Maya Ruins Research Articles

Art as Redemption

in your Senses By Willy Souza City March 4-April 23, 2010 has recently suffered from negative media attention due to its social and criminal problems. With a major new touring exhibition of his work, Mexico in your Sense Mexican filmmaker and photographer Willy Souza aims to counteract, these stereotypes and encourage Mexicans to regain pride in the myriad strengths and strong cultural heritage of their country. This extensive exhibition, sponsored by the federal government of and offering free admission, was recently on display in the Zocalo (the main plaza) of City. It incorporates nearly one thousand photographs in the form of prints and video (culled from the 1.5 million photographs Souza has taken across the country in the last eight years) housed in a specially built traveling venue intended through form and hue to look like a Mayan temple. Designed by noted architect Javier Sordo Madaleno, the 13,000-square-foot exhibition space includes a snaking main gallery and an exhibition and video room, representing the traditional pyramids of the sun and the moon found at such archeological sites as Teotihuacan. The first room in the exhibition is floor to (20-foot) ceiling close-up color photographs (20 x 24 inches) of eyes of Mexican citizens, interspersed with mirrors of the same size. This opening is a statement suggesting that visitors immediately engage in a process of .self-reflection. Souza is asking us to consider what we have stopped seeing, to stop accepting preconceived notions and interpreting without seeing. (1) The next four rooms of the first building house images of things representing the human condition, as Souza notes. The vast halls and ceilings of the main rooms are covered with images: still, color, glossy photographs, unmated and unframed, printed large; a few are backlit or printed on scrims hanging from the ceiling. Photographs from across the country are arranged thematically in such categories as masks, landscapes, markets, and tradespeople. Interpretive panels at the beginning of each theme offer background on the subject and smaller keys at the end offer a few identifying details and in all cases in which Mexican state each image was created. Plasma screens throughout the exhibition hall show series of still images, often offering brief visual narratives. In Fiestas there are colorful costumes, gold jewelry and a stunning ground-view, close-up of a pair of aged, brown, cracked feet. Architecture displays structures ranging from Mayan ruins to colonial buildings. Religious iconography focuses on details of lit candles, crucifixes, figurines of the Virgin of Guadalupe, and bleeding Jesus statues. Children work and play across the country. The Cycle of Life begins with a Madonna figure of a young mother bathing a baby in a river as if in baptism and concludes with celebrations of the Day of the Dead, in a series of images teeming with the vibrant orange of the cempasuchil flower, which is traditional for this celebration. …

The Yucatan peninsula: biogeographical history 65 million years in the making

The fourth biennial meeting of the International Biogeography Society (IBS) in Merida, Yucatan in January 2009 represented a double opportunity for Mexican biologists. First, it fostered the integration of the large community of Mexican biogeographers with the activities of the IBS. Second, the meeting allowed us to welcome a large number of delegates from distant parts of the world who were able to visit what has been considered an obligate destination for nature lovers and cultural tourists alike: the Yucatan peninsula. As Edward O. Wilson pointed out, besides economic power every country has two additional and important types of wealth: cultural and natural. Cultural richness is a naturally embedded component of the Mexican way of life.

Saving a fragile legacy

Science and technology interact with art and culture in many ways. Both involve knowledge and investigation—some philosophers would maintain—and nature and its representation lie at their core (Frazzetto, 2004). But their interactions extend further: the arts draw both inspiration and new materials from science, while the scientific examination of art and artefacts has provided us with important insights into the progress of human civilizations. Now, science—in particular the biological sciences—might have an even more important role: to protect and conserve mankind's often fragile, cultural heritage for future generations. This task is particularly difficult given the magnitude and diversity of objects involved, and the enormous variety of different materials used—for example, stone, metal, ceramics, synthetic substances, and organic matter derived from plants and animals. A classic example of art under threat is found in the cave of Lascaux in southwest France. Discovered accidentally in 1940, the cave contains some of the finest paleolithic drawings and polychrome rock paintings in the world, dating back some 17,000 years. Herds of giant aurochs and other wild mammals—realistically depicted in vivid colours—still seem to roam the prairies while seeking salvation from hunting men (Fig 1). These strikingly beautiful images testify to the birth of humans using the abstract to represent reality, and the location was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1979. But an invading army of fungi, bacteria, algae and moss—their lives made easier by disputing conservators—threatens the artwork. Figure 1. White aurochs, Hall of the Bulls, Lascaux (Montignac, France). Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. The paintings remained intact and fresh until the cave was exposed to tourists after the Second World War, when the rise in temperature and humidity caused a burst of microbial growth, which was first noticed in 1955. The French authorities—worried about the future of the paintings—closed the cave to …

