Pressenza Pressenza International Press Agency Cuidad de Guatemala, 2/11/10 “The accomplishment of this publication is its wide range because it brings together other techniques and compares different work carried out at different archeological sites”, Muñoz, who works along with Vidal for the Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain, told AFP .
The expert, who has spent six years working in Guatemala, explained that the book, launched on Wednesday evening, emerged from an international workshop on pre-Hispanic graffiti organized by the Spanish university in December.
“This book is a monograph which brings together scientific and expert archaeological studies from Guatemala and Mexico for the first time. There are publications on this subject, but none so wide ranging”, the researcher told AFP.
According to Vidal, the books or publications on Mayan graffiti are very limited, in spite of the fact that “it is a very large universe where social and daily life, beliefs and the animal world that surrounded them can be deciphered”
The incisions and scratches or painted representations on walls, commonly known by the name graffiti, are common in the interiors of Mayan buildings, but due to constant renovations carried out by these indigenous people, many have been lost over time, he said.
Nonetheless, superimpositions have been found on the graffiti, which let us see the different phases of occupation during the Mayan civilization, which included the south of Mexico, Guatemala, Belize and Honduras.
Other obstacles are the looters or the inadequate treatment for their protection and conservation; each time they have been obviously ransacked, they have deteriorated profoundly.
The book was launched at the National Palace for Culture with the Guatemalan Minister for Culture, Gerónimo Lancerio, the Ambassador for Spain, Carmen Diez Orejas; the rector of the Polytechnic University of Valencia, Francisco Tomás Vert all present.
Furthermore, this Thursday experts and officials took part in the official launch from the exposition Centre at La Blanca, an archaeological site in Petén, some 600 km north of the capital, where they have been working for the last four years.
At this archaeological centre, Muñoz and Vidal discovered an old large Mayan stucco mask, whose finding was made public in January in Spain.
The exhibition room will hold archaeological reproductions and documents in order to analyse the area, as well as a model of the La Blanca and Chilonché acropolises, and a wall containing Mayan graffiti built with ancestral techniques.
It is reckoned that in the jungle of Petén there are around 4,000 archaeological sites, but only 46 are protected and open to the public, and 400 receive some kind of supervision from the Institute of Archaeology and History.
translation: Rhona Desmond
