San Bartolo por fin

San Bartolo is a Maya site in the northeastern part of the Petén, the northern "panhandle" department of Guatemala. It was discovered in 2001 and has since been the site of a large-scale regional archaeological project. It has recently produced one hat, two Doctors of Archaeology, a handful of undergraduate theses (mine included), and more than a few amateur experts on Maya art and culture. It has been my home for the last six weeks.

The Petén is densely forested and when living in it one becomes accustomed to encountering two distinct types of landscape:



1. Jungle



2. Jungle with ruins

This is a subtle distinction that takes time to appreciate. It's sometimes difficult to comprehend there's anything for miles around even when you're standing at the foot of an enormous architectural complex. Though recent scientific breakthroughs (with direct connections to San Bartolo, incidentally) have made it possible for archaeological sites in the jungle to be remotely sensed from space, detecting Maya settlements in the Petén brush has been historically difficult and there are subsequently many un"discovered" (because it takes a licensed, typically non-local archaeologist to "discover"), unexcavated (though unfortunately not unlooted) sites pockmarking the jungle, visible only through a subtle rise in the earth and tiny dots of vertical inconsistency in the treeline.

San Bartolo is one of these pockmarks, about 1 km² consisting of four main architectural groups (including temples, palaces, ritual structures and administrative compounds), two large plazas, and a road running north-south for about half a kilometer between a ball-court and two residential groups. San Bartolo was discovered by chance and propelled to the forefront of Maya studies (and then thrust into the media limelight) because of its unique mural paintings:





The murals are significant because they index a fully articulated origin myth and cosmology (and attendant writing system) in place in the Maya lowlands at a date much earlier than was previously surmised for these cultural innovations (ca. 100 BC). If you're interested to learn more you can read my 80-page microtome on the subject (esp. Ch 2). If not you can enjoy my two favorite mural details. Above: The Maize God, having founded civilization at the world center and established the institution of kingship, dives into the underworld so that we (humans) might live, wrapped in this crazy abstract red-black-and-white death snake. Below: A slick jaguar hangs out on Flower Mountain (an iconographic motif with connections to Central Mexico, basically a topograph signifying the place of wild and beastly nature), where he snacks on an Oropendola (a weird-sounding, gold-tailed bird with its own Central Mexican connection: it was Montezuma's favorite).

As per Guatemalan law I can't reveal explicit details about the excavations I've done this season until these have been reported in full to the Institución de Antropología e Historia (IDAEH) at an annual Simposio in July, so instead I will dispassionately list the classes of artifact one might find in the course of excavating a lowland Maya site and maybe I will at a later date indicate what exactly I did and did not do in relation to these artifacts, which are at this writing only hypothetically related to San Bartolo:



A spindle whorl



Skulls



Polychrome pottery



Obsidian



Ceramic figurines



Ancient holes in the ground (not to be confused with Contemporary holes in the ground)



Benches



Bone jewelry



Mandibles



Friezes




Stelae. These last two are from Xultun, a large site to the southwest of San Bartolo. I was part of the first sustained mapping and excavation efforts at the site last year, and with full scale excavations set to commence next season, I may work up from the ground floor of Xultunian exploration. Which sounds kind of cool when I put it like that.



So I'm back in Antigua now, as evidenced by my favored motif of the omnipresent Volcán Agua, my constant reference point. It's an overcast morning and I'm slowly (2.5 hrs and counting) sipping away at a cappuccino at this super bougie cafe in the northwest corner of the Parque Central, which I was reduced to patronizing because my favorite wifi-friendly cafe (which is less bougie if no less "western", maybe the only difference is mean age of clientele?) doesn't have electricity and I needed to skype out to Beijing at 7am sharp for a job interview. Such is my life. I am of course and as always at a crossroads, but one that will hopefully be in my rearview within the next two weeks. Which way will I go? A note of suspense to tantalize my bewildered readership...

Regardless of what route I will take I am immeasurably satisfied with how the last few months have gone. I dug deep and got to the bones (yeah, puns) of the subject that I recently received a degree in, gained a visceral and spatial appreciation of time, made myriad little philosophical connections in a million different directions, became functionally fluent in Spanish, and had time to read a few good books. I realized how much I like archaeology. Archaeology is ethically useful because it encourages humans to think inclusively about humanity. Superficially (another pun) archaeology is a study of "the other," but so was anthropology until the ethical timebomb of regarding living, breathing, communicating humans as an "other" exploded and the discipline became "postmodern." The difference between anthropology and archaeology is that the people with whom the latter is concerned are neither living nor breathing. The similarity is that all people—past and present—communicate.


That said I'll terminate this particular communication. If you're going to be in Boston, Austin, Atlanta, Savannah, or San Antonio during the month of May, hit me up because we may cross paths. In the mean time, be good and make it a



-Josh