Archaeologist Richard Hansen has devoted his life to preserving Maya sites and artifacts. But some question whether his efforts will do more harm than good.
The heat was unbearable and the trees seemed to reach endlessly skyward. Suddenly, from out of the vegetation, the Jaguar Paw pyramid appeared.
There’s a lot at stake. One of the researchers’ goals is to rigorously test their theory that this perilous and isolated region — and not tourist-mobbed, heavily monetized sites like Chichen Itza in Mexico and Tikal in Guatemala — was the cradle of Maya civilization. Hansen believes that wastefulness and despoilment sped the collapse of the vast city-states likely controlled by El Mirador.
Hansen’s work has been recognized and honored by archaeologists, environmental organizations throughout the world, and even by several of Guatemala’s former presidents.
Danilo, the guide leading us along an intricate path, spoke to the tropical forest as he would to an old acquaintance. He told the jungle that we just wanted to hear its silence — its purest essence.Suddenly, a jaguar’s roar broke the spell, giving us shivers.— Danilo, a forest guide According to sources at the Mexican government’s National Intelligence Center, in the Guatemalan province of Petén, bordering Mexico, there are at least seven groups of illegal loggers furtively extracting wood that they market in southeastern Mexico.
“We have discovered some sections of tracks up to 28 kilometers [about 17 miles] long. They are the highways of that time,” said archaeologist Enrique Hernández. Visitors to El Mirador often recognize Hansen. They surround him as if he were a movie star, and ask questions that he answers eagerly and expansively. His Indiana Jones mystique helps raise the project’s international profile and secure financial support.
The Mirador Basin Project has maintained guards and a security system since 1992 to protect the area against illegal loggers, but it is an insufficient deterrent.El Mirador has been known since 1882, when the Mexico-Guatemala border was surveyed. But its archaeological riches weren’t widely broadcast until 1967, even though aerial photographs had been published in 1930 and a Carnegie Foundation expedition managed to locate a portion of the city in 1932.
Rich and powerful, the Maya thrived for centuries by depleting the jungle’s seemingly endless assets: wood for construction, nutrient-rich swamp mud for their agricultural terraces, and so on. But with power came luxury, and with luxury came excess. In Carmelita, poverty seeps through the cracks of the houses, which all seem arranged at random, alongside unruly clusters of mahogany, cedar and ceiba trees. The only structures with a fixed telephone line, wireless internet, even electricity, are the offices of the cooperative. At night the only light comes from passing motorcycles. Neighbors patrol the streets in self-defense groups.
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