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Jaguar Nights Mayan Aztec Calendar book series

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DINOSAUR OF BONAMPAK

dinosaur of Bonampek by Michael Giza

Bonampak is an Early Classic Mayan city in Chiapas, Mexico, known for its beautiful murals. (Bonampak means “Painted Walls”.) The paintings, from 790 AD, depict a battle and its aftermath, including human sacrifice.

From August 2002 until June 2003, there was a complete reproduction and restoration of the whole multi-wall mural on display at Peabody Museum in New Haven, allowing for close examination. The most striking part of the mural is that in the bottom left corner of one wall (next to the doorway), as part of a procession, there is a dinosaur. It's not an iguana or some other kind of lizard, nor is it a turtle head. It’s a dinosaur, apparently some kind of Dromaeosaurid (such as a velociraptor or deinonychus). The head is either being worn as a hat (pictured), or it's behind the man. Or it's being carried...an offering? A sacrifice? I cannot say whether this implies that somehow raptor-like dinosaurs were alive 1200 years ago in Mexico; or that the Maya had some kind of very old racial memory of dinosaurs even though dinosaurs and people never lived at the same time; or if perhaps it was an alien, dropping down for a visit, immortalized in this mural. But it's fun to speculate. Perhaps that speculation will get people to admire this mural, and through that the art and science of Mesoamerica.


All material on this site is copyright (c) by Gevera Bert Piedmont except where noted. Jaguar logo and other graphics from Jaguar Nights copyright (c) by Michael A. Giza, used with permission. All rights reserved. Contact me for permission to republish. Information on this site is for entertainment purposes only. Enjoy! })i({

Page created: 13.0.6.1.10 10-Oc 3-Kankin (20 December 2018)
Page modified: 13.0.6.1.10 10-Oc 3-Kankin (20 December 2018)