Sustainable Development, Tourism, and Preservation: An International Project in Copan, Honduras

For one week in the fall of 2005, a team of CRP and LARCH professors and students from the City and Regional Planning and Landscape Architecture departments traveled to Copan, Honduras to collaborate with university students, professionals, government officials, and community members in a concept plan for the sustainable development of the Copan River Valley Region. Within this valley is the modern town of Copan Ruinas and an archaeological park containing Mayan ruins that is designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/focus This International Exchange is brought to you for free and open access by the City and Regional Planning at DigitalCommons@CalPoly. It has been accepted for inclusion in Focus by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@CalPoly. For more information, please contact mwyngard@calpoly.edu. Recommended Citation Rojas, Richard (2006) Sustainable Development, Tourism, and Preservation: An International Project in Copan, Honduras, Focus: Vol. 3: Iss. 1, Article 20. DOI: 10.15368/focus.2006v3n1.14 Available at: http://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/focus/vol3/iss1/20

A theoretical study of special acoustic effects caused by the staircase of the El Castillo pyramid at the Maya ruins of Chichen-Itza in Mexico

It is known that a handclap in front of the stairs of the great pyramid of Chichen Itza produces a chirp echo which sounds more or less like the sound of a Quetzal bird. The present work describes precise diffraction simulations and attempts to answer the critical question what physical effects cause the formation of the chirp echo. Comparison is made with experimental results obtained from David Lubman. Numerical simulations show that the echo shows a strong dependence on the kind of incident sound. Simulations are performed for a (delta function like) pulse and also for a real handclap. The effect of reflections on the ground in front of the pyramid is also discussed. The present work also explains why an observer seated on the lowest step of the pyramid hears the sound of raindrops falling in a water filled bucket instead of footstep sounds when people, situated higher up the pyramid, climb the stairs.

Vegetation patterns and environmental gradients in tropical dry forests of the northern Yucatan Peninsula

Patterns of plant species composition and their relationships to soil and topographic variables were investigated in tropical dry forests across the north central Yucatan, Mexico. Seven sites were studied in the oldest accessible forests along a 200–km transect oriented northwest to southeast; an eighth site was located in a little‐disturbed area located 75 km northeast of the transect. Two of the sites were on Mayan ruins. All sites were sampled using 9–24, 10m × 20m plots (<n= 132) for woody stems ≥ 3.0 cm diameter breast height. The important natural forest species were Bursera simaruba, Caesalpinia gaumeri, Gymnopodium floribundum, Piscidia piscipula, and Thouinia paucidentata. The two most important woody species in ruin woodlands were Brosimum alicastrum and Croton lundellii. Forest plots (n=108) had 17 species on average, ruin plots (n= 24) nine species. Mean basal area of stems at the forest plots (20.7 m2.ha‐1) was lower than in ruin plots (28.4 m2.ha‐1). Detrended Correspondence Analysis generally placed plots by site along the geographic transect. Natural forest plots and sites were separated from the plots on ruin sites. The five soil and topographic variables (slope, soil depth, percent surface rock, soil pH, total soil organic matter) differed significantly among sites. Plot values were correlated with DCA axe scores. Intersite floristic variation reflects an overall west to east environmental gradient affected by climate.

