EchoDitto

Description:

Another soundseeing podcast from the ruined world - the jungle around the Maya city of Palenque, Mexico. Nicco and I begin to see the ancient structures in the overgrown mounds and plazas. Dr Ed Barnhart of the Maya Exploration Center gives us a sense of the ruins still out there to be excavated and tells us how anyone can help explore and study them.

Still to come: a lesson in the Tzeltal Maya language from the birthday glyph girls, and a chat with Jan de Vos, historian of the Lacandon jungle and participant in the peace talks between the Zapatista rebels and the Mexican government.

Description:

No, we're not out of the jungle yet. In fact, we're going off the tourist route, straight into the tropical forest around the Maya city of Palenque, Mexico. We pass through the ruined suburbs that Dr. Ed Barnhart and his team mapped over a three year period. A terrain of immense trees and collapsed labyrinths that await study and excavation.

This is another "soundseeing" podcast from the Gringo Collapse tour, March 2005. It'll get you into the jungle - the next one will get you back out.

Music:

Qu'ran, David Byrne and Brian Eno, "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts"

Nagoya Marimbas, by Steve Reich

Description:

He was Trump, Medici, Frank Lloyd Wright and the Dalai Lama of his time: King Pacal the Great of Palenque. He died at age 80 in 683 AD, and was buried by his son Chan Balam, a brilliant mathematician and astronomer.

Pacal had already built a stunning tomb for himself, full of cosmology, astronomy, genealogy - not to mention a spectacular jade mask and other jewels. It remained hidden from archaeologists until 1952, and then became the basis for Von Daniken's "ancient astronaut" theories in 1968. Just in time to be debunked by the young art historians and iconographers who kicked over the old beliefs and broke the Maya code. Pacal's name, rendered in syllables - pa ca la - provided one of the clues to the phonetic nature of the glyphs.

Palenque, Pacal, the Temple of the Inscriptions. A complex of history and meaning that has unusual resonance in the world of Maya studies. Ground zero for an explosion of understanding in the last 30 years.

But when Nicco and I descended into the tomb, we could barely see the famous carved sarcophagus cover. The single bare bulb that the archaeological authorities grudgingly provide to tourists had slipped below the level of the lid, leaving it in shadow. Nicco got a good flash shot, but I've pulled out some photos and video from my archives to help folks appreciate this work of art. They were taken on a day in 2001 when I went beyond the metal gate, into the crypt, with a National Geographic photographer. We stayed in the tomb all day, and when the guards got bored and left, took our shoes off to stand in our socks on the carved limestone slab, to get the shots of a lifetime.

Photos of Pacal's tomb, inside and out

And a short video of the temple, the descent into the tomb, and the view of the Palace when you emerge. (42 seconds, 9 MB download)

Description:
I admit, I sound a little giddy in this particular podcast. But you have to imagine the scene: we've just spent several hours in a truck and then in a boat down the Usumacinta River. Now we're hiking through the rainforest, up a ridge, and we stumble on to some Maya ruins on the top of the ridge, as if they just hacked off the top of the hill to create a plateau and then built this big complex of buildings there -- part of a complex called the Acropolis at Yaxchilan. It is a glorious day, just amazing -- the sun, the temperature, the howler monkeys, the buzzing alive-ness of the insects and plants of the rainforest, and the sheer wonder at the immensity of these ruins buried in the jungle -- when, out of the simple beauty of the moment, I just start singing. Fly Me To The Moon, no less. And a little farther down, hiking in the jungle, I'm reflecting on the clarity and glory of the one moment we just had at the top of the Maya Acropolis on this high hill a long way from anything, and it was downright poetic. The ancients, the history, nature, the solitude -- and suddenly a poem I had memorized many years earlier came to mind and I shared it with Dave. In fact, it occurred to me that the recitation of that particular poem at the particular minute in that particular location -- well, it seemed obvious that it had all been pre-ordained, that the only reason I memorized that poem nine or ten years ago was to recite it right there and then. Of course, Dave managed to record the whole thing for your podcasting pleasure:

COULD THIS BE IT?

Transfiguration. Consider it from where you stand.
Overnight the cold, cloudy wet spell was lifted, and
you wake beneath a Byzantine blue dome of glass:
golden birds--red hearts in their musical breasts--
overflow the oak leaves with echoes, a frenzy
of possession that fractures into small squabbles as
two redbreasted nuthatches struggle for dominion
in a sapling oak -- its leaves emerald tesserae in which
sunlight glows. Suddenly, the leaves look back at you
looking up at their broad, light-lapping faces, morning
riding your shoulders like a pet monkey, and all is pause
for a cracked moment of amazement, mutuality, until
you walk on into woodshade, flapping mosquitoes away.

by Eamon Grennan

Description:
The podcasts from the jungles of Chiapas continue. Episodes One and Two are available, but now we're on to Episode Three where we discuss the Collapse of the Maya Civilization with Dr. Ed Barnhart of the Maya Exploration Center. It's one of the great mysteries of the Maya, and a topic covered in many books, including Jared Diamond's recent bestseller, Collapse.

Dr. Ed Barnhart was kind enough to share his time with us for the podcasts. He's also doing some of the most exciting work out there, the sort of gritty field work that is far afield from classroom academics. Take a second to support a true explorer by making a contribution to support Dr. Ed's work.

Description:

Installation two of the Junglecasts from the Gringo Collapse Tour, podcasts with Dr. Ed Barnhart of the Maya Exploration Center right from the heart of Palenque. Dr. Ed ran a 3-year project to map the entire site of Palenque, discovering hundreds of structures and leaving the total number of mapped buildings at well over 1,200. This podcast covers some of the amazing mathematical concepts embedded in ancient Maya architecture. It's truly stunning stuff.These Junglecasts are the result of a trip I took with Dave Pentecost, at his insistence, to discover the wonders buried in Chiapas, Mexico. The First Junglecast Ever is available here at EchoRadio. As always, if you're gripped by that excitement that comes with discovery of the unknown, then I'd suggest making a contribution to support Dr. Ed's work.
Photos that relate to the podcast:

• Podcasting with Dr. Ed Barnhart in front of the Cross Group
• Temple of the Cross
• Temple of the Sun
• View of Temple of the Sun from the Temple of the Cross
• Temple of the Foliated Cross
• View from the top of Temple of the Cross
• Honeycombs at the top of the Temple of the Cross, used to prop up "religious billboards" made of stucco

Description:

A few weeks ago I went to Chiapas, Mexico with Dave Pentecost to explore the region, and spend some time with archaeologists working on discovering more about the Maya culture. Our first JungleCast (a Podcast from the Jungle!) is available on EchoRadio. Dave did a ton of work putting together these podcasts -- the first one has a soundtrack that includes Steve Reich's "Six Marimbas" and "Nagoya Marimbas" and the inevitable Captain Beefheart's "Smithsonian Institute Blues (the Big Dig)". You can listen to the JungleCast here -- we've got a few more coming.On the podcast, Dr. Ed Barnhart gives this incredible tour around the central ruins of Palenque. The work that Dr. Ed Barnhart is doing with the Maya Exploration Center is truly first-rate, the sort of discovery and exploration that is exciting and harks back to the days when we didn't have a full map of the globe. If you're gripped by that excitement that comes with discovery of the unknown, then I'd suggest making a contribution to support Dr. Ed's work.Here are some photos that are relevant to the podcast:

• Preparing to head up to the ruins in Dr. Ed's truck
• Junglecast with Dr. Ed!
• Temple of the Inscriptions
• T-shaped windows
• Sarcophagus of Pacal's Tomb
• Sketch of image carved on sarcophagus of Pacal's Tomb