so, tell me what that would have meant. so, tikal was defeating its archenemy, the snake kingdom, and they already defeated the actual snake kings and now they were going after its former allies and vassals. this is historical archaeology. we don tjust talk about processes any more and theories, now we talk about specific events, specific people, because we can read the inscription. and yet, this tomb was almost destroyed before estrada belli, or any another archaeologist, were able to discover it. and here is the tomb chamber. wow. looters came and dug a hole right behind this doorway.
looters can come and they are really well organised, and they can take everything from you. one day, we hired a group of guards to protect it. but it didn t work because some of them tried to steal from the tomb. i confront them, one of them took his gunshot, at that time, i think i was a good liar, i said this is a computer, we have internet that we did not have and i said we were filming everything. then he stopped. another major challenge for the maya biosphere reserve is illegal logging, often tied to drug trafficking. and when the jungle is cleared, it does notjust affect the rainforest and the animals, but the maya sites which are often irretrievably damaged. they will clear around the archaeological sites, grow marijuana, loot the sites, and then collect to harvest.
but nobody has pinpointed where that ran through. we wonder if lidar will eventually reveal that to us. that would be amazing. the first king of el zotz was such an important character that a temple was created for him so he would never be forgotten. be careful with these things. they are supporting the roof. when you are here, be careful here. if you are going to fall, fall this way. so don t fall on the sculpture. so this was all for one king? yes, for the first king. this king was powerful, but he was an extension of power. they were on the top here and we say yes, that has to be defensive. lidar is helping us to recognise everything that this king did to protect him, his family and his legacy. it was the creation of a dynasty.
it also was once the heart of the maya civilisation. today, hundreds of houses, fortifications, temples and other structures lie hidden beneath the jungle. i like this part. but some archaeologists are determined to change that. they have devoted their careers to getting the jungle to give up its secrets. and new technology has revealed that, despite decades of work, they have only begun to scratch the surface. there s a deep hole and that is where they are digging right now. don t let me down. the maya city of holmul
that is the frieze right there. that s the corner image of one of the dead kings. you can imagine what they would have done. they would have thought there was definitely something cool behind this carving and they would just blast through it. he s all there. it goes for eight metres that way and another five this way. he has been damaged on purpose by the ancient maya. nothing else really is damaged in the whole carving. just his face, his necklace, ceremonial head. the maya believed everything had a soul, including images of people and things. so when they were burying something, they would let the soul out by killing the image. that is the god of the underworld. he is holding something. he is holding a hieroglyph. two syllables, words.