Nymphaea cults in ancient Egypt and the New World: a lesson in empirical pharmacology

Modern drugs used to treat erectile dysfunction act locally to facilitate penile smooth muscle relaxation, but a new generation of centrally acting agents is in clinical trials. One of these, apomorphine, a dopamine receptor agonist, was recommended in 2000 by a committee of specialists at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a treatment for impotence.1 We describe here evidence that the treatment of erectile dysfunction with apomorphine is not new: the Mayans and ancient Egyptians were well acquainted with the clinical effects of an apomorphine-containing plant, and they probably used that plant as an aid to sexual activity. Nymphaea caerulea (blue lotus) and N. ampla, which has a white flower but a similar alkaloid content, grow along lakes and rivers, thrive in wet soil, and bloom in the spring.2 They belong to the water-lily family. Another variety is N. lotos, sometimes called the 'white lotus' though not a true lotus. The isolation of the psychoactive apomorphine from Nymphaea species3 has offered chemical support to speculation that Nymphaea species may have been employed as hallucinogens in both the Old and the New World.4,5 The use of N. caerulea and of N. lotos in rites and rituals is depicted in the frescoes within the tombs, and in very early papyrus scrolls. The most important of these was the scroll of Ani (Book of the Dead). Nymphaea is mentioned and represented in several chapters of the book, always tied to magical-religious rites. Depictions of Papaver somniferum and mandragora, also known as mandrake, a hallucinogenic plant with anticholinergic properties, often appear alongside those of Nymphaea.6 Tutankhamon's tomb contained a gold-plated shrine decorated with a bas-relief of a pharoah holding a huge Nymphaea and two mandragoras in his left hand. Nymphaea flowers were also depicted in frescoes from the tomb of Nebaum (XVIII Dynasty, 1370-1318 bc) found in Luxor, and now located in the British Museum. The frescoes illustrate a ritualistic funeral dance with two male dancers accompanied by three women, garlanded with petals of N. caerulea. The women are offering vases, from which golden emanations flow as if they contained a magical fluid. Nymphaea species also feature in erotic cartoons (Figure 1). Figure 1 Detail from erotic cartoon (Turin papyrus 55001), showing 'lotus' over the head of woman, possibly symbolizing her powers of arousal. Reproduced by permission from Manniche L, Sexual Life in Ancient Egypt (London, New York, Bahrain; Kegan Paul, 2002) Similar motifs are seen in Mayan art, and Dobkin de Rios,7 Diaz,8 and Emboden9,10 hypothesize that the plants were used as hallucinogens during religious rites or as 'entheogenes', symbolic of a union between man and the divine. In a vase found in the Classic period Mayan site of Bonampak, the headpiece of the central figure depicts a character adorned with a Nymphaea, performing a ritual dance. In the Mayan ruins of Palenque, also in Chiapas, Mexico, a bas-relief in the tomb of Pacal, in the Temple of Inscriptions, contains a representation of two Mayan priests standing on either side of 'jaguar god'. One of the priests has a Nymphaea bud emerging from his head, and the other has the same bud emerging from his headpiece. Such striking similarities in such distant cultures lead to the conclusion that the plants had a common use. Studies from several different laboratories have identified apomorphine and aporphine in the bulbs and roots of N. ampla.11 The emetic effect of apomorphine (and aporphine, which is hydroxylated in the body to form apomorphine) is well known. Mescal beans, ritually used by shamans to induce an ecstatic states are likewise emetic; it has been hypothesized that Nymphaea was used by both Egyptian and Mayan cultures as a purifying ritual emetic.11 However, it has only recently become clear that apomorphine can be utilized, with excellent results, to treat erectile dysfunction. It is a centrally acting, selective D1/D2 dopamine agonist, and activation of dopaminergic receptors in the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus initiates a cascade of events, ultimately resulting in smooth muscle relaxation and vasodilatation within the corpora cavernosa, leading to penile erection.12,13 This discovery provides a likely explanation for the appearance of Nymphaea in the Luxor frescoe and in erotic cartoons such as that reproduced in Figure 1. The fact that temple drawings only depict use by the higher castes, such as priests and royalty, suggests that the masses did not benefit from this discovery. The Nymphaea story serves as a further illustration of how the effects of substances of plant origin were known even though the discoverers lacked the technology to explain them.14,15

