About That Canadian Teenager Finding A Lost Mayan City

a reply to: theantediluvian

You raise some very interesting points and experts opinions. What I am wondering is when there will be an excavation of the site to settle the matter before everything he says is ridiculed?

I think that it might be better to wait because aren't we relying yet again on people looking at pictures only and the fact that one person is familiar with the area and thinks its a cannabis growing area - Ahm!

I know we are focusing on mainly the possibility of a new Mayan city being located. However he has aligned a number of other cities with the constellations which is a huge find and opens up huge questions about Mayan Culture. This alignment may not be a city, it might be something like at observatory or some other religious/sacred place.

What we do know and what the religions of today don't want people to know, unless they are Eastern ones and that is the ancients modelled their lives on the stars and constellations and explained their beliefs through this medium, which evolved into our desert religions with a lot of cherry picking. Were people to research these ancient beliefs they would realise some of the tenets of their religions are purely pagan made monotheistic - now that would't go down well and take away a lot of their authority. I suspect there is a lot of vested interested in crushing this lad's findings and brushing them under the carpet by both other professionals through jealousy and the religious who want to maintain the status quo etc.

I do look forward to seeing the outcome of this and wish the lad well, I suspect he will need support for the hammering which a professional would falter under coming his way.

originally posted by: Shiloh7
a reply to: theantediluvian

You raise some very interesting points and experts opinions. What I am wondering is when there will be an excavation of the site to settle the matter before everything he says is ridiculed?.

Probably not for awhile. There's a lot of sites and not a lot of funding or archaeological dig teams to go around.

However, I think that if you look at the historical imagery on Google Earth you will find that it was recently a farmer's field. That doesn't mean that there's NOT something there (the area was widely settled at various times in history)... but it doesn't mean a significant site.

The problem with armchair satellite research is that researchers generally don't look at the history of the area over time.

10 years from now the boy will stand to be correct after an excavation. That seems to be the trend these days. Someone is ridiculed and then it turns to be true. I hope he is because it was pretty cool...still is even if it is wrong. The theory behind it made sense.

originally posted by: HawkeyeNation
The theory behind it made sense.

Not really, since there's no precedent for such a thing, especially on that scale. That's not to say it's impossible, but it is highly unlikely.

a reply to: theantediluvian

Maybe the refutation is merely jealousy or sour grapes?

We know grown adult scientists can react that way when they're embarrassed by children.

I'll hold on for further confirmation if there is any.

Recently having traveled to Mexico and visited only one Mayan ruins site has given me a great desire to return and see more, thus my interest in this article. A few comments to make at the risk of being dressed down but know these are my opinions:

1-Expert said "only a ground based expedition" can determine the ultimate outcome for a find or not of another lost city site.

2- No known person has time traveled back and spoken to the inhabitants to prove or disprove their motivation or thoughts.

3-The teenager deserves credit for exploring possibilities as it is from such innovative research all new discovery takes place.

Egocentric conclusions may be drawn for ancient societies based on our current mindset, values and knowledge of the earth.

Considering the attention, this may encourage a resurgence of exploration, only this time with satellites. Having made the news and renewed interest, this may be an idea put to work. There will still have to be feet on the ground to verify and photograph. Heck, I could go to 'Satellite Maps' in my favorites and explore the Yucatan for starters, looking for certain population markers of the past, so could you....

onlinestreetview.com...#

a reply to: Byrd

Its sad we can't investigate our past immediately when information is release which for some is fascinating. I know there are a lot of other things that require money spending on them, but we have such gaps in our ancient history.

I do hope this lad's idea is investigated. If he is right on the other sites and his constellations, he looks set for a very promising future and we look set for some fascinating finds and illumination into our past.

I do wonder though as Egyptologist Dr Sarah Parcak is using satellite imaging in the desert etc for locating new sites etc whether it will be used to good effect in the jungle also?

a reply to: theantediluvian

Regardless of whether there was an actual city there at some point in history, I find it a very strange coincidence that the other city's should line up with one of the Mayan constellations. Leading the lad to his conclusion in the first place.

