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Seven churches devoured by lava? Maybe someone is trying to tell them something! No, actually many more homes and businesses are devoured by lava, but churches are built to last forever, so often we still have the ruins after a volcanic eruption, whereas other buildings are totally destroyed. Shown is the church in San Juan Parangaricutiro, Mexico, that was half-buried by a volcanic eruption in 1943. See lots more at Environmental Graffiti. Link
(Image credit: Flickr user · YeahjaleaH ·)
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Scientists mapping the ruins of the abandoned Maya city of Caracol in Belize knew they had tackled a big job, uncovering the city from the encroaching jungle. They didn’t know how big it really is until modern mapping techniques took a look underneath the forest canopy.
An April 2009 flyover of the Maya city of Caracol used Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) equipment—which bounces laser beams off the ground—to help scientists construct a 3-D map of the settlement in western Belize. The survey revealed previously unknown buildings, roads, and other features in just four days, scientists announced earlier this month at the International Symposium on Archaeometry in Tampa, Florida.
How much bigger is it?
…the project also revealed thousands of new structures, 11 new roads, tens of thousands of agricultural terraces, and even a number of hidden caves throughout a city, which is now known to stretch over 68 square miles (177 square kilometers).
Caracol was burned around A.D. 895, and was completely abandoned by the year 1050. Link -Thanks, Marilyn!
(Image credit: University of Central Florida Caracol Archaeological Project)
Photo: Bolonchen Regional Archaeological Project
Archaeologists have found new clues from the Maya ruins of Kiuic in Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula that may shed light on the collapse of the Maya civilization ten centuries ago:
… The latest discoveries from the site may capture the moment of departure.
"The people just walked away and left everything in place," says archaeologist George Bey of Millsaps College in Jackson Miss., co-director of the Labna-Kiuic Regional Archaeological Project. "Until now, we had little evidence from the actual moment of abandonment, it’s a frozen moment in time." [..]
When the team started exploring the hilltop palaces, five vaulted homes to the south of the hilltop plaza and four to the north, the archaeologists found tools, stone knives and axes, corn-grinder stones called metates (muh-TAH-taze) and pots still sitting in place. "It was completely unexpected," Bey says. "It looks like they just turned the metates on their sides and left things waiting for them to come back."
Let’s tell the archaeologists to hurry up. 2012 is just around the corner …Here’s an interesting article by Dan Vergano for USA Today: Link