Vegetation patterns and environmental gradients in tropical dry forests of the northern Yucatan Peninsula

Patterns of plant species composition and their relationships to soil and topographic variables were investigated in tropical dry forests across the north central Yucatan, Mexico. Seven sites were studied in the oldest accessible forests along a 200–km transect oriented northwest to southeast; an eighth site was located in a little-disturbed area located 75 km northeast of the transect. Two of the sites were on Mayan ruins. All sites were sampled using 9–24, 10m × 20m plots (<n= 132) for woody stems ≥ 3.0 cm diameter breast height. The important natural forest species were Bursera simaruba, Caesalpinia gaumeri, Gymnopodium floribundum, Piscidia piscipula, and Thouinia paucidentata. The two most important woody species in ruin woodlands were Brosimum alicastrum and Croton lundellii. Forest plots (n=108) had 17 species on average, ruin plots (n= 24) nine species. Mean basal area of stems at the forest plots (20.7 m2.ha-1) was lower than in ruin plots (28.4 m2.ha-1). Detrended Correspondence Analysis generally placed plots by site along the geographic transect. Natural forest plots and sites were separated from the plots on ruin sites. The five soil and topographic variables (slope, soil depth, percent surface rock, soil pH, total soil organic matter) differed significantly among sites. Plot values were correlated with DCA axe scores. Intersite floristic variation reflects an overall west to east environmental gradient affected by climate.

Agencies of the Letter: The Foreign Office and the Ruins of Central America

On 17 July 1851, the Foreign Secretary, Lord Palmerston (1784-1865), sent a dispatch to his chargé d'affaires in Guatemala, Frederick Chatfield, informing him that the Government desired a collection of Mayan ruins for the British Museum. Thus was set in motion a secret, fourteen-year plot whose full reach has escaped the attention of cultural historians.2 This oversight is partly because the plot failed to achieve its object; in the end, no monuments were obtained. It is also a result of the rigid logic of imperial record-keeping; the bulk of the relevant documents—some sixty dispatches, memoranda, reports, and letters—lie not in the British Museum but in the Foreign and Colonial Office archives, not the first place one might look for material about antiquities. They ended up there because the scheme was directed not from Bloomsbury but from Downing Street, a political distinction reflected in the present location of these papers. This curiosity of archival organization is not incidental but constitutive, inviting us to consider how the plunder of Mesoamerican ruins came under the administrative and ideological control of political officials, and how the imperial archive functioned not merely as a repository of information but also as a form of knowledge and a structure of power, one that, as Thomas Richards has argued, was both enormously enabling and fatally flawed. Tucked between memoranda on mahogany exports, naval maneuvers, and canal and railway routes across the Central American isthmus, the letters about pre-Columbian ruins provide an opportunity to test Bruno Latour's claim that while the "'cracy' of bureaucracy is mysterious," the "'bureau' is something that can be empirically studied," perhaps even to the point of explaining how power may be accrued "just by looking at files" (54). The files in question here constitute a particularly complex form of "inscription," the dispatch, a form of writing whose exchange across an intricate [End Page 285] network enabled that quintessential trait of global empires, the ability to manipulate persons and things from afar. Palmerston's dispatch provides a useful gateway to these issues, even as it crystallizes more specific questions about the plot itself. Given the otherness of Mayan ruins, their distance from received canons of aesthetic value, how was a notion of their desirability arrived at? What arguments were employed to justify their removal, and how were these arguments organized into a plan of action and an imperial quest rivaling any found in the pages of adventure fiction? How did diplomatic writing—its protocols and procedures, its iteration in systems of storage and retrieval, its function as the bearer of imperial will, its very style—figure in the attempted appropriation of the monuments? And in what ways did Britain's larger relationship to Central America shape the plot's motives and means? Here is the beginning of Palmerston's dispatch: I enclose herewith a copy of a letter [24 June 1851] which I have received from Viscount Mahon suggesting that it would be desirable to obtain for the British Museum some specimens of the sculptures from the ruined cities of Central America, and stating that the principal sculptures to which he refers are to be found at a place called Copan.... I have accordingly to instruct you to make inquiries [into] the practicability of obtaining specimens of the sculptures referred to in L[ord] Mahon's letter to me and to report the result, together with any additional information which you may be able to collect respecting those sculptures. The sculptures are described in pages 134 to 144 of the first volume of an account of travels in Central America by Mr Stephens, a citizen of the United States who visited those ruins in 1839-1840. (See figs. 1 and 2)3 As Palmerston makes clear, a request had come to him from Viscount Mahon (Philip Henry Stanhope [1805-75]), British Museum Trustee, President of Society...