Lets not forget the ancients undoubtedly did line up many of there structures as star charts, why is it so hard to except they might have done the same with their city's, where it was practical to do so? Perhaps believing it to be providence or some such?

Maybe the thread got so many flags because it came across as a new discovery, which it may yet be, or maybe people just thought it was a good diversion from Trump this and Hilary that, aka a rock and a hard place...

originally posted by: Urantia1111
We know grown adult scientists can react that way when they're embarrassed by children.

Got any examples of that?

Can't say I am surprised in this day and age of entertainment news... but I certainly applaud the individual on his interest.

originally posted by: Unity_99
Don't know either way but one thing I don't trust, is armchair experts.

Yet you would trust an armchair amateur..?

originally posted by: surfer_soul
a reply to: theantediluvian

Regardless of whether there was an actual city there at some point in history, I find it a very strange coincidence that the other city's should line up with one of the Mayan constellations.

It lined up with our modern constellations. To quote from another article, “Maya constellations that we know of, with the exception of Scorpio, bear no relation to those we find on modern star maps.” - and that's a quote from one of the guys who started the archaeoastronomy field. (click for his statements)

The Wired article above has had an update:

Geoffrey Braswell, a mesoamerican archaeologist at UC San Diego, and his graduate students have, by coincidence, actually been working in this area, and they immediately recognized the features in the satellite photos. The first image, Braswell says, is of the Laguna El Civalón, and the two rectangular features next to it are fields, probably either weed-filled fallow fields or marijuana fields based on the amount of vegetation.

The feature in the second image is a dried-up swamp, though an interesting archaeological site lies just to the south. “San Felipe was an important stop on the Spanish camino real linking Campeche (Mexico) to Lake Petén Itzá (Guatemala),” writes Braswell in a statement. The Mexican archaeologist Teri Arias Ortiz may have found a church while excavating the area.
(source)

The archaeologist's UCSD web page can be found here - and it's full of documentation that he IS and did work the area. There's a lot of publications on his page that he has very generously made available (FREE!) (it's one of my gripes that too much is hidden behind paywalls.)

I snagged a couple of neat looking articles from him.

I didn't participate in the original thread at all because to me it was obvious from the get go my opinion would have garnered a hundred fifty negative replies.

a reply to: Byrd

According to the source from the OP he had studied the Mayan constellations, not our modern constellations as you have it.

William Gadoury, a teenager from Saint-Jean-de-Matha in Lanaudière, became a small launch to NASA, the Canadian Space Agency and the Japanese Space Agency, while his discovery is about to be disseminated in a scientific journal. Passionate Mayan for several years, he analyzed 22 Mayan constellations and realized that if he connected on a map the stars of the constellations, the shape of each corresponded to position 117 Mayan cities.

Show me where it says he was using the modern contellations or explain why he would do this if he studied the Mayan culture at all? The link you provided doesn't explain this. It claims it's probably a cannabis field now, but so what? What would that have to do with what it was in Mayan times?

I'd like to see some evidence he was using current constellations because otherwise the source from the other OP was very misleading.

And why on earth would scientists get involved, to humour him? It also claims his discovery would be disseminated in a scientific journal. Was the main source just making things up or what?

Can I pose a question?
Could the Nazca lines be a reflection of said constellations from the Mayan culture, or other cultures who have their own constellation chart?
The kid did say something about this method of his could be used with different cultures across meso america.

www.scielo.org.mx...

originally posted by: surfer_soul
a reply to: Byrd

According to the source from the OP he had studied the Mayan constellations, not our modern constellations as you have it.

