Construction Workers In Belize Destroy Ancient Mayan Pyramid For Road
Construction Workers In Belize Destroy Ancient Mayan Pyramid For Road
May 14, 2013
Police in Belize are investigating a construction company that has essentially destroyed one of the region’s most important historical structures. A 2,300-year-old Mayan structure located at the Nohmul complex in northern Belize was one of the largest pyramids in the Caribbean nation before it was leveled by a company seeking out gravel to dump on village roads.
Using backhoes and bulldozers, construction workers dug into the structure to extract crushed rock, according to authorities looking into the matter on Monday. Archaeologists, horrified by what was found, said there was no way the workers could have mistaken the ancient ruins for a hill, as they had claimed.
Jaime Awe, head of the Belize Institute of Archaeology, said the destruction was detected late last week.
“It’s a feeling of Incredible disbelief because of the ignorance and the insensitivity … they were using this for road fill,” Awe said in a statement picked up by Mail Online. “It’s like being punched in the stomach, it’s just so horrendous.”
The pyramid also sat in the middle of a privately-owned sugar cane field, and while it lacked the even stone sides seen in better-preserved pyramids, the mistake should not have occurred, Awe said. “These guys knew that this was an ancient structure. It’s just bloody laziness.”
After digging deep into the mound, the workers left an isolated core of limestone cobbles, exposing a narrow Mayan chamber dangling above a hollowed-out section.
More:
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1112846078/ancient-mayan-pyramid-destroyed-construction-workers-belize-051413/
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Road-builder in Belize says landowner gave permission to excavate Mayan pyramid mound
By Patrick E. Jones, The Associated Press May 16, 2013
The owner of a road-building company in Belize that has been blamed for the near destruction of one of the country's biggest Mayan pyramids said Thursday that the landowner gave permission to extract the material.
Businessman Denny Grijalva said the landowner had allowed excavations on his property for more than a decade.
In 1998, then businessmen Alfredo Martinez extracted stones from the same area also to build a road. Martinez is now Belize's ambassador in neighbouring Guatemala.
Archeologists in Belize and around the world expressed outrage at the demolition of the Nohmul complex in northern Belize to extract crushed rock.
Nohmul sat in the middle of a privately owned sugar cane field, and lacked the even stone sides frequently seen in reconstructed or better-preserved pyramids.
The head of the Belize Institute of Archaeology, Jaime Awe, said the builders could not possibly have mistaken the pyramid mound, which is about 100 feet tall, for a natural hill because the ruins were well-known and the landscape there is naturally flat.
More:
http://www.canada.com/life/Roadbuilder+Belize+says+landowner+gave+permission+excavate+Mayan/8397441/story.html
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