Mundo Maya Blog
About this blog
Travelers to Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and Honduras in 2012 can expect a yearlong celebration of Maya culture, past and present—and Moon Maya 2012 author Joshua Berman is blogging about all of it.
Recent Posts
- Maya 2012: A Round-up of Celebrations in Mexico, Guatemala, Belize & Honduras
- Reporting for National Geographic on Maya winter solstice in Belize
- Maya calendar cycle celebrated throughout Central America
- Feliz B'aktun! The New Dawn is Here: The First Sunrise in Caracol, Belize
- Maya Calendar 101: What Does “December 21, 2012” Really Mean?
- Gifts for Mayaphiles
- Books on the Maya: Suggested Reading for 2012
- Izapa Sunrise Story by Mary Jo McConahay
- Tranquilo Radio Tour 2012: Seven hours straight of talking about travel
- Tune in this Wednesday! Maya 2012 author Josh Berman on a radio show near you!
- End Maya-Aztec calendar confusion now!
- Q&A with Maya Experts on Satellite Imagery of Archaeological Sites
- Maya response to 'doomsday' 2012 stories
- Only a couple of rooms left for "The Great Return: Copan 2012" tour of a lifetime!
- 5 Questions about Traveling in the Mundo Maya for Rafael Garcia
Maya Field Workshops with David Stuart in Copan
Another incredible opportunity! This one is a week-long educational Maya Field Workshop in Copan, Honduras, one of the grandest, most important cities in the Maya world. The program is open to all levels of participants, an "intensive, on-site seminar devoted to introducing you to the world of Maya archaeology and epigraphy." This one is led by none other than renowned archaeologist David Stuart of the University of Texas at Austin.
Stuart is not just any Maya expert. He played a key role in the decipherment of Maya script and has been working at Copan since he was 20 years old. He is the author of The Order of Days (Random House, 2011) as well as many other Maya related titles. LINK more >>
New Book about Modern Maya
So much attention is given to the ancient Maya—the Classic Period Maya of a thousand years ago whose pyramids and inscriptions are so fascinating—that the modern Maya are too often forgotten. That's why I am a sucker for anything that focuses some of the 2012 spotlight on living communities.
Macduff Everton is a contributing editor at National Geographic Traveler and Islands magazines who has been working and photographing in the Maya region for four decades. His new book, The Modern Maya: Incidents of Travel and Friendship in Yucatán, from the University of Texas Press, "updates his portrait of the modern Maya, while investigating the effects of NAFTA, tourism, the evangelical movement, world trade and maquiladoras, racism, sexism, and drugs on Maya communities." more >>
600-year-old cigars discovered in Guatemala
A press release on a cigar store website entitled "Famous Smoke to Auction Pre-Columbian Mayan Cigars," is reporting that "A team of Tampa University scientists working in southeast Guatemala has unearthed a large cache of 828 pre-Columbian cigars. The cigars are believed to be at least 600 years old. The team had been examining mineral samples at a Ch’orti’ Maya cave site."
They have also determined that the cigars are, in fact, "in smokeable condition," and will be auctioning them to the highest bidder on April 2, 2012, with the proceeds going to Tampa University (though I wonder if this is entirely legal, since I would think the cigars are archaeological artifacts. Please enlighten me in the comments if you know more about this). more >>
New PBS Documentary on the Maya
To me, the most amazing thing about the study of the ancient Maya is the unbridled pace of discovery and decipherment. A new documentary film on PBS, "Quest for the Lost Maya: The Rise and Fall of a Civilization," features a few of the most recent archaeological surprises, especially regarding a previously unknown society in the Yucatan Peninsula of southern Mexico. Enjoy -- the doc is wonderfully free of any apocalypse nonsense. more >>
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