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Maya ritual cave ‘untouched’ for 1k years stuns archaeologists

nationalgeographic.com

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Re: Maya ritual cave ‘untouched’ for 1k years stuns archaeologists

#81

Post by privateSFacct »

mr_overalls wrote: post #65
eps wrote: post #4

"Explorers needed to crawl for hours just to reach first of seven offering chambers"... followed by a shot of one of them, flat of his stomach, clawing at the surface and just barely squeezing through, head turned sideways. I am not a claustrofobic person, but this is... damn... this feels suicidal. Makes you realize that some people are wired way differently than others. Edit - https://imgur.com/EHrwHs3.jpg

An experienced caver buddy of of mine tells stories about doing chest compressions to get through really small spaces. You know, because the hole is too small for you to pass through with lungs full of air. So you exhale it all and hope there's space ahead for you to breath in again. No thanks, man. I'll stick with kayaking.

When I was kid I did some splunking, and squeezing through narrow spaces, especially with even a bit of water running near your mouth which is common = 100% hated it. Don't splunk at ALL anymore. Diving in cynotes in mexico though is stunning - so still have enjoyed doing that.

Re: Maya ritual cave ‘untouched’ for 1k years stuns archaeologists

#82

Post by gerbilly »

RonanTheGrey wrote: post #78
CamperBob2 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the Maya didn't have LED headlamps with lithium-ion batteries, either. They went in there with torches .

I was going to say this. I mean, we freak out at the idea of doing it now. Imagine some guy 1000 years ago who found a crevice... in the dark... and decided to crawl through it. That... both impresses and terrifies me.

Now overlay that with the belief that your are literally descending into the underworld.[1]

It must have made for a very transformative experience.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xibalba

Re: Maya ritual cave ‘untouched’ for 1k years stuns archaeologists

#83

Post by ChuckMcM »

I found this paragraph really stunning -- But until the concept of cave archaeology began to take shape in the 1980s, archaeologists were more interested in monumental architecture and intact artifacts than they were in analyzing the residues and materials found in and around objects. When Balankanché was excavated in 1959, caves were still mapped by hand in the dark and artifacts were routinely removed from their sites, cleaned, and later put back. Of all the incense burners found in Balankanché that were filled with material that could have provided definitive evidence related to the chronology of the site, for instance, only one was ever analyzed.

Archaeologists essentially destroying archaeological information based on the inability to see/measure it. I have never met a scientist that came across a discovery and said, "Wow, this is a huge discovery and we're not even close to being equipped enough to process it correctly, lets just seal it up again and wait." But that was what happened here. It is so amazing to get the chance to look deeply into these things with more capable technology.

Re: Maya ritual cave ‘untouched’ for 1k years stuns archaeologists

#84

Post by phkahler »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #28
phkahler wrote: post #22

I'm curious about how they decide this is a religious site. The artifacts have images on them, but that can't be the only indicator of why they were there can it? Why build pyramids and other things above ground but then make people crawl deep into a hole to have a small religious site? Isn't it more likely people of lower status were forced to live underground and this is their stash of valuables? - to give just one…

Valuable objects; difficult to reach; no resources for living (dark, cold; no food or water). All point to having a very good, very impractical reason for going there. Religion fills the bill very nicely?

Sounds like a stash of stolen goods to me. And that's actually a practical reason for going there. OTOH religion wants to be accessible to the people. They build temples and such to draw people in, not make them crawl into a deep scary hole where they have a pile of random stuff.

Re: Maya ritual cave ‘untouched’ for 1k years stuns archaeologists

#85

Post by jandrese »

privateSFacct wrote: post #81
mr_overalls wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An experienced caver buddy of of mine tells stories about doing chest compressions to get through really small spaces. You know, because the hole is too small for you to pass through with lungs full of air. So you exhale it all and hope there's space ahead for you to breath in again. No thanks, man. I'll stick with kayaking.

When I was kid I did some splunking, and squeezing through narrow spaces, especially with even a bit of water running near your mouth which is common = 100% hated it. Don't splunk at ALL anymore. Diving in cynotes in mexico though is stunning - so still have enjoyed doing that.

Running water in a place like that makes me double nervous. A sudden shower breaks out while you're in the cave and a path like that can flood out in an instant.

