Italian American Digest 7Italian American Digest FALL 2018 | Page 21

FALL 2018
I talian A merican D igest
PAGE 21
Tulane Professor the Indiana Jones of Maya Archaeology
by Enrico Villamaino
Should you ever find yourself on
the Tulane University campus and
happen to make your way to the third
floor of Dinwiddie Hall, wander past
the offices of the Middle American
Research Institute (MARI), and find
just the right office, tucked into a
corner and overflowing with old
tomes and artifacts, you just might
be able to say hello to Indiana Jones.
Or, at the very least, the closest
thing to Indiana Jones you’re likely
to meet this side of the silver screen.
Dr. Francisco Estrada-Belli, in his
many roles as professor, archaeolo-
gist, explorer, cartographer and, yes,
discoverer of a lost city, is revolu-
tionizing the way academia sees
ancient Maya culture.
I find him seated behind a desk
buried under papers, maps and
monitors. Estrada-Belli is genial and
casual, a demeanor that has served
him well in both the classroom and
the jungle. He eases his tall frame
back into his chair, looks to the
ceiling as he collects his thoughts,
smiles widely and energetically, and
is eager to dive right into discussion
of his work.
Born to a mother hailing from
central Italy and a father from Gua-
temala City, Estrada-Belli was raised
in Rome. He studied at the Universi-
ty of Rome, known as “La Sapienza”
(“The Wisdom”), earning his laurea
in anthropology and archaeology. “I
was very lucky,” he says. “I received
an excellent education.” He became
proficient at reading both the ancient
Etruscan language and Egyptian
hieroglyphics, though he’s quick to
point out that “that was a long time
ago, I’m a bit rusty.”
Upon completion of his under-
graduate studies, Estrada-Belli
performed his mandatory term of
service in the Italian armed forces.
A member of the army’s corps of
engineers, he trained in the construc-
tion of NATO bridges and also in the
use of explosives, “the opposite of
construction,” he jokes.
Once discharged from the military,
Estrada-Belli came to the United
States and began his graduate work
at Boston University. His advisor
during his tenure at BU was Dr. Nor-
man Hammond, a British archaeolo-
gist, academic and Mesoamericanist
scholar, noted for his publications
and research on the pre-Columbian
Maya civilization. Now a professor
emeritus at BU, Dr. Hammond had
excavations. His expeditions have
conducted many research exca-
been funded by National Geograph-
vations of ancient Mayan sites in
ic, the National Science Foundation,
Belize, and it was he who suggested
and the Foundation for Maya Cultur-
that Estrada-Belli focus his efforts
al and Natural Heritage, also known
on the relatively forgotten city of
as Pacuman.
Holmul, located on the Guatemalan
Among his discoveries at the
side of the Guatemala/Belize border.
Holmul
site are three royal tombs, in-
“Dr. Hammond is British, and
until relatively recently Belize was a cluding kings whose names translate
British colony called British Hondu- to “Storm God Rattles the Sky” and
ras,” Estrada-Belli explains. “At that “Fiery Storm Tamer.” “Like Native
Americans,” he explains, “the Maya
time, the border between Belize and
incorporated both weather phenome-
Guatemala was in some dispute.”
na and animal traits into their names
There were political difficulties in
in an allegorical manner.”
the British professor attempting to
In 2013, Estrada-Belli discovered
reach Holmul, but for Estrada-Belli,
an intact carving above the tomb of
who held Guatemalan citizenship
Storm God Rattles the Sky depicting
through his father and was much
the apotheosis—
more likely
the elevation
to receive
of a person to
permission
godhood—of the
to work
deceased king.
at the site
Also among his
from Gua-
findings are five
temala’s
axes made of
Ministry
over 20 pounds
of Culture,
of jade, a sub-
it was a
stance more
much more
valuable to
feasible
the Maya than
venture. Ar-
gold. “They are
rangements
beautiful,” he
were hastily
declares. “One
made, and
of them is even
Dr. Francisco Estrada-Belli
he soon
translucent!”
