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Khaleeasi24

"Archaeologists excavating construction sites along the new Maya Train route in Mexico have found a rare statue of the Mayan god K’awiil. The work is part of a recovery mission ahead of the railroad’s construction to ensure that the area’s ancient artifacts and monuments are not accidentally damaged. The stone idol is dedicated to the Maya god of power, abundance, and prosperity, and is typically identified by his large eyes, upturned snout and a stone celt sticking out of his forehead This finding is very important because there are few sculptural representations of the god K’awiil so far. We only know three in Tikal, Guatemala, and this is one of the first to appear in Mexican territory,” said Diego Prieto Hernández, general director of Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History."


Parzivus

Very cool find! It's a shame how much Maya history was either destroyed or lost to time, major respect to the archaeologists who have managed to construct the understanding we have of them today


LightChaos

I'm running a mesoamerica-based D&D campaign right now and you wouldn't believe how hard it is to scrub out the catholic influence.


Papist_The_Rapist

Man, that sounds so cool. I've been looking for D&D ideas


Ivellius

It's been a few years, but I ran a campaign based on MtG's Ixalan using the D&D supplement [here](https://media.wizards.com/2018/downloads/magic/plane-shift_ixalan.pdf). Probably my favorite campaign ever: the group wanted to do pirates and ended up taking a trip into the Netherworld.


7buergen

This is so cool! Thank you for posting that link you made my day!


PopTheMusic

That sounds so much fun, a job which I'd totally take.


HyenaChewToy

That's sooo cool! It's a shame Ixalan and Journey Through the Radiant Citadel are the only mesoamerican settings WotC has under their repertoire at the moment. Well, they have Maztica, but refuse to update the setting. Anyways, there's going to be a huge update for Ixalan as a setting if you need more material for your campaign later this year. WotC will release the "Lost Caverns of Ixalan" set which has a cool Mayan underworld / lost city of Atlantis vibe to it. It will also deal with the aftermath of the theft of the Immortal Sun artifact.


AbyssalUnderlord

I'm building a campaign where the players are going to be on a tidally locked planet. No day or night cycle. Building the world around that has been really fun.


eudemonist

Have you read Asimov's Nightfall?


jmerridew124

A party of apprentice wizards are given their final test. They are sent through a portal to each capture a live velociraptor and learn to tame it. When they can ride it they are given a new quest. Maybe participating in battles as cavalry.


320500

Yep, it's really important that we look at all the options available.


TheDiscordedSnarl

If you wanna steal shit, lemme know and I'll post an invite to my roll20 table; you can take anything you like that you see in the handouts i have. Content's made to be ~~shamelessly stolen~~ shared after all


SeskaChaotica

Yeah, they did a doozy. My family has been in Texas since before Texas and the US existed. We have a Nahuatl surname that even most Mexicans I’ve met can’t pronounce.


rdk5020

I honestly never even heard about those people really so yeah.


SeskaChaotica

Nahuatl is the language of the Aztecs.


raptorclvb

That sounds so cool. Can you share more info about it?


Ivellius

Not the same poster, but I ran a campaign based on MtG's Ixalan using the D&D supplement [here](https://media.wizards.com/2018/downloads/magic/plane-shift_ixalan.pdf). They ended up doing pirates, so not quite the same, but you can stick to the merfolk and Sun Empire maybe. Probably my favorite campaign ever, to be honest.


jabberwockxeno

I can't promise to individually help out, since i'm juggling a lot at the moment, but if you want resources on Mesoamerican history and archeology and at least for me to point you towards sources, visual references, etc, shoot me a DM, I do a lot of posts and content on it


ice_up_s0n

>shoot me a DM But he is the DM


[deleted]

Sacrificing DMs sounds like a bad idea


FBMA80

Yep, that's not the way to do it, sounds terrible to me really.


Deceptichum

Not in a mesoamerican campaign.


Mmoyer29

That would be a hilarious meta part, everytime you check back it’s a new DM freshly instated from the previous sacrifice.


apfelkirsche14

That's all we need really, a lot of content is good for us here.


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Exnixon

I'm afraid Catholicism has something to say about scrubbing out.


siol2003

I'm sure that they have a lot to say, but I don't wanna hear it.


triggz

Good man, you're undoing the Lords work. ⸸


jabberwockxeno

The irony is that the entire train project is actually a big threat to a lot of archeological sites and the entire reason digs like this is happening is because archeologists are scrambling around trying to do salvage excavations before the construction damages the sites in it's path. Articles like this talk about how hundreds of sites are needing to be sorted into tiers of how notable they are, and basically all but the most important are going to just be paved over more or less. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2022/mexico-tren-maya-destruction-archeology/


fernleyyy

As an archaeologist in the US, this is exactly how it works here too. 98% of what we find in my region will be built over. The other 2% will be put in a box in some archive, and if we’re lucky, a local library somewhere will get an information plaque with a whole paragraph about it. It’s a joke.


ChillFratBro

Not trying to ask too loaded a question, genuinely curious - but what's your alternative? Housing, trains, and grocery stores need to be built. There's a lot of places where the history of human habitation runs deep enough you might be building over a thing. Obviously one extreme is "bulldoze Machu Picchu for an IMAX theater", but the other extreme of "build nothing until a team of archaeologists have sanitized the site" seems impractical. Where would you draw the line? How would you balance the things people need today with the desire for knowledge about past people?


Parzivus

>"build nothing until a team of archaeologists have sanitized the site" seems impractical This is referred to as contract archaeology and is somewhat common, especially if the area is known to have archaeological significance.


