Text and photography by Luis Alonso Muñoz
Luis Alonzo -M-uñoz, sitting in front of the ruins of Tazumal, El Salvador, exposes the deterioration of the steps of the Piramids of Tikal, Guatemala. (photo courtesy of Luis Alonzo Munoz)
The ruins of the cradle of one of the most ancient civilization of the American continent could disappear if the care keepers of these treasures do not act immediately.
The Mayan civilization is the most sophisticated culture in the ancient history of the American continent. They are the inventors of the mathematical symbol of to be or not to be, with the power to create the infinite of anything and of the infinite to return to nothing: the zero.
They count with the research most perfect calendar that does not have any comparison in the history of humanity. Its literature, the Popol Vuh (Book of the People), is its maxim expression.
Its painting, including murals and sculpture, possess a diversity of styles and skills, like the crystal skull, which is almost a fantasy, a dream for perfection of its finished one that up to today there is no idea of how it was elaborated. Its exquisite architecture is unique in its design. This wonderful cultural treasure bequeathed to humanity, it gets lost for by the irresponsibility of the governments for whom the protection of the UNESCO and the help of other countries to preserve this invaluable patrimony, is canalized in another direction.
Archaeologists of diverse universities and countries have plundered everything what they find in the excavations, leaving only the architectural skeleton, and often unfinished works.
The magnificent and most beautiful objects found, are secret to the world in the cellars of the universities of many countries, or in private collections of collectors that they have had and have the consent of the governments that lack the responsibility with the ancestral wealth, which cannot be for sell or under any type of agreement.
In El Salvador, in Jewelry of Cerén, vessels of mud met skeletons doubled in his interior and: where are they?
In the pyramids of Tazumal, Chalchuapa, the corpse of a priest found with pieces of jade: where are they? When I asked the employees for these objects, they showed not to have the remote idea that these ever existed. Their response is of a timid one, shrugging the shoulders and looking the other way, because they cannot give an explanation, since they ignore their cultural roots.
And if they are asked in English or French, the situation is chaotic for the tourist. The $3 charge for entry does not do not allow to pay for better qualified employees, and even worse is that if the tourists ask for a fact sheet or a free pamphlet with a description of the ruins, the employees say that they are being printed.
Guatemala is not different, there history repeats itself. For example, the main pyramids in Tikal were white 20 years ago, and now they are black, covered with moss and probably with fungi, while the porous steps are crumbling into pieces, irremediably towards its final destruction.