Commoditizing culture: Tourism and Maya Identity

This ethnographic study examined how the commoditization of culture for tourism affected traditional practices in a formerly Maya village adjacent to the most-visited Mayan ruins in Belize. Though the majority of villagers had abandoned this indigenous identity, they responded to the tourism demand for representations of an essentialized Mayan culture by utilizing new channels to access traditions they could no longer learn through old ways: they turned to the publications of archaeologists and epigraphers who study the ancient Maya. As villagers developed expertise in the cultural traditions of their ancestors, they remained ambivalent about whether or not their unconventional acquisition of this knowledge provided sufficient basis for reclaiming Maya identities.

Karl Sapper: Geologist, Ethnologist, and Naturalist

In the course of twelve years at the end of the nineteenth century, Karl Sapper (1866-1945) carried out the first extensive geological exploration of Central America and southern Mexico. Despite his fragile health and frequent attacks of malaria, he did this almost entirely on foot, covering hundreds of miles through the dense rain forest and over mountainous trails. At the same time, he recorded the languages and folklore of the indigenous tribes, and described ancient Mayan ruins he discovered in the Peten and Yucatan. For nearly half a century, his maps and reports remained the principal source of geological information for the entire region between Tuantepec and Panama, and his notes on the native languages are even now the only records we have for several Mayan dialects. On his return to Germany Sapper taught at the University of Strasburg until the city reverted to France after the First World War. He eventually took a position at the University of Wuerzburg, where he established the Institute for American Studies and fostered scientific research throughout Latin America.

Time, Number, and History in the Maya World

AbstractWhat better way to understand ourselves than to compare our habits, our customs, our behavior with those of another? This is the goal of anthropology: to comprehend our own culture by reflecting it from the mirror of otherness. When most effective its results can be unsettling. Consider the possibility of discovering other ways of knowing that challenge our own - that can even cause us to doubt whether the knowledge we hold dear really constitutes the whole of the matter. When it comes to the study of time there are few cultures, past or present, worth reflecting upon that match the ancient Maya of Yucatan. They have been characterized in their classical (AD 200-900) heyday as a people preoccupied with time, obsessed by time; they were worshipers of time: "The great theme of Maya civilization is the passage of time . . ." (Thompson 1954, p. 13). "The central importance of the calendar . . . and the central importance of religion to everything else conspire to make the history of [their] calendar something of a key to the general cultural history of the region." (Edmonson 1988, p. 4). "Nothing in man's life would be set apart as being unrelated to the realm of the destinies of time" (Leon Portilla 1989, p. 222). The study of Maya time offers us the added bonus that since all pre-Columbian cultures were hermetically sealed by two oceans from outside influence prior to Hispanic contact, whatever we may glean concerning the perception of time from its artifacts offers us the unique opportunity to seek cultural universals and to address specifically whether diverse civilizations might develop similar practices and ideas in their encounters with the problem of time. This essay examines the connections between time and history,with special emphasis upon the unusual role played by the concept of number, in the ancient Maya world.The resources for such a study are many and varied. I begin with a discussion of the content of the monumental inscriptions.A major focus of Mayanists since great advances in decoding the Maya script were made in the 1970's, most texts are carved on impressive stone stelae erected about the Maya ruins, well remembered by visitors to Tikal, Copan and Calakmul. I then move on to the esoteric world of the sacred books.Though scarcely a handful of them remain, they hold the keys to the deepest understanding of what time meant to the elite daykeepers who devised them. Along the way we supplement our understanding of these texts by referring to colonial period documents and ethnological studies of contemporary cultures descended from the ancient Maya. Here we discover a remarkable continuity of culture, which greatly illuminates our understanding of the Maya past.