Re: Maya ritual cave ‘untouched’ for 1k years stuns archaeologists

#86

Post by jandrese »

toyg wrote: post #52

Something is weird. > After its initial discovery by farmers in 1966, Balamku was visited by archaeologist Víctor Segovia Pinto Segovia Pinto reportedly died in 1955, according to this source: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=&sl=es&tl=en&u=htt... 1955 was 11 years before the reported discovery. Either there is a typo somewhere, or Pinto was not the original discoverer. Pinto was a bit of a celeb at the time…

Maybe his father?

Re: Maya ritual cave ‘untouched’ for 1k years stuns archaeologists

#87

Post by thaumasiotes »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #83

I found this paragraph really stunning -- But until the concept of cave archaeology began to take shape in the 1980s, archaeologists were more interested in monumental architecture and intact artifacts than they were in analyzing the residues and materials found in and around objects. When Balankanché was excavated in 1959, caves were still mapped by hand in the dark and artifacts were routinely removed from their si…

> I have never met a scientist that came across a discovery and said, "Wow, this is a huge discovery and we're not even close to being equipped enough to process it correctly, lets just seal it up again and wait."

This is pretty much exactly what happened with the tomb of the Qin First Emperor, a site of obvious historical importance in a country with extreme respect for history.

And I'm given to understand that it is now standard practice elsewhere to try to leave most of a site buried, so that future archaeologists with better technology may be able to dig in the more pristine part.

So archaeology has certainly developed in this direction, probably through the experience of wanting to test new techniques on old sites and not being able to. I'm not sure why this concept would apply to "scientists" in general, though. If you're looking for facts about the present, you can't really contaminate them by investigation.

Re: Maya ritual cave ‘untouched’ for 1k years stuns archaeologists

#88

Post by Youden »

eps wrote: post #4

"Explorers needed to crawl for hours just to reach first of seven offering chambers"... followed by a shot of one of them, flat of his stomach, clawing at the surface and just barely squeezing through, head turned sideways. I am not a claustrofobic person, but this is... damn... this feels suicidal. Makes you realize that some people are wired way differently than others. Edit - https://imgur.com/EHrwHs3.jpg

A bit of a tangent but it never occurred to me before I went caving: The helmet keeps you safe from getting your head stuck.

It's slightly bigger than your head so if anything attached to your neck is going to get stuck, it'll be your helmet, which you can remove.

Re: Maya ritual cave ‘untouched’ for 1k years stuns archaeologists

#89

Post by throwmeaway13 »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #87
ChuckMcM wrote: post #83

I found this paragraph really stunning -- But until the concept of cave archaeology began to take shape in the 1980s, archaeologists were more interested in monumental architecture and intact artifacts than they were in analyzing the residues and materials found in and around objects. When Balankanché was excavated in 1959, caves were still mapped by hand in the dark and artifacts were routinely removed from their si…

> I have never met a scientist that came across a discovery and said, "Wow, this is a huge discovery and we're not even close to being equipped enough to process it correctly, lets just seal it up again and wait." This is pretty much exactly what happened with the tomb of the Qin First Emperor, a site of obvious historical importance in a country with extreme respect for history. And I'm given to understand that it i…

And though their source[1] does not quite back Wikipedia on this particular sentence, let me just the that the idea has at least been written about, in the case of Göbekli Tepe[2] (in the south-east end of Turkey):

less than 5% of the site has been excavated, and Schmidt planned to leave much of it untouched to be explored by future generations when archaeological techniques will presumably have improved

[1] http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/30706129.h...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe

Re: Maya ritual cave ‘untouched’ for 1k years stuns archaeologists

#90

Post by kristopolous »

eps wrote: post #4

"Explorers needed to crawl for hours just to reach first of seven offering chambers"... followed by a shot of one of them, flat of his stomach, clawing at the surface and just barely squeezing through, head turned sideways. I am not a claustrofobic person, but this is... damn... this feels suicidal. Makes you realize that some people are wired way differently than others. Edit - https://imgur.com/EHrwHs3.jpg

So wait? Ancient people carried valuable things through those enormously inconvenient tiny little holes and then created small hoards deep in the caves?

Was there maybe an easier route that has fallen away through the centuries and this is what's left?

Or was there perhaps a religious belief here because honestly, if you were trying to hide things, burying stuff sounds just as effective and quite a bit less dangerous.

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