Mayan Nohmul Pyramid In Belize Destroyed By Bulldozer

I ask you this:

Have you been in, on, or around pyramids/temples/ruins in Belize?--both totally excavated and essentially unexplored?

Have you been around or across caliche mounds in Texas or Mexico?

Do you know the difference between a bulldozer and an excavator?

Are you aware that pyramids in Belize are not built of caliche, but of hewn stone?

Are you familiar with what passes for officialdom in Belize?

Do you realize that there are numerous sites of "complexes" in Belize, frequently only a few miles apart, and that there are frequently piles of rock and caliche that are clearly not structures of any kind?


Sometimes ignorance must be acknowledged, as the first step in learning.

reply to post by MuzzleBreak


If you have personally explored these things in Belize and have actual first hand knowledge why not simply say so and support your claim with a few details, instead of acting like an arse and just making pronouncements and expecting them to be accepted?

If the archeologists and professors (and police) are wrong about the site, why are they wrong, how do you know?

Also, the bulldozer/excavator thing is INCREDIBLY anal of you, I already pointed out how people use the term generically. If you actually have something, show it. Otherwise its all just 'blah blah blah, because I say so' and that isn't how discussions develop.

Originally posted by waynos
reply to post by MuzzleBreak

 

If you have personally explored these things in Belize and have actual first hand knowledge why not simply say so and support your claim with a few details, instead of acting like an arse and just making pronouncements and expecting them to be accepted?

If the archeologists and professors (and police) are wrong about the site, why are they wrong, how do you know?

Also, the bulldozer/excavator thing is INCREDIBLY anal of you, I already pointed out how people use the term generically. If you actually have something, show it. Otherwise its all just 'blah blah blah, because I say so' and that isn't how discussions develop.

edit on 15-5-2013 by waynos because: (no reason given)

Apparently photos, logic, and experience I have already posted aren't enough for you. Suggest you look at some googled pix of Mayan complexes (there are thousands of pix) and perhaps some more of what caliche mounds look like, and rethink what a landowner who can hire a $150/hr excavator would think about purposely destroying a real pyramid that might be worth thousands to millions of dollars.

reply to post by MuzzleBreak


Boy I got to say, you and that other slugger really seem to take this thread personal. You have some stake in what happens to the owner?

Why are you so concerned with selling us the idea it’s just dirt when every official and archeologists state otherwise. I’d be willing to wager even the owner knows and understands what it is regardless if he gives a #. It just seems really odd that you guys are digging in your heels on something no one on this planet is actually contesting other than the two of you. One wonders……

Just doing the forum's job of denying ignorance. Your welcome.

Originally posted by masta12d
reply to post by MuzzleBreak

 

Boy I got to say, you and that other slugger really seem to take this thread personal. You have some stake in what happens to the owner?

Why are you so concerned with selling us the idea it’s just dirt

it is dirt

It just seems really odd that you guys are digging in your heels on something no one on this planet is actually contesting other than the two of you. One wonders……

there are 7.2 billion people on this planet.
if you were to ask each and everyone, (illogical appealing to the crowd error) the majority and that would be over 6 billion would say they do not care about it.

another defender of the dirt who exaggerates to the degree that it is more than disingenuous...

reply to post by LeLeu


We are all.
So since you are the spokesperson of everyone else on this thread, I posted a link that gives about 12-20 different pictures of this item.

From every angle it resembles a pile of dirt with some rocks.

I have also seen the one piece of equipment that is moving this dirt/rocks into dump trucks.
From every angle the equipment looks like a excavator. But I could be wrong.

So a pile of rocks/dirt + excavator + dump trucks = fill dirt/rocks for a road.

if there were precious artifacts and other prehistoric junk,
dont you think the owner would have removed these and
sold them to purchase the excavator long before now???

reply to post by MuzzleBreak

Apparently photos, logic, and experience I have already posted aren't enough for you.

Well, no actually. Not on their own.

The photos show a clear, layered structure, despite what you are claiming. Your logic seems to be based entirely on the fact that you cannot see this and have dirt piles near where you live. It doesn't matter that I disagree, you also appear at odds with the scientific community and I was hoping you had real reason behind it, but it seems you do not. Am I to take it then that your experience actually has nothing to with the actual sites in Belize, but in ones elsewhere that you feel look the same?

Are you aware that archaeological evidence comes in many forms, many of which are entirely unrecognisable to the average person? Your stance seems to take no account of this.

You also seem to declare, with some authority, what building materials the Mayans used. Well, I certainly don't so all I'm asking, yet again, is HOW do you know? If you have a genuine knowledge that is fair enough.

As to why the landowner would do this, who knows? Sometimes people do stupid and short sighted things. Me and you knowing that such destruction of an ancient site would be moronic is not evidence that it isn't such a valuable site. Look at the destruction wrought by the Taliban of ancient monuments in a deliberate camaign to erase them before the Afghan war began. It was obvious to the world that it was criminal vandalism, but they did it anyway.

reply to post by slugger9787


The point is you cannot know if there are precious artifacts there if you are digging it out with a mechanical digger. You seem so certain that the landowner cares about history and culture, but knows exactly what the site is and made a rational choice that did no harm to anyone. OK. How do you know this?

reply to post by slugger9787


This particular pile of rocks and dirt has a distinct layered structure to it

Originally posted by slugger9787
reply to post by LeLeu

 

From every angle it resembles a pile of dirt with some rocks.

