In a world where Europe languished in the dark ages , the splendor of the Maya civilization reached its zenith. Their majestic temples soared high into the heavens, their intricate hieroglyphic...
Deep in the Yucatan jungle , near the ancient city of Mayapán in Mexico's Yucatán peninsula lies a cenote, a natural sinkhole, that has long been shrouded in mystery and superstition. It is a place...
I’ve had an affinity for the Maya civilization for almost 30 years, and between working with native elders, vacations, and leading tour group visits to Mexico, I can vouch for the mystical nature of...
Using a scanning and imaging technology with broad applications in the archaeological field, an international team of researchers discovered fresh and eye-opening details about a famous Maya...
The astounding journeys of John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood to Central America in 1839 to 1842 introduced the ancient, unrecognized Maya civilization to the rest of the world. Their life-...
An international team of archaeologists, anthropologists, and marine scientists has just published a landmark article in the Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology that details their research into...
The ruins of an ancient Maya city, discovered by INAH archaeologists in 2018 in the central Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, have now been mostly restored. The site, called Xiol (“Spirit of Man” in Mayan...
Scientists now know that a massive Yucatan asteroid struck the earth 66 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous Period, ultimately causing most species of dinosaur to go extinct. It was the...
Every place has its own legends - some being truer than others. Around the globe, you can find many legends about small human-like creatures causing chaos wherever they go. Some of these creatures...
As divine gift, money and a source of power, cacao, the plant that feeds the present-day chocolate obsession, was even more precious to the ancient Maya of the northern Yucatan. While historians have...
An ancient wooden Maya canoe, believed to have been used more than 1,000 years ago, has turned up in San Andres, in the Yucatan area of southern Mexico. Almost 5 feet (1.6 meters) in length, the...
What makes Dzibilchaltún so perplexing, are the seven crudely made clay figurines found buried below the altar in what has become known as the Temple of the Seven Dolls. At its peak Dzibilchaltún,...
Hernan Cortes was a Spanish conquistador who lived between the 15th and 16th centuries AD. He is best remembered for his expedition against the Aztec Empire centered in Mexico. This was part of the...
In the southeastern Mexican state of Yucatán on the Yucatán Peninsula, an archaeological team digging at a lightly explored site near the tiny, picturesque village of Ucanha uncovered something...
For the first time ever, scientists have identified a non-tobacco plant in ancient Maya drug containers. The researchers say the plant residues suggest that the Maya found a way to make tobacco...
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...