Rare, ancient Maya canoe found in Yucatan | Hacker News Reader

Rare, ancient Maya canoe found in Yucatan

reuters.com

101 pointsArchelaos16 comments

I read recently for the first time about what happened to the Maya at the hands of the Spanish and I was shocked at how bad it was. Even just in the context of the destruction of knowledge it was terrible. There were thousands of books recording centuries of precontact American history that were all destroyed by the Spanish. Only four examples out of the many thousands of piece of Maya literature have survived to the present. A few quotes from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_codices:

"Our knowledge of ancient Maya thought must represent only a tiny fraction of the whole picture, for of the thousands of books in which the full extent of their learning and ritual was recorded, only four have survived to modern times (as though all that posterity knew of ourselves were to be based upon three prayer books and Pilgrim's Progress)." — Michael D. Coe

"We found a large number of books in these characters and, as they contained nothing in which were not to be seen as superstition and lies of the devil, we burned them all, which they regretted to an amazing degree, and which caused them much affliction." — Bishop Diego de Landa

The Maya script is unique, beautiful and very poetic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgsQndSyfHg

Some of the Aztecs burned pre-existing codices too.

Always one of you that has to pop up

Care to elaborate on your comment to those who are not in the know? Did the Aztecs not burn scripture? I don’t know much about Mayan and Aztec history and culture, but I visited Yucatán recently and it sounded from guides like there was a lot of original Mayan culture lost in the mixing of the two. I was also told, but don’t know if it’s true, that the human sacrificing was actually an Aztec practice that got introduced in the mixing and not an original Mayan practice.

They are attempting to imply I am trying to whitewash the Spaniards. I am not, I am pointing out Aztecs erased history to create their own imperial narrative too although not on scale of Spaniards to Maya

I live in Yucatán. Most of what they're finding in the cenotes is trash. One of them had hundreds of electric meters in it. So it's nice when they find something like this.

In the jungle they have found thousands of artifacts and structures. It's going to keep the archeologists busy for quite some time.

> One of them had hundreds of electric meters in it

Rare, ancient Maya electric meters? :)

Maybe. Our electric bills are about as easy to read as Mayan hieroglyphics.

I grew up in the state of Chiapas and remember being fascinated by the pyramids from the Maya. I used to look around in awe when flying over and think about the undiscovered wonders beneath. This train project is going to unearth some neat things!

Oh cool, what kind of planes/aircraft did you fly over them? Been there twice now, Chitchen Itza, and probably will go there again.

If they excavate properly I fully expect this to be a long long term project. This is Mexico so I'm not sure who has controls over such a project. I wonder how much french investment this has.

What this tourist train the captions speak of?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tren_Maya

Thanks

The plan is to charge tourists 800-1000 MXN for the Cancun->PDC route and locals 50 MXN. At the moment you can ride an ADO mini-bus practically any time of day for 50 pesos, tourist or locals on the same route..

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