: April 5, 2022Diane Chase: One has to imagine a completely different looking landscape than this. What we&#x27;d be seeing is terraces, agriculture, road systems, causeways and households, and not jungle.Narrator: The city of Caracol was a feat of urban engineering, reshaping the hillsides to bare rock. The Maya built networks of terraces for their crops.Diane Chase: So these individuals that are living out here have agricultural fields right around them. They&#x27;ve got corn, they&#x27;ve got beans, they&#x27;ve got squash. It&#x27;s a sustainable community.Narrator: In Caracol, maya homes were grouped together on the plazuela hilltops.Diane Chase: We&#x27;re inside a plazuela group. The Maya houses were built usually inside a plaza with a series of structures facing each other. So this is a Maya household, a typical Maya household. There would&#x27;ve been stairways made of stone and then foundation walls made of stone, but the rest would&#x27;ve been pole and thatch. The eastern structure is usually the mortuary structure, and that&#x27;s what&#x27;s behind me is the structure where the Maya would&#x27;ve buried their dead and conducted some of their ritual offerings. What we found in this particular building is the mortuary shrine. It has caches, things that are specially deposited, hidden, ritual caches.Maureen Carpenter: So I&#x27;m going to just put both hands around it.Narrator: The quality of the objects left in the caches show that even non -elite Maya were able to own fine goods.Maureen Carpenter: This is a heavy boy, okay? You got it?Diane Chase: Okay. You got it. You got it.Maureen Carpenter: All right.Dian Chase: All right. Looks good. It&#x27;s whole.Maureen Carpenter: It&#x27;s whole.Diane Chase: It&#x27;s whole. It&#x27;s cracked.Maureen Carpenter: Okay.Diane Chase: But it is whole.Arlen Chase: One of the things that we found that&#x27;s really interesting is a work of art in the form of a cylinder vase. And the cylinder vase is clearly carved by a master artist. You would probably think, &quot;Oh, it should come from an elite tomb.&quot; And it came out of a minor crypt in a residential group.Iyaxel Coteji Ren: Sometimes we can focus only about the function of an artifact, how it was produced. But I think we need to keep in mind that there are human beings behind those artifacts. There&#x27;s a culture that we want to know better.Narrator: Some objects are still used today. The traditional foods prepared with them tie the modern Maya to the past, like the grinding stone and tray, the mono and metate.Iyaxel Coteji Ren: The contemporary Maya people still practice not only Maya traditions, but Mesoamerican traditions. It&#x27;s one of the traits that distinguish Maya culture, the consumption specific food, and the metate is always present, the tortilla, the tamalitos.Timotea Mesh: This is what the ancient Mayas would have made before. The grinding stone is the most ancient way of grinding the corn. As long as we have the dough, from there we can prepare different types of meal with the corn dough. The corn tortillas are basically like the bread of our meals.Josefa Canto: So the grill doesn&#x27;t need oil, nothing. Just slide your tortilla there.Timotea Mesh: I grew up seeing all these kind of food, making tortillas, grinding corn, harvesting beans and squashes, preserving...Iyaxel Coteji Ren: These ingredients were present in Maya diet. You still have this Maya inscription, Maya hieroglyphic text that mentions these words, and oral tradition talks about the importance of this food for Maya. Because it&#x27;s so connected with identity, I think people continue producing these traditional dishes.

Oral tradition talks about the importance of these foods for Maya.

LIDAR Technology Helps Uncover a Maya Metropolis

Light Detection and Ranging, LIDAR, sees through the jungle to reveal what lies beneath.
LIDAR technology reveals that, in 700 C.E., the ancient Maya city of Caracol was one of the largest in the world.
LIDAR Technology Helps Uncover a Maya Metropolis Published: February 8, 2022ARLEN CHASE: This was the first place in the tropics to ever use LIDAR in a broad-scale sense. They’d done little pockets of it here and there, especially in Europe, but no one had ever tried to do a broad scale, to see if you could lift the trees and see what was underneath that forest.NARRATOR: LIDAR, Light Detection and Ranging, was initially used for atmospheric measurements.NARRATOR: LIDAR sends thousands of laser beams of different wavelengths and then measures the time for the reflected beams to return. The lasers were able to penetrate the jungle canopy and create high resolution images of the ground below. The result was a revolution in tropical archeology.JAIME AWE: LIDAR is actually God’s gift to the tropical archaeologist, because you can tell the computer, “Get rid of all the forest. Get rid of all the jungle.” And what you have left is bare earth. And you see the courtyards, you see the temples, you see the palaces, the reservoirs.DIANE CHASE: What some other archaeologists did when they first had access to LIDAR is they used the LIDAR and then they did a ground check. They would be…go and look and see if they saw a feature, and they would say, “Oh, is that on the ground in the place where the LIDAR showed us?”When we did the LIDAR, we were able to double check our maps rather than the other way around.NARRATOR: The years of mapping Caracol by hand finally paid off.DIANE CHASE: We had the ground check first, and then we used the LIDAR.NARRATOR: LIDAR has opened up an incredible window on ancient structures, but also issues around access, to try and keep the data from looters.In Caracol, the LIDAR and the Chases’ maps combined to provide a blueprint for understanding a city-sized bank of LIDAR data.Archaeologist Adrian Chase has spent years modelling the city of Caracol, one hilltop, called a “plazuela,” at a time.ADRIAN CHASE: I started working on the LIDAR at the start of 2010. Using different LIDAR visualizations, I went through the dataset systematically, to try and identify and digitize as many of the plazuela household groups as I could. Each one of these little squares is an extended family household. But all the ridge tops are covered in them.NARRATOR: The computer modelling of the Caracol LIDAR allows us to see an amazing Maya city in precise detail, a city of great size and sophistication.ADRIAN CHASE: The initial map had 78 structures. And then with the LIDAR, we now have over 7,000 household structures that are raised households.NARRATOR: While Europe was in the Dark Ages, the world of the Maya was thriving.ADRIAN CHASE: The population of it estimates about 100,000 people at 700 A.D. Based on, sort of, the rough data that you can get for that time period, it would have made Caracol the seventh largest city in the world. It’s a big city.

Light Detection and Ranging, LIDAR, sees through the jungle to reveal what lies beneath.