The Excavation

This is our unit before we started excavating. It is 4 x 2 meters and is positioned at the far end of an Eastern Shrine or E-group at the site of Martinez. Our objective in this unit was to find the architectural features of the building  

This is the 1/4 inch screen we used to look for artifacts. By the end of excavation the pile was so high we had to move the screen over

This is what excavation looks like. The pink string is the most difficult and important part, it is the exact border of the unit, to half a millimeter

The Palapa was the center of the farm and where all the meals came from.

We spent every Wednesday cleaning and sorting every artifact we dug up

This is team Megatron (going from left to right starting from the top): Raviv Litman, Mads Jorgensen (the Dane), Cortney Proctor, Kendel Hills, Arianne Boudieu (honorary member) and Rachael Fulton

If you look closely you will see ducktape on the top of the tent. It was downhill from the day I set it up: the string in the cables broke, a donkey eat the roof, the right side teared inexplicably, and the mosquito net developed such large holes that I awoke to find half an ant colony in my book pile one night (likely not fire ants)

This is our unit half way through, you may see some changes in depth. You might also notice we uncovered three steps

On one special occasion I was sent to help survey, which involved a theodolite (pictured). We mapped out Terraces and Sacbes, or roads, by the elevated or lowered ground. Than we picked a datum point and measured the distance from the datum point to the features, to find their relative distance. From what I have heard, more of BC archaeology involves surveying, because there are less artifacts and more mounds.
The surveying was done at the site of Waybil, which was nice to working because it was inside the jungle, I never remembered to bring enough bug spray though

This is the project head, Gyles, being the first person in more than a thousand years to enter this man made cave. Unfortunately there was nothing in there as it was probably filled with perishable goods

This is how we got in and out of town every weekend. Right after this picture was taken the van overheated and we had to walk part way

Tent city is what we called the makeshift town we lived in. The photo was taken just as it was being put up

One of the most significant finds of the last year is this ploy-chrome (painted multiple colors) bowl depicting some sort of man-bird-panther with holy essence coming out of its butt. On the far side is a finger bowl, so called because they have always contained finger bones

This is a cave outside of Minanha, the larger site of the area which we think influenced the others.The hypothesis has been substantiated by the fact that both Martinez and Waybil had major construction phases around the time that Minanha was at the height of its power

This the site of Caracol which we visited the first weekend. It is one of the biggest sites in the area and played a major role in the politics of the region: In a cold war between Tikal and Calakmul Caracol at first allied with Tikal and Calakmul became weak, then later it allied with Calakmul and Tikal began to fall apart. As you can see this pyramid top would be a great place to give a speech

This is one of the clubs we often went to on the weekends. The father of one of our French Canadian staff (Max, a great guy who advised me on my Mexico trip) is seen here hustling some local talent.

This is the river boat we took to see Caracol.

No explanation needed

This is a reconstruction of a mural at Xunantunich, Another site near the Guatemala border. The seen associates the rulers with gods. Mayan Art was most commonly used as a propaganda tool to associate the ruler with gods and earlier rulers and proving that they  were essential to the success of the farmers and laborers.  It is somewhat like the Feudal system of Europe but with added blood sacrifices  

This is Kevin, me and Tyler, going from left to right. We were enjoying a spectacular pyramid top view

This is 100 pounds of Monosodium Glutamate, or MSG. There were four of these at this particular Chinese restaurant but generally the lax regulation of food and the local production made for some of the cheapest and delicious chow main and fried rice I have ever had







This is a smaller site right in the town of San Ignacio (where we went on the weekends) called Cahal Pech. Right before we left the American group excavating it found a royal tomb that even had some bone rings with hieroglyphs marking ownership, something never seen before in the Maya world

Belize City

 This is the hostel I stayed at in Belize city, it had a great view of the water. I met lots of interesting people, including a guy who was motor biking from Europe to Africa to South America and ending in Alaska. On the Bus ride over I met a retired army officer who worked with the Canadian military fighting the drug trade.

 This is the Belize national museum made from the old prison, there is even a room where they used to hang people

 This is Frank, he was very aggressively friendly which I should have realized was a bad sign, but he assured me he was well known and wouldent charge to show me around, and so many police officers knew him (he was also a retired police man). He took me out for a beer and then very forcebly asked for 25$ to get a cake for his children. I ended up giving him the money but felt bad about not avoiding the situation. I felt better after I won 20$ in a poker game later that night. Now I have learned to be wary of friendly people in tourist centres

 This is a famous burial containing a large jade skull. It is controversial because the British originally took the skull and many other artifacts back to the British Museum without informing Belize. The museum claims it was returned but some Belizians I talked to think it is a fake. I learned later that the same British expedition used dynamite to clear some of the pyramids near where I am working   

 This is the Governor Generals house of Belize. Unilke in Victoria the GG no longer lives there

This is the best part about Belize; a large chinese population immigrated to many cities in the country and brought with them the best tasting and cheapest food in my opinion

Coba and Chetumal

 May 10th, I set off to Coba. It is a large mayan city a short bus ride from Tulum. I sat beside an old man  from Tel Aviv (pictured here) and we ended up joining up to see the ruins.

