In many ways this has been a difficult year, but in the realm of archaeological research some major discoveries have been made around the world. Lost cities and tombs have come to light, the...
Researchers in Mexico have deciphered an ancient text revealing the succession of names of the Cocom dynasty royal Maya blood lineage and published a breakthrough book on the subject. The new book...
This article presents a major breakthrough in Maya art and archaeology, revealing the sophisticated way that Maya artists animated ancient artworks. There is a lot of excitement surrounding the...
The Maya were able to build a spectacular civilization in one of the World’s most inhospitable environments. How they were able to survive and flourish has always been something of a mystery. Now,...
The Spider Woman of Teotihuacan continues to be one of the most mysterious figures of ancient Mexican culture. She is also known as the Great Goddess, but since 1983 Spider Woman has become the most...
The ancient Maya who populated the Yucatan Peninsula in the first millennium AD believed that there were three ways for the living to enter Xibalba, the world of the dead: through deep caves, through...
A new scientific study of an ice core sample from Greenland has demonstrated how the Central-American Ilopango mega-eruption wiped out an entire Maya area, 1,590 years ago. Oxford University...
A shipwreck identified in the Gulf of Mexico has thrown a light on a forgotten and dark episode in Mexican history. Archaeologists have identified a 19th-century slave ship. Before it sank, this...
In 1952, deep within the smoldering cedar and mahogany forests of southern Mexico , and after four years of arduous toiling, the archaeologist Alberto Ruz Lhuillier finally finished removing the...
There’s overdue pushback these days on the notion that civilization began in the Americas when Columbus “discovered” the New World in 1492. In fact, the Maya people built one of the world’s most...
Researchers have developed a unique experiment to determine the universality of certain emotional expression in the human face. It has long been debated by experts whether emotional expressions can...
Chichen Itza is an ancient Maya city located in the northern part of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. The city is thought to have been founded around the 6th century AD. Nevertheless, it only rose to...
Reservoirs in the heart of an ancient Maya city were so polluted with mercury and algae that the water likely was undrinkable. Researchers from the University of Cincinnati found toxic levels of...
The largest and oldest monumental pre-Maya structure has been identified in Mexico revealing an ancient culture that thrived without a centralized government or elite classes. A team of...
The coiled snake headdress is a significant artifact connected with Maya women, both ancient and modern. Images of ancient Maya women wearing this distinctive headdress have been found carved on...
In the mid-16th century the hyper-violent forces of Spanish conquistadors burned, tortured, raped and spread diseases as they made their way across Mesoamerica in the name of their one god. Yet they...