What I did on my summer vacation
What I did on my summer vacation was go to Belize to work at Maya site called Uxbenka. As usual it was a bit of a busman’s vacation but I put in plenty of time at the beach. Keith Prufer and Andy Kinden, along with Phil Wanyerka, an epigrapher at Cleveland State, are PIs of an archaeological project in southern Belize excavating at the only Early Classic period site in the region. It is situated along a trade route from the Paten in Guatemala to the Caribbean coast. The site has tentative, very tentative if you ask me, ties to an early ruling dynasty at Tikal. There are a couple of dozen stelae at the site many of which are carved.
The first thing I got to do at the site was excavate around the foot of one of the large stelae. The upper portion had broken off and was lying nearby in several pieces, but it was not carved. There are often dedicatory caches associated with stelae and we were hoping to recover such a cache. No such luck, but we did get a carbon sample from what looked to be a good context. We hope it will tell us when the stelae was erected. Andy, Keith, and I basically dug a big hole full of rocks and got nothing out of it but a little charcoal. Other excavations at the stelae plaza indicated that it was once plastered and had undergone multiple building episodes.
The site has a couple of ball courts, one of which we excavated. The allies usually have a marker at their center and sometimes at each end. It was a narrow alley, only a few meters wide, flanked by two 2-m high buildings. We found a center marker, but none on either end. It is a very large marker measuring about 1 m by 1.5 m and weighted a good 700 to 1,000 pounds. Interestingly, it had a raised center circle and appears as though most of the rock was under the floor. Those wacky Maya; that is a big ass rock to drag up to the top of a big hill and bury most of it. That is not how most of the ball court markers are, although they are usually fairly large.
The biggest find of the season was an ancient canoe that was in a nearby cave. The guys from the village had been telling us about it since last year and while hopeful about it these things are best taken with a grain of salt. As it turned out their stories were all true and then some. The cave is high on a cliff. Upon entering the cave there is a stairway leading into a tomb chamber. Unfortunately, someone had looted the tomb recently, within the last five years, and destroyed what must have been spectacular. Reports are that it was fully intact and the canoe sat on top of a ca. 1-m high masonry tomb. The looter had thrown the canoe to one side, smashing it and ripped apart the tomb to get inside. It is a sad reality down there.
As can be expected during June, which is during the wet season, it rained like hell several days and most nights. By the end of the field season it was too muddy to work and we were lucky we got as much done as we did. They got their NSF funding for the project so next year we are starting the building excavations and consolidation. That will be taking place during the dry season in February and March. It will cooler, with highs in the 80s instead of the 90 to 100 we have endured for the last couple of years.
The beach was wonderful and beautiful. Lots of young, attractive, bikini-clad women; beautiful blue waters; spectacular reefs; and enchanting little islands. I love it down there! This year my big plans for the diving was to see a whale shark. They are filter feeders that can grow to more than 40 ft in length. They are off the coast of Belize from March to June and can be found near the surface during the week of the full moon. It is a blue water dive, which means there is no bottom, just a few thousand feet of water below you. It was a little disconcerting, but the pressure change lets you know if you are starting to sink. The dive is basically jumping in and swimming around about 40 ft down and looking for the sharks. We ended up seeing three of them, two of which came right up to me to check me out. If I wanted to I could have touched them, but as it is a $10,000 fine for doing so, I refrained. All of them were over 30 ft long, which is not always the way it goes. Apparently, it is not uncommon to se more juvenile specimens that are puny little one barely over 20 ft long. Let me tell you, those are some big fish. I was very impressed.
The first thing I got to do at the site was excavate around the foot of one of the large stelae. The upper portion had broken off and was lying nearby in several pieces, but it was not carved. There are often dedicatory caches associated with stelae and we were hoping to recover such a cache. No such luck, but we did get a carbon sample from what looked to be a good context. We hope it will tell us when the stelae was erected. Andy, Keith, and I basically dug a big hole full of rocks and got nothing out of it but a little charcoal. Other excavations at the stelae plaza indicated that it was once plastered and had undergone multiple building episodes.
The site has a couple of ball courts, one of which we excavated. The allies usually have a marker at their center and sometimes at each end. It was a narrow alley, only a few meters wide, flanked by two 2-m high buildings. We found a center marker, but none on either end. It is a very large marker measuring about 1 m by 1.5 m and weighted a good 700 to 1,000 pounds. Interestingly, it had a raised center circle and appears as though most of the rock was under the floor. Those wacky Maya; that is a big ass rock to drag up to the top of a big hill and bury most of it. That is not how most of the ball court markers are, although they are usually fairly large.
The biggest find of the season was an ancient canoe that was in a nearby cave. The guys from the village had been telling us about it since last year and while hopeful about it these things are best taken with a grain of salt. As it turned out their stories were all true and then some. The cave is high on a cliff. Upon entering the cave there is a stairway leading into a tomb chamber. Unfortunately, someone had looted the tomb recently, within the last five years, and destroyed what must have been spectacular. Reports are that it was fully intact and the canoe sat on top of a ca. 1-m high masonry tomb. The looter had thrown the canoe to one side, smashing it and ripped apart the tomb to get inside. It is a sad reality down there.
As can be expected during June, which is during the wet season, it rained like hell several days and most nights. By the end of the field season it was too muddy to work and we were lucky we got as much done as we did. They got their NSF funding for the project so next year we are starting the building excavations and consolidation. That will be taking place during the dry season in February and March. It will cooler, with highs in the 80s instead of the 90 to 100 we have endured for the last couple of years.
The beach was wonderful and beautiful. Lots of young, attractive, bikini-clad women; beautiful blue waters; spectacular reefs; and enchanting little islands. I love it down there! This year my big plans for the diving was to see a whale shark. They are filter feeders that can grow to more than 40 ft in length. They are off the coast of Belize from March to June and can be found near the surface during the week of the full moon. It is a blue water dive, which means there is no bottom, just a few thousand feet of water below you. It was a little disconcerting, but the pressure change lets you know if you are starting to sink. The dive is basically jumping in and swimming around about 40 ft down and looking for the sharks. We ended up seeing three of them, two of which came right up to me to check me out. If I wanted to I could have touched them, but as it is a $10,000 fine for doing so, I refrained. All of them were over 30 ft long, which is not always the way it goes. Apparently, it is not uncommon to se more juvenile specimens that are puny little one barely over 20 ft long. Let me tell you, those are some big fish. I was very impressed.
posted by TOC | 7:32 PM
2 Comments:
Yo Chuck! Found you on google. You should have climbed to the cave, the view was g-r-e-a-t
Next year. It will be there when I get bakc. At least the cave will be. Hopefully all else as well.
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