Polysphondylium from forest soils of Tikal, Guatemala

Seven of 35 different taxa of dictyostelid cellular slime molds recovered from forest soils of Tikal, Guatemala, belong to the genus Polysphondylium. Four of these are new species (P. acuminatum, P. asymetricum, P. colligatum, and P. tikaliensis). They inhabit the soil environment of the forest immediately surrounding the principal Mayan ruins together with three previously described species (P. violaceum, P. pallidum and P. pseudo-candidum). These species are part of the largest collection of dictyostelids obtained from soils of a single forest. The environmental conditions of this forest appear optimal for cellular slime mold coexistence, particularly for the Polysphondylia, since no other comparable area has yielded as many species of Polysphondylium. A morphophysiological comparative chart contrasts the new taxa with the other Polysphondylia present at Tikal; a key to species summarizes their taxonomy.

A New Zamia (Zamiaceae, Cycadales) from Eastern Chiapas, Mexico

Zamia lacandona, a member of the Z. splendens species group, is described from the Selva Lacandona of eastern Chiapas, Mexico. It is distinguished from Zamia splendens Schutzman by its usually single arcuate leaf with falcate leaflets, erect short-peduncled megasporangiate strobili, decumbent microstrobili, and chromosome number of 2n = 16, 17, or 18. When Zamia splendens was described (Schutzman, 1984), collections from the Selva Lacandona of eastern Chiapas were recognized as somewhat more robust and possibly distinct, but were still ascribed to Z. splendens in the publication. During two subsequent botanical expeditions to southern Mexico, one in 1984 by the first author and a second one in 1993 by the second author and Terrence Walters and Charles Hubbuch of Fairchild Tropical Garden, specimens were collected in the vicinity of the Mayan ruins in the Selva Lacandona. Schutzman's (1984) earlier decision to include the eastern populations was conservative, because it was not known at that time whether a continuum in morphological features would bridge the morphological gap or discontinuity between the western and eastern Chiapan populations. Three significant facts clarified the question. First, specimens collected by the first author in the Lacandona forest produced cones for the first time in 1993, demonstrating differences in cone morphology and habit from Z. splendens. Second, plants of Z. splendens almost identical to the type specimen were discovered in nearby Tabasco during the above-mentioned 1993 expedition, extending the distribution range of Z. splendens; this greatly reduced the possibility that a morphological continuum of one large variable species existed. Third, the Lacandona plants have distinct cytological features distinguishing them from Z. splendens. Thus, it was decided that the Lacandona plants are, indeed, worthy of specific status. The large, normally solitary, robust-petioled leaf and relatively small caudex distinguish this species from its congeners in the wild, but in cultivation these features can change and should only be used to distinguish species in conjunction with other characteristics, such as the finely toothed leaflets and cone habit characters (discussed below). Zamia lacandona Schutzman & Vovides, sp. nov. TYPE: Mexico. Chiapas: Selva Lacandona, July 1984 (male pi), Schutzman 517 (holotype, FLAS; isotype, XAL). Figure la-h. Haec species Z. splendenti Schutzman affinis sed apice strobilorum femineorum apiculato, erecto, foliolis novis xerampelinis et non roseis. et dentibus foliolorum tenuibus et non grossis differt. Plants dioecious, 15-60 cm tall. Caudex subterranean, 17—40 cm long, 4.5-8 cm diam. Leaves usually 1, occasionally 2, depending upon condition of the plant and its environment, arcuate, sparingly pubescent upon emergence, 30-100 cm long, 34—80 cm wide; leaflets 7—12 pairs per leaf, opposite to subopposite on a single leaf, linear-lanceolate to slightly oblanceolate, proximal leaflets subfalcate, 13—42 cm long, 1.5—5 cm wide; apex acuminate, equal to unequal; margin subrevolute; marginal teeth in upper half of leaf, 1.0—1.25 mm; base attenuate, reddish brown when expanding, dark green when mature; articulation with rachis dark brown, 5-10 mm wide; petiole semi-terete, dark greenish brown covered with brown tomentum, spinose through approximately % of its length from the base, 20-70 cm long, 10-20 mm diam.; spines terete, 0.8-4 mm long, 0.5-1 mm diam.; petiole base massive and almost encompassing entire apex of caudex, 1.5—3 cm wide; cataphylls chartaceous, elongate triangular, cone cataphylls narrow-triangular, pubescent, 2.8-6.3 cm long, 0.4—1.2 cm wide, leaf cataphylls deltoid with aristate apex, 2.2—3.4 cm long, base 2.3—3.8 cm wide. MicrospoNOVON 8: 441-446. 1998.

