cwa89

World Archaeology
89

Modernising Maudslay’s Maya casts

These monumental carvings are just two of the many the adventurous Alfred Maudslay recorded on his travels around Mesoamerican sites in the 1880s and 1890s.

World Archaeology
89

Palace of the Maya Time Lords: discovering two Royal Tombs at El Perú-Waka’

Excavations at the Maya city of Waka’ in Guatemala revealed a stone gallery buried within the palace acropolis. Inside its rooms were relics that told the extraordinary story of its construction, destruction, and reuse as a chamber for subterranean fire rituals. David Freidel, Griselda Pérez Robles, and Juan Carlos Pérez followed these clues to find an ancient Maya royal burial.

Left Fortifications, including walls and ramparts, were built on the hillsides around Holmul and other Maya cities. below left At El Palmar, the survey identified many structures outside the previously investigated area (in the red box). They show a city that is some 40 times bigger than thought before.

World Archaeology
89

Lost sites in the jungle: mapping the Maya civilisation

As cities, ceremonial centres, watchtowers, and irrigation systems emerge from the Guatemalan forest, a new LiDAR survey shows that there is more to the Maya than meets the eye.