He
found him-
was also able to
self across the border, in the mid-
identify
evidence
of
Proto-Maya, the
dle of nowhere, with only “a $100
root language dating back to around
travelers’ check that my mother had
1000 B.C. from which the 31 known
given me for emergencies. That and
modern Maya dialects descend. An-
a disposable camera.” Estrada-Belli
other explosive discovery involved
soon found a Swiss man at a hotel
a carving that depicted Teotihua-
of questionable repute who owned
can warriors surrounding a Maya
an old Land Rover and was able to
barter his way into a ride 50 kilome- city. Teotihuacan was an ancient,
pre-Columbian civilization located
ters into the jungle. “There were no
in modern-day Mexico. “There has
roads,” he says, grinning. He made
long been debate about whether or
his way to Holmul.
not the Maya in the Holmul were
Holmul is a pre-Columbian ar-
ever invaded by Teotihuacan,” Estra-
chaeological site of the Maya civi-
da-Belli says. “This carving seems to
lization located in the northeastern
tip the scales in favor of the position
Petén Basin region. It was initially
that they did.”
discovered in 1911 by Raymond
Raymond Merwin died in 1928.
Merwin, a Harvard archaeologist.
Though his cause of death is not
After several trips, Merwin retired
certain, it is believed that he likely
from fieldwork in 1915. Since that
died from from heart failure caused
time, the site remained largely un-
by Chagas disease, which he con-
touched. Estrada-Belli was the first
tracted from the bite of a jungle
serious academic to visit and study
kissing bug, resulting in a sore that
the site in nearly a century.
did not heal. His premature death
Over the course of the next 20
left his work unfinished and much of
years, Estrada-Belli would teach at
his explorations’ notes and findings
BU, Harvard, and Vanderbilt Uni-
versity during the school year, while unexplained. The most tantalizing of
these were his journal entries refer-
dedicating his summers to further
ring to another city he discovered,
quite by accident. Merwin stumbled
upon this location during his explo-
rations and even sketched a carving
of a dancing king in its central plaza.
Merwin did not, however, leave
specific details regarding the exact
location of this city. After his death,
its existence was largely forgotten.
More than 70 years after Merwin’s
death, Estrada-Belli rediscovered
this lost city after receiving some
valuable assistance from Ian James
Alastair Graham, a British explorer
and author of the Corpus of Maya
Hieroglyphic Inscriptions. The son
of Lord Alastair Graham, himself
the youngest son of the fifth duke
of Montrose, Ian James Alastair
Graham combed through Merwin’s
notes. “He was able to pick out
certain clues,” Estrada-Belli ex-
plains. “ ‘The city is eight leagues
from Holmul.’ ‘It’s to the north of a
lagoon.’ That sort of thing.” Graham
then sketched a map of the probable
location of the lost city, which he
called Cival, after a local word for
“lagoon.” With Graham’s map in his
arsenal of resources, Estrada Belli
found Cival in 2001 and quickly
recognized the carving from Mer-
win’s sketch. “It’s one of the earliest
portraits we have of a Maya king,
going back to at least 200 B.C.”
An experienced cartographer,
Estrada-Belli was involved in some
of the very earliest trials of using
GPS devices to aid in archaeological
mapping. Today, he remains on the
cutting edge of tech-mapping with
the use of LiDAR, a detection sys-
tem that works on the principle of
radar, but uses light from a laser. The
resulting data can allow for the con-
struction of 3D maps that can pierce
through the veil of thick vegetation
that has overgrown the Mayan ruins.
This method was recently featured
on the National Geographic program
“Lost Treasures of the Maya Snake
Kings.”
“Using LiDAR, we can get a much
clearer picture of these sites,” Estra-
da-Belli explains. “We now see that
these cities were much larger than
previously believed. For example,
Holmul was thought to have around
5,000 inhabitants; we now know it
to be over 10,000. We thought Cival
had 10,000; it‘s now clear that it had
more than 20,000. We also see how
interconnected these cities were. We
have LiDAR evidence that cause-
Estrada-Belli cont. on page 23