Coba was enormous and overgrown. They had a bicycle service to get to the different areas. Like the Romans the Maya had been able to manage such large distances by a long term and well engineered road system stretching throughout the Yucatan before the collapse

 A real life Mayan stella covered in hieroglyphs. This is like a thousand year old book

 It may be hard to see just how big this pyramid is in the picture. It is the tallest building in the northern Yucatan. There is no equivalent to this in any of the modern Mexican cities surrounding it, and it was built with basically the same technology of the Egyptian pyramids, with maybe better mathematics

 a better view of its size

 all you can see from the top is the green tree line and one other temple that rises above it. How amazing would it be if modern cities could exist within a forest? I think we have a lot to learn from the Mayan, at least those of us who live in the north west temperate rain forest regions

This temple, used to observe Venus, reminded my a beehive or a humbler creation of Gaudi. Its a same pyramid shaped architectural designs haven't made a comeback yet

 We are jumping ahead to Chetumal now, a large city on the boarder of Mexico and Belize. I didn't spend much time there as I am starting to get excited about arriving at the field school. It did have a great museum which was a welcome change to the enigmatic sites which I neglected professional guides in. In this picture are models of all the most spectacular temples and pyramids of the Maya world

This is right near the exit to the museum. It is god who guards Xibalba, the underworld. The underworld is one of the most opposite Mayan mythological concepts to Judea-Christian mythology because your place corresponds not with your deeds in life but in the mode in which you die

Tulum

 May 8th I think? I woke up early to get started on what ended up being a full day bike ride. In the background you may see the second sign, Chelupa hostel, where I stayed in Tulum. They rented bicycles for 5 bucks so I couldn't pass up the oppurtunity

 The bike was a little different then mine at home, and I was pleasantly surprised it went the whole day without breaking. Tulum is a really bicycle orientated tourist destination with more bikes then I've seen in the bigger cities. My hostel was right at the start of a 4 Km bike path to the beach 

 The first place to go was the Tulum ruins, a coastal merchant city that in its late-classic period created a walled elite centre

 This was the main palace. You can't tell anymore but it would have been a nice place to live

 The ruins were literally crawling with iguanas, they are wondrous lizards. I later saw two fighting a took a video of it.

 This raised platform would have been the foundations of a larger mayan house, complete with vegetable gardens around it. Beside it, around where the palm tree are would have been a public market. The mayans had a long history of the type of free market trade that came so late in the old world. The mayan kings were religious leaders rather then economic leaders

 In case people got hot while exploring the ruins they put in some beach access. As you can see the water is bright blue or torques around here, I was amazed when I first saw this.

 This is the temple which also functioned as the castle of Tulum. It consist of 9 religious buildings surrounded by an inner layer of walls. The architecture struck me as very medieval and the time period in which it was built has many parallels to the dark ages 

INAH is the Mexican anthropological and historical society that manages all the ruins and museums throughout the country. I wanted to put this in here because I am now considering, perhaps later in my education, applying for work with INAH. It seems to me to be much more powerful within its own country then the Canadian or American national anthropological societies  

This is me right before I went snorkeling in the barrier reefs off the coast. They were just outside the ruins to I was taking the same route the mayan traders once took up and down this coast. The corral reefs were other worldly and made all the salt water swallowed and sunburns worthwhile.

 This is the entrance to the mayapan hotel, it was not so bad, but wait till you see the next one

This is the public bus I took downtown. It seemed like every bus was made different, but so far they have all costed less then a dollar and gone too frequently to worry about; I could definitely get used to this 

 Its hard to see but in the distance is the entrance to Quatzal hostel

 The graffiti found on one side the hostel, one maya plays ball well the other holds a beating heart (more on that later)

 more graffiti. This place was a little more expensive (26$) but ended up being cheaper overall because it includes the most excellent home made dinner

 Jumping ahead to the next day, this is the entrance to the Cenote: one of the many underground caves in the Yucatan. They think the Yucatan might be the crater site of the asteroid that took out our beloved dinosours 

 Check out these stalactites!

 must have taken thousands maybe millions of years for this one to forms

 They put on a mock maya ritual. After it was done I went and swam in the water which was amazing and somehow supported a whole population of fishes

 The great pyramid of Itza! recently voted (I forget who) one of the 7 wonders of the world. If you clap in the right place it sounds like a bird flew by (great acoustics!)

 The biggest ballcourt in the Americas. Must have been a great game to play and watch. They used a ball made out of gum and used every part of the body except the hands and feet. They might have had a racket; we don't know.

 Its hard to see but in the middle is a skull representing the god of the underworld who invented this game; its the same theme as the devil playing chess for a mans soul. On the right is a man with seven snakes for a head and on the left is a man holding a head

 I really liked this wall; every brick had a number for the order archeologist had found them in the jungle after they found this key wall destroyed. That would have been a tough job

The lady in the umbrella was a expat who told me a bunch of good places to go, her ex-husband who was visiting was a ex-jew who teachers online computer science after a failed attempt to make it big with electronic music. Neat people

 The market of a thousand columns

 The observatory from where they mapped Venus

 This guy was a true prodigy. Either still in high school or just out he had been doing archeological work on the enigmatic tombs of his home state. I lectured me the entire time on all precolumbian mexican history in a conversation that passed between english and spanish. I really want to go to central Mexico now, turns out the Aztecs were the overrated ones.

 nothing new here, just a cool building which may have an iguana in it if you look closely

Just because I was not in any other pictures, it may be noted that I got a haircut and a straw fedora so I can fit in with the archeologists