Rancher destroys ancient Mayan buildings in Mexico

by Sean McLachlan on


A rancher in the Yucatan peninsula, Mexico, has destroyed a large Mayan residential complex to make way for pastureland, Fox News Latino reports.

The 2,300 year-old site covers 250 acres and includes many homes, temples, and other buildings. Much of the center of the site was bulldozed away so the rancher could graze his animals there. The rancher claims he recently bought the land and didn’t know the site had any archaeological importance. The government says the site is registered and is launching an investigation.

The rancher didn’t explain how he couldn’t know of the site’s importance if he knew it was so big that he needed to clear it away with heavy machinery. Some of the buildings stood up to ten feet tall. The workers cleared away the town’s main square, including seven buildings and two altars.

[Photo courtesy user Adalberto.H.Vega via Gadling’s flickr pool. This is actually a Mayan site in Honduras and not the site that was destroyed. Sadly, thanks to rancher Ricardo Ascencio Maldonado we can’t get photos of the actual site!]

UNESCO studies Pompeii troubles

by Sean McLachlan on


A UNESCO team has arrived at Pompeii to investigate the recent collapses of ancient walls and buildings, All Headline News reports.

Two Roman walls collapsed earlier this week, and in November the House of Gladiators fell down. Authorities blame heavy rains but there’s a growing controversy over the lack of maintenance at the site.

The Roman city was buried in ash during an eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD. The ash kept the city remarkably preserved, making it one of the world’s top archaeological treasures.

The team will study the site and give suggestions as to how to preserve it, but the investigators have made clear that it is Italy’s responsibility to do the work. The Italian government has created a task force of archaeologists, craftsmen, and architects to shore up the walls and buildings. Considering that the last conservation project at Pompeii is under investigation for mob connections, it remains to be seen how effective this new task force will be.

[Photo courtesy user Alago via Wikimedia Commons]

Controversy rages as Pompeii continues to crumble

by Sean McLachlan on

More bad news from Pompeii. The famous Roman city, preserved by volcanic ash from an eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD, is starting to fall apart.

The BBC reports that two ancient walls have fallen down this week in separate parts of the city.

Officials say the problems are due to heavy rainfall, but the site has been underfunded for years. A recent cash injection was so badly managed that there’s now an investigation into possible mob connections. There are also calls for Italy’s culture minister to step down.

The problem first received global attention with the collapse of the House of Gladiators early in November. Unlike the House of Gladiators, officials say the walls that fell down this week had no artistic value, which is totally missing the point. They have a priceless archaeological value, so much so that Pompeii has long been a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Hopefully Italy will realize that a site can be taken off the World Heritage List if it’s not properly maintained, and find some money to save one of Europe’s most popular tourist destinations.

[Photo courtesy user jon|k via Gadling’s flickr pool]

Treasures of ancient Egypt discovered at bank

by Sean McLachlan on

The Al-Ahly Bank has recently handed over two hundred ancient Egyptian artifacts that have been sitting in safety deposit boxes for a century.

The artifacts were collected by expats and visitors in Egypt and deposited in the bank in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They were never recovered and sat untouched for years. The artifacts include Islamic coins and statues of Egyptian deities such as Hathor, pictured here.

Egypt has been fighting for the return of archaeological treasures taken by various countries in the past. Zahi Hawass, head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, has spearheaded the fight and got an unexpected victory when the bank announced it had artifacts and was handing them over.

The artifacts are now being studied and will hopefully appear in one of Egypt’s museums sometime soon.

[Image courtesy user Néfermaât via Wikimedia Commons. This is an image of a Hathor statue from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and not one of the recovered artifacts]

Archaeological treasure trove found at Three Gorges Project in China

by Sean McLachlan on

Archaeologists excavating during the Three Gorges dam project in China have discovered nearly a quarter of a million artifacts, the state-run Xinhua News Agency says.

The world’s largest dam project has created a reservoir that’s 410 miles long and more than half a mile wide. Before that reservoir was flooded, China spent $285 million to hunt for cultural treasures, at times using teams of more than a thousand archaeologists. They’ve uncovered artifacts ranging from medieval statues to early stone tools two million years old. While the sites they came from are now lost beneath the water, the artifacts they yielded will give fresh insight into China’s long history.

Now museums across China are busy conserving the artifacts and hopefully soon many of them will be on display for China’s growing tourist industry.

The Three Gorges Project is itself becoming a tourist attraction. It’s the largest dam project in the world, and the largest electrical generating facility. It’s also highly controversial because it displaced 1.3 million people.

[Photo courtesy user Rehman via Wikimedia Commons]