Machu Picchu older than expected, study reveals
news.yale.edu
news.yale.edu
Pushing back use of Machu Picchu a few decades is fine, but I think they still have nothing material to suggest when construction began. It could have been built a thousand years before, abandoned, and then re-occupied and repaired later.
It is troubling that visitors cannot easily tell what parts have been reconstructed since it became a tourist site.
Only a few Egyptian samples were analyzed, that seemed to place them 500 years "too early". There seems little enthusiasm to follow up. Most specialists see little value: either the results match what is already believed, or they show that everybody but a few cranks were wrong. The first is a waste of precious grants; the latter a big nuisance.
Most archaeological contexts are less fraught with obnoxious cranks (who might be right about the timeline, but for all the wrong reasons!), and so are correspondingly more open to factual input. And, have fewer career results at risk from newly obtainable facts.
We need those surface luminescence studies to get some objective facts to work with.
Yeah the "partial restoration" always rubbed me the wrong way, basically choosing an arbitrary level of insufficient repair and maintenance.
If the residents of Machu Picchu were alive today, how would they feel about their city being half-assedly fixed? Why not just rebuild the city to the best of your ability true to its original architecture and building methods? It's arguably a disgrace as-is.
I have similar feelings about the pyramids in Egypt. Calling them "historic ancient ruins" seems like a convenient excuse to neglect repairs/maintenance and let them slowly deteriorate back into the earth. Get on it, show us what the pyramids are supposed to look like at their finest! I hear their flat stone faces would gleam in the sun.
For historical sites with any mystery, even a restoration done with skill and care would create some fiction while destroying evidence that could be used in the future. Earlier eras were filled with this kind of sanctioned, inquisitive vandalism - the Victorian fascination with mummies is especially relevant. There’s a lot we won’t ever learn because of that early enthusiasm.
I’m not advocating doing nothing with historical sites. I’m just more comfortable with preservation than reconstruction that replaces the original. If they want to build a brand new set of pyramids, using original construction methods and designed to match, just do it off to the side a little bit and I’m all for it.
Then, I would agree with restoring and maximally using these structures for modern purposes. If ancient Egypt persisted, the pyramids would have changed as well. Change shape, color, purpose. Who knows.
Change is integral to life and trying to keep something the same for millenia just for the sake of not changing it, is unnatural.
But alas, we don't know what we don't know. This is the major argument in the way of ever abandoning these structures as archeological sites and to shift them to modern use.
So this isn't a massive revision changing big conceptions about pre-Columbian Incan society - just a hint Spanish interpretations of native records, post-conquest, somewhat off.
Calakmul in Mexico was my favorite. I loved climbing the steps of a pyramid, rising above the jungle canopy, and then seeing a pyramid twice as high staring back at me.
The small sites on the various trails in are quiet, and incredible. Many haven’t been reconstructed is dubious fashion. It’s am amazing area.
Here are a few pictures I took at Calakmul of two of the many large structures:
https://500px.com/photo/1027901445/Ruins-at-Calakmul-Structu...
https://500px.com/photo/1027483989/Calakmul-Ruins-Structure-...
The "Mayan Train" is currently under construction and may eventually bring many more tourists to the area - I would highly suggest going before that happens and everything there changes. (It will be great for the region in terms of economic impact, but the status quo with few visitors on incredible sites is really magnificent.)
The ruins at Becan, Xpuhil (Xpujil), and Coba are all also really incredible - and only a handful of people visit them per day. You can easily stay in Bacalar, visit Chetumal in the morning, drive to see Becan and Xpujil in the afternoon, and then visit Calakmul the next day. (Driving back to Tulum/Playa del Carmen/etc makes for a long drive afterwards, but is certainly doable.)
Fly into Cancun, rent a car, and then go drive down the coast and plan various stops for a really great trip. Playa del Carmen and Tulum are fun, of course, in an "international tourism" sense. Bacalar and Chetumal are also "tourist towns", but they are very different - think of a small, charming beach/lake town with an older, more original/authentic feel.
Early observations of ruins in the Americas concluded that some ancient civilization had traveled and built everything there since native Americans were considered to be primitives. Giving credit to the Maya for their language and literature was considered a weird conspiracy at first but ongoing study proved otherwise.