Archaeology by Prau123 – Page 92 – Main Forum

Prau123 · 2020-04-23T00:56:31Z

Here's an update on some of the new discoveries in recent years in the Mesoamerican region. Tonina - Considered the new tallest structure in Mesoamerica. It's debatable since El Mirador is actually 172 meters tall. The largest structure is still Cholula. There are still several areas in the El Mirador Basin that needs to be excavated and measured. There are 61,000 plus sites that were scanned a few years ago and that was only a mere portion of the El Mirador Basin. 15 facts about the Maya Civilization 1. THEIR PYRAMIDS AND CITIES ARE STILL BEING DISCOVERED.It’s amazing to think that something as large as a pyramid could elude archaeologists today. But it was only a few years ago that a Maya pyramid more than 1000 years old was discovered at Toniná in the Mexican state of Chiapas. It had been hidden under what was believed to be a natural hill. In 2015, researchers said this newfound monument was actually Mexico’s tallest pyramid at 246 feet (75 meters) in height, surpassing the 213-foot Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan. The ruins of two Maya cities concealed by thick vegetation were also recently discovered in Mexico’s state of Campeche. Tonina Picture They also found El Palmar and Angamuco a few years ago also. El Palmar - El Palmar is 40 to 70 times larger than previously acknowledged. It’s 40 times larger than we thought it was,” Garrison says. “This is now this huge city that would have been a rival to Tikal An early city called El Palmar seemed now to be 70 times larger than we had suspected, with raised fields for agriculture. An “isolated” royal palace had an extensive swath of settlement extending a kilometer or more. Angamuco - Angamuco had as many buildings as Manhattan city. A new laser-mapping technology, called lidar, has been used to confirm a truly mind-blowing ancient city buried in western Mexico. Called Angamuco, researchers say that it has about 40,000 buildings. This is around the same amount of building foundations as there are in Manhattan, New York. Whoa! El Mirador - Articles: Videos:

The Inca Empire was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. From their capital, Cuzco, in the central Peruvian Andes, the empire stretched over 2,400 miles (3860 kilometers) along the length of the Andes (modern-day Bolivia and Peru to Argentina, Chile, Ecuador and Colombia), and was home to 12 million people in the 1400s and early 1500s, hosting various languages, impressive cities, temples, massive road networks, engineering terraces, and grand fortresses. They also produced extraordinary artifacts – from ornate headdresses, golden figures and ceremonial knives, to handbags, textiles and baby slings. Here we look at some of their finest productions.

An Inca handbag made of cotton and feathers, 15th – early 16th century, Peru. (Metropolitan Museum of Art/ Public Domain)

Inca headdress made of hair, cloth, and feathers depicting a sea creature motif. Produced 1400 – 1532 AD. Excavated from Huacho, Peru. (Trustees of the British Museum/ CC by SA 4.0)

An Inca baby sling made from camelid hair, 1450 – 1532 AD, Peru (Metropolitan Museum of Art/ Public Domain)

An Inca ceremonial knife (Tumi), used to carry out sacrifices and surgeries. Public Domain

An Inca handbag made of camelid hair and cotton, 15th–16th century, Peru. (Metropolitan Museum of Art/ Public Domain)

An Inca cap woven with human and camelid hair, 14th–16th century, Peru. (Metropolitan Museum of Art/ Public Domain)

An Inca vessel in the shape of a leg, 15th–16th century, Peru. (Metropolitan Museum of Art/ Public Domain)

Inca female figurine made of gold and silver, 1400–1533 AD. The details of the figurine would have been hammered into the metal sheet before the figure itself was fully formed. (Metropolitan Museum of Art/ Public Domain)

Inca tapestry panel with stars, made with camelid hair and cotton, 15th–16th century, Peru. (Metropolitan Museum of Art/ Public Domain)

A cotton quipu with knotted cords, 1430-1530 AD. Excavated from Pacasmayo Valley, Peru (Trustees of the British Museum/ CC by SA 4.0). Quipus were recording devices used by the Inca to aid in monitoring tax obligations, collecting census records, providing calendrical information, and military organization. The cords contained numeric and other values encoded by knots in a base ten positional system.

An Inca gold mask representing the sun god Inti from the La Tolita part of the Inca empire. (Andrew Howe / CC by SA)

Top image: Gold Inca mask. Source: Carlos Santa Maria/ Adobe Stock

By Joanna Gillan