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Article: Openings to the underworld: the ancient Maya may have dug caves with spiritual abandon.
- Article from:
- Science News
- Article date:
- May 18, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 Science Service, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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For more than 100 years, archaeologists have hacked through jungles in Mexico and Central America in a quest to uncover pyramids, temples, and other majestic ruins of Maya civilization. James E. Brady of California State University, Los Angeles appreciates the backbreaking work that goes into finding such monumental structures, but he has his sights set lower. As he's probed the ancient Maya's sacred landscape, he's come to realize that this group's belief system invested immense supernatural power in caves and the mountains that surround them.
Brady heads up a growing band of researchers who are piecing together this subterranean, spiritual perspective. In their ...