Under the Guatemalan jungle, 1,200-year-old paintings like no others.
At Home With the Maya
Archaeologist William Saturno scrapes ancient debris from a scribe's painting-filled, roughly 1,200-year-old home in Guatemala. Calculations on the walls refer to dates after December 21, 2012—which has been erroneouslycalled the Maya doomsday—as well as the first known Maya house art, according to a new study.
The long-overgrown house is part of a ruined Maya city named Xultún, rediscovered nearly a century ago but still largely unexcavated. Saturno's team began excavating the home—one of thousands of buried structures at the 12-square-mile (31-square-kilometer) site—in 2010
Green Roof
Lighted by a photographer's lamps, a painting of the likely scribe glows within the newfound chamber, found after one of Saturno's undergraduate students had investigated a looters' tunnel. Three walls inside the overgrown building are covered in large murals and calculations, including a portrait of a seated king.
Beyond 2012
Four numbers, written in columns on the house's north wall, are Maya "Long Count" dates—one of which was nearly 7,000 years in the future. Saturno's research suggests that these dates likely recorded astronomical cycles, such as lunar eclipses or the movements of planets.
"The ancient Maya predicted the world would continue, that 7,000 years from now, things would be exactly like this," Saturno said in a statement—a view that contradicts theories of a Maya-predicted apocalypse in December 2012.
Another wall of the house is covered with tiny marks that seem to show calculations for important calendar cycles, such as the 260-day Maya ceremonial calendar, the 365-day solar calendar, and the cycles of Mars and Venus.
The Lineup
Three figures sit in a composite photograph of the interior. The black portrait (left) is one of three nearly identical seated men (two are not shown). At center is what's thought to be the scribe, holding a paintbrush. At right is a Maya king, bedecked in blue feathers.
"Such writings and artwork on walls don't preserve well in the Maya lowlands," Saturno said in a statement. "It's weird that the Xultún finds exist at all."
Royal Plumage
A new painting re-creates the faded portrait of a Maya king discovered in a special niche in the newfound room. A curtain, held to the wall with a bone rod, was originally used to hide and reveal the portrait, the researchers say.
Three Wide Men
Shown in a modern re-creation of the 1,200-year-old Maya mural, three men wear headdresses of a sort never before seen in Maya art, according to Saturno. "It's clearly a costume of some kind," he said in a statement.
A Scribe Unto the Lord of Xultún
Next to the king's portrait is this bright orange man, pictured in a modern re-creation of the newfound Maya mural.
The man's name, "Younger Brother Obsidian," is written in glyphs near his face. Saturno theorizes that this unusual title and the man's proximity to the painting of the king may indicate that the orange figure was a relative of the king—perhaps the scribe or artist who lived in the house.
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