So a pile of rocks/dirt + excavator + dump trucks = fill dirt/rocks for a road.

if there were precious artifacts and other prehistoric junk,
dont you think the owner would have removed these and
sold them to purchase the excavator long before now???

So then using your rational a dinosaur fossil is just a rock too, correct?

Seeing how dino remains decay and then infused with rock like minerals. So would a pile of dino bones be nothing more than just rocks to you?

As for your last quesiton. Apparently you didn't read the article, and I get it, you just look at the pics my daugther does the same, but it was stated it was excavated in the 70's and 80's and hasn't been fully excavated. So your answer is no he didn't sell the artifacts to by an excavator. Is this a joke?

reply to post by slugger9787
Even if it were just "dirt" as you claim, all Mayan temples/pyramids/mounds are under protection of the government of Belize, so yeah, there are severe penalties for the perpetrators who bulldozed this historic site.

A time-honored practice followed by many cultures around the world for thousands of years. Examples include the Egyptian Great Pyramid. Its facing stones were stripped off to build Cairo. Another example is found in many bronze statues from Greek & Roman times. They don't exist because they were melted down, in some cases to make cannon. A lot of artistic expression was lost when that happened. Some of the stones in Avebury were removed to build houses. There's a modern road in Rome that runs right through an area of Old Rome where there were many temples and priceless objects that could not be excavated because of it.

It is not at all unusual for a subsequent culture to recycle material for building. The only reason people here are "sickened" and "dismayed' is because they've been taught that all these objects are untouchable and endowed with some sort of mystical power that means they can never be touched. We can't build a dam because we have to save the snail darter and our precious genetic heritage.

Reduce Reuse Recycle. It's not a new concept.

reply to post by schuyler


Sounds like you are talking about consumerism which at least IMO isn't really going over that great. Yes lets see if we can consume and destroy everything we get out grubby little hands on. Cause lets face it, there is nothing more important on this earth from our past or present that isn't as important than us and our needs to consume, expand and destroy. Genius!

reply to post by masta12d


i have the owners name and phone number.
I will call him and discuss this pile of dirt with him.

There are scores of Mayan pyramids and temples.

These monumental works have lasted for millenia.
The things the Mayans intended to last---lasted.
Why?

Because they were finished with large hewn stones that took several men to move. They didn't want children, monkeys, anteaters, and water ruining their hard labor.

I have seen no evidence of any monumental stones in the pictures provided. All the "bricks" are of a size that could be carried by women and children laborers.

Whether those bricks were intended to be a "fill" for a temple, or were to be ground up to fill roads and public places, or as a component of concrete, they are still just "fill"--Nothing there took skill, strength or intelligence to place there, and there is no apparent beauty in looking at the mound.

Show me evidence of monumental stones that have been moved, and I'll change my mind.

The layered structure is there, but that could just be a function of stacking the cut and carried caliche in a more stable formation to await its final purpose.

Belize deputy PM calls for prosecutions in pyramid destruction.

The deputy prime minister of Belize is calling for full prosecution of those responsible for destroying a 2,300-year-old Mayan pyramid to turn it into rock for roads.

In a separate statement, Belize's Ministry of Tourism & Culture said it had commissioned a full investigation of the Noh Mul destruction, calling it "callous, ignorant and unforgivable."

"This is one of the worst that I have seen in my entire 25 years of archaeology in Belize," John Morris, an archaeologist with the country's Institute of Archaeology, told local channel 7NewsBelize. "We can't salvage what has happened out here -- it is an incredible display of ignorance."

The institute's director, Jaime Awe, called the destruction "one of the worse set of blows I have felt philosophically and professionally."

edition.cnn.com...

Someone is going to go to jail I hope

reply to post by MuzzleBreak


Two points.

Firstly that is no mound or pile of bricks. If you look to the right hand side of the image in my last post it is plainly obvious that is the remains of a hollow chamber with inner walls. You can even see the inner corner of the "chamber" where the back wall takes a 90 degree turn. That is a building.

Secondly your stance on these being small bricks and "unimpressive" makes no allowance for how large structures were built or, more importantly, how building techniques evolved in different regions. Just because some built pyramids out of large blocks is not proof hat something else not built exclusively from large blocks isn't also a pyramid, maybe it was built earlier to a more primitive pattern?


The structure of Roche Abbey that I posted earlier, and also the neighbouring Conisbrough Castle (both of which feature prominently in Ivanhoe) show exactly the same sort of small stones and rubble seemingly randomly piled in between outer and inner facing walls of large square cut stones in order to give them solidity.

This can be seen in the image below of the barbican at Conisbrough, even the faced stone bears resemblance to the mayan brick pile, while at the bottom where these stones have gone you can see it is just rubble that was thrown into the gap, but it's still an important building. I think your position is I'll informed.

reply to post by waynos


If the thread called this mound of layered bricks "a structure" of possibly ancient origins, I wouldn't have the objections. But of course, that wouldn't get the headlines that "pyramid destruction" does.

Remember, these are the people who built these pyramids and temples( and many, many others) that have retained most of their ancient glory after removal of the jungle growth and a little restacking:








And for those people interested, there are still numerous real monumental structures still covered in jungle growth, awaiting an archeologist with funds.

And look out for words like "ill-informed". One of my better replies got axed for my guessing the other debater didn't take quickly to education

reply to post by Jaellma


how do you know there are severe penalties?
how do you know there is any body found guilty in a court of law?