William Gadoury, a teenager from Saint-Jean-de-Matha in Lanaudière, became a small launch to NASA, the Canadian Space Agency and the Japanese Space Agency, while his discovery is about to be disseminated in a scientific journal. Passionate Mayan for several years, he analyzed 22 Mayan constellations and realized that if he connected on a map the stars of the constellations, the shape of each corresponded to position 117 Mayan cities.

Show me where it says he was using the modern contellations or explain why he would do this if he studied the Mayan culture at all? The link you provided doesn't explain this. It claims it's probably a cannabis field now, but so what? What would that have to do with what it was in Mayan times?

I'd like to see some evidence he was using current constellations because otherwise the source from the other OP was very misleading.

And why on earth would scientists get involved, to humour him? It also claims his discovery would be disseminated in a scientific journal. Was the main source just making things up or what?

I'd like to see evidence that he did not make up the constellations himself. From my understanding the composition of mayan constellations is unknown.

It also seems that none of the scientists involved in his project is a mayanist or even archeologist.

originally posted by: HawkeyeNation
10 years from now the boy will stand to be correct after an excavation. That seems to be the trend these days. Someone is ridiculed and then it turns to be true. I hope he is because it was pretty cool...still is even if it is wrong. The theory behind it made sense.

Archaeologists are annoyed because they didn't make the discovery first. When they start their carer, they get assigned a particular topic like cooking utensils used by roman legions during the rule of Julius Caesar. Then they have to look for every fragment of pottery they can find and write a paper about. it. They will go down to fine details such as location in the site, whether any other fragments were found, what they would look like if pieced together. Some archaeologists hit the jackpot and find a while untouched site buried under the Earth and just have to put a spade in the ground to write a paper. Others have to wait years and years to find something.

a reply to: moebius

It turns out that the Maya constellations parallel our own, the major difference being they recognized 13 where as until fairly recently our culture only recognized 12. The Mayans while observing the same stars that make up the constellations had different labels for them naturally, and they were represented by different figures, except for Scorpio which they also related to as a Scorpion. None of this is surprising really considering they were observing the same star patterns that make up the constellations as they cycle through the sky.

It has been discovered that the Mayans developed constellations that are actually paralleled with modern constellations of today. Mayans had their own names for the thirteen zodiacs identified today. The Mayans saw different shapes in these constellations that related more closely to their own belief systems and animals that were relevant to their lives.

Aries was seen as Quetzal, one of their most powerful gods; Libra was identified as a shark; Taurus was an owl; Gemini was a turtle; Sagittarius was a rattlesnake; Capricorn was a jaguar; cancer was a dog; Pisces was a bat; Virgo was a peccary. One zodiac constellation however, Scorpios, is identical to today’s interpretation and was seen as a scorpion. The Mayans have also been discovered to have a great interest in the constellation we know as Orion.

Further

The four surviving written documents that are preserved today are the Dresden, Madrid, Paris, and Grolier Codices. These documents included some impressive innovations: charts including the heliacal risings, settings in synodic cycles of Venus, and an eclipse warning table with observable lunar cycles. Astronomy was such a huge part of the Mayan culture that they actually built their buildings and locations of the buildings to correspond with some astronomical events. Some buildings were designated to watch the rising sun, while others were angled better to see a certain grouping of stars, and even more impressively somewhere constructed in correlation to the vernal and autumnal equinoxes.

source

Gadoury's work and his methods, need further examination no doubt, until further research of his methods are carried out and considering the Mayans were literally obsessed with the stars, I wouldn't be inclined to dismiss his findings so readily.

a reply to: Onesmartdog

Could the Nazca lines be a reflection of said constellations from the Mayan culture, or other cultures who have their own constellation chart?

I have considered that in the past myself, the geoglyphs in the Nazca lines don't match the Mayan representations of the constellations though. It may be, that to the Nazca culture they represented the constellations as they related to them, but then again there's hundreds of them and many don't resemble anything as such.
They are fascinating though, but so as to avoid thread drift there are other threads on ats to discuss them.