Why engineering?

Engineering is not just about building bridges or mending cars; it can also take you to the rainforests of Central America in search of ancient Mayan ruins.

Cerro Cahuí

The indiscriminate clearing of tropical rain forests poses a grave threat to sustainable development in Central America, leading to soil depletion, erosion, and the drying of streams and rivers. At risk are agricultural productivity and water supply, both essential for human survival. In the pace to build competitive industries and open trade barriers, these fundamental realities are sometimes forgotten. The Cerro Cahui case, set in Guatemala's El Petén region, offers a stark reminder that one of the most difficult management challenges in Central America—and in all developing countries—is the management of natural resources. The causes of deforestation in Guatemala, as in other developing countries, are complex and interwoven into the political, economic, and cultural fabric of the society. The Cerra Cahuí case enables us to understand the complex interrelationships ranging from contraband timber, to cattle ranchers, to drug lords, to the Guatemalan army, to members of the National Congress. But it is not just the powerful who are responsible. Landless farmers, driven from other provinces of Guatemala during the 1980s by the army's counterinsurgency campaigns, use slash-and-burn agriculture as a means of basic survival. It is in this context that Carlos Oliva, project director of a local environmental foundation, Fundary, must develop a strategy for saving a protected area known as Cerro Cahuí, on the banks of Lake Petén Itzá near the internationally famed Mayan ruins of Tikal. He also is deeply concerned about raising the living standards of families in the three communities in buffer zones around Cerro Cahuí, whose extreme poverty presents a striking contrast to the affluence in the nearby Camino Real Hotel. This tension that Mr. Oliva feels between the goals of natural resource conservation and socioeconomic development is perhaps the major issue in Central American development today. The Sustainable Development Project proposed by the Guatemalan Tourist Bureau, with its emphasis on ecological tourism, appears to offer the opportunity to address these goals simultaneously. The foreign exchange earnings from ecologically conscious international visitors will create incentives to conserve the forest and wildlife resources rather than to exploit and deplete them, creating new jobs and bringing a new source of wealth to the impoverished buffer zone communities. A closer examination of the case reveals problems and threats in the implementation of the project, from the possible contamination of the lake to the potential influx of a new wave of immigrants. Carlos Oliva faces the same management challenge that confronts many other directors of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) concerned with the preservation of tropical forests in Central America and other developing countries. It is a challenge of both design and implementation, in a highly convulsive—and dangerous—sociopolitical environment and with severe resource constraints. Most of these directors are biologists or zoologists with little or no management training to prepare them for the challenge. Cases such as this one, prepared by INCAE's Program in Natural Resource Management, provides a useful basis for discussion and learning not only to NGO directors but also to public- and private-sector managers who play a role in the evolving drama in places such as El Petén.

Maya Blue Paint

Abstract It has been noted by many people who have had the privilege of exploring Mayan ruins that there is a stunning blue color that has been preserved amazing well for centuries. Considering the tropical jungle is quite a hostile environment, the tenacity of this “paint” is remarkable. It had been suggested that this “paint” was made by mixing indigo dye with clay, but this did not explain its special characteristics. Recent work by Miguel José-Yacamán at the National University of Mexico and colleagues has revealed what is special about this material, which is called Maya blue paint. They collected specimens in Mexico at archeologic sites known as Jaina Island and Palenque.

