DesertFox
01-11-2006, 06:41 PM
Archaeologists are accustomed to finding cool artifacts. It's their job. But archaeologist William Saturno of the University of New Hampshire admitted he was awestruck when he uncovered a Mayan mural in that pyramid that no one has seen for nearly 2,000 years, reports The Associated Press.
The mural, which was found at the San Bartolo site, covers the west wall of a room that is attached to a pyramid. Painted in about 100 B.C., the mural tells the Mayan story of creation. It features four deities, but they are actually all variations on one figure, the son of the corn god. Amazingly, the mural still retains its original brilliant colors. "It could have been painted yesterday," Saturno told reporters in a news conference organized by his sponsor, the National Geographic Society. ...
The mural is just the beginning. Saturno's team of archaeologists have also found the earliest example of Mayan writing--10 bold hieroglyphs that were painted on plaster and stone. Dating some 2,300 years old, the glyphs suggest the Mayans had an advanced writing system centuries earlier than historians have previously thought, reports Reuters. Radiocarbon tests on the glyphs, which are thin black paintings on cream stucco, indicate they are 100 years older than the creation murals. The writing is almost indecipherable, but Saturno thinks one glyph could be an early version of the word "ajaw" or "ruler." Another is pictorial, showing a hand that is holding either a brush or a sharp instrument to draw blood.
More (http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/package.jsp?floc=ns-tos-toda-h-01&name=fte/mayan/mayan)
The mural, which was found at the San Bartolo site, covers the west wall of a room that is attached to a pyramid. Painted in about 100 B.C., the mural tells the Mayan story of creation. It features four deities, but they are actually all variations on one figure, the son of the corn god. Amazingly, the mural still retains its original brilliant colors. "It could have been painted yesterday," Saturno told reporters in a news conference organized by his sponsor, the National Geographic Society. ...
The mural is just the beginning. Saturno's team of archaeologists have also found the earliest example of Mayan writing--10 bold hieroglyphs that were painted on plaster and stone. Dating some 2,300 years old, the glyphs suggest the Mayans had an advanced writing system centuries earlier than historians have previously thought, reports Reuters. Radiocarbon tests on the glyphs, which are thin black paintings on cream stucco, indicate they are 100 years older than the creation murals. The writing is almost indecipherable, but Saturno thinks one glyph could be an early version of the word "ajaw" or "ruler." Another is pictorial, showing a hand that is holding either a brush or a sharp instrument to draw blood.
More (http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/package.jsp?floc=ns-tos-toda-h-01&name=fte/mayan/mayan)