Woo hoo! When we turned the corner and walked quite suddenly into the ruins of Tikal it was like a movie! I was so excited, and you know your mom, we ran up the steps of every building we were allowed to climb. Jill, Brian and Mark will remember the pyramids of Mexico City, and Teotihuacan. Two big pyramids facing each other across the plaza with smaller buildings along the sides. Supposedly they were residences for nobility, but Kris says they just HAD to include offices for bureaucrats. There were also other temples and buildings at this sprawled-out site
It's hard to imagine your mom as a kid, I know, but when I was in elementary school, I read everything I could read about the Incas, Aztecs and Mayas. To this day, I still don't why everything about them was so fascinating to me. By the time I was about 13, I had read every book available in our small town about them. I speculated about their Book of Mormon connection before I heard about it at church.
It's worth noting that what I read as a kid about the Maya has been completely overturned in recent discoveries. Book of Mormon scholars have reconsidered the first hypotheses about the Book of Mormon peoples.
Back in the day, books considered the Maya to be priestly philosopher-kings who disappeared without a trace, and no one could discipher their writing. Now, the writing can mostly be read, and it is known that their history was at times violent. I will watch and see another 20 years; for sure we will know more and all the speculations of our day will be overturned again.
Our view of Spanish conquest of these areas has changed over the years too. We no longer focus only the destruction, though everyone admits it was devastating. We also read in the original documents (another reason I learned Spanish, I've read some too) the desperate attempts made by Spaniards both in the New World and in Madrid to slow the destruction done during the conquest and are aware of the first documents made to protect human rights written in the 1500s. Is this a reaction to political correctness?
Did you know that the ruins were first rediscovered by chicleros? They were out hunting for chicle trees that they drained for that substance gum used to be made from (nowadays gum is made from plastic) and they came upon these hills completely covered by vegetation but they reported the visible ruins. The military was the first to find other ruins.
Did you know that the ruins were first rediscovered by chicleros? They were out hunting for chicle trees that they drained for that substance gum used to be made from (nowadays gum is made from plastic) and they came upon these hills completely covered by vegetation but they reported the visible ruins. The military was the first to find other ruins.
What's inside the temple? You can see in the second picture, and certainly a closer look at the stairs shows that the temple was built onion-layer style with successive kings building layer on layer to make the temple bigger. As far as I can find out, it's solid with no rooms inside the base. (Do they actually tell tourists anything? I should find out) The top has a small room about the size of your bathroom.
The amazing paintings, relief sculptures, and tombs are at other sites like El Mirador, and Bonampak, which at present require helicopters or long horse journeys to get to. But now that we are friends with the Air Forces of many Latin American countries, you never know. Maybe someday.
The amazing paintings, relief sculptures, and tombs are at other sites like El Mirador, and Bonampak, which at present require helicopters or long horse journeys to get to. But now that we are friends with the Air Forces of many Latin American countries, you never know. Maybe someday.