Machine Vision as a Materials Conservation Technology

ABSTRACTConservation of archaeological monuments and artifacts is in need of precise and efficient techniques for materials condition evaluation in order to ensure accurate diagnosis followed by effective curative intervention. Machine Vision, already extensively used in the manufacturing industry, is introduced as a preservation technology to fulfill that need. Material degradation manifests itself as localized variations in the optical response (e.g., color &amp; intensity) from the affected surface. Once captured through an appropriate recording device, the image of the surface is documented, enhanced, analyzed and displayed by use of Digital Image Processing (DIP) techniques. The resulting map of materials condition for the surface is demonstrably comprehensive, quantitative &amp; accurate, and the process is fast and economical. Field work was done at the site of Mayan ruins in Tulum, Mexico, on the shore of the Caribbean sea. This paper focuses on a piece of structural rock having a large number of surface pores as the primary form of degradation. Employing DIP procedures, the material condition of the surface is quantitatively represented and characterized in terms of size as well as spatial distribution of the damage features. On a theoretical note, it is postulated that the sand from the beach, airborne by the sea breeze, had been the principal erosion agent. And a phenomenological model of the weathering mechanism has been developed centering on the fluid mechanical concept of terminal velocity. Close agreement between the field work data and the theoretical construct demonstrates the additional merit of the adapted technology as enabling a verifiable, and hence more meaningful, diagnosis of the weathering mechanism.

The Islands and the sea: five centuries of nature writing from the Caribbean

Everyone has to learn to see the West Indies tropics for himself, wrote V.S. Naipaul in Middle Passage. The landscape has never been recorded...the depth of sky, the brilliancy of light, the insubstantiality of colour in the tropics. more gifted painters have ceased to record the landscape: the patterns of the leaves are too beguiling. Islands and the Sea includes dozens of writers--poets and novelists, naturalists and explorers--who, like Naipaul help us to see the beguiling Caribbean through their eyes. Editor John Murray opens this anthology, the first of its kind, with an informed essay that provides a perspective on the region in history and literature. Murray then presents writers ranging from Daniel Defoe to Barry Lopez, from Charles Darwin to Edward O. Wilson. In these selections, one can step ashore with Columbus on San Salvador Island in 1492, travel up the forbidding Orinoco River with Sir Walter Raleigh, and explore ancient Mayan ruins along the coast with swashbuckling John Stephens in 1843. Ernest Hemingway, writing to Maxwell Perkins from Key West, Florida, describes the aftermath of the famous Matecumbe hurricane: Indian Key absolutely swept clean, not a blade of grass, and over the high center of it were scattered live conchs that came in with the sea, craw fish, and dead morays. whole bottom of the sea blew over it. Other contemporary writers include Barry Lopez, Derek Walcott, Rachel Carson, Jamaica Kincaid, and Roger Caras. With each selection Murray includes an informative introduction. A Republic of Rivers, John Murray's anthology of nature writing on Alaska and the Yukon, was hailed for its judicious selections, deft editing, and, most importantly, its ability to capture and communicate a sense of place. In Islands and the Sea, he once again gathers an enthralling collection of writings that convey the beauty Caribbean's luminous waters, its rich, green hillsides, teeming reefs, and remarkable varied people.

Production and Politics in Central America's Convulsions

For the vast majority of people around the world, Central America is a small group of countries bridging the gap between the Mayan ruins of Guatemala and the Panama Canal. The names of those countries are only recognized when the major contending ideologies of capitalism and communism clash in one of them, or when an international figure of ill or good repute establishes some sort of link with them. A football game that leads to war also catches the eye of the media. An example of the first situation would be the ousting of the communist regime of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala by Honduran troops backed by the United Fruit Company and the CIA in 1954; another would be the rise of the marxist regime in Nicaragua in 1979. The second is evident in the establishment in Costa Rica of the international fugitive Robert Vesco around 1970, as well as in the visit of Pope John Paul II to each of the five nations in 1983. The last refers to the ‘soccer war’ between El Salvador and Honduras in 1967. In each instance the countries concerned made headlines around the world for a short time and people learned their approximate geographical location even if in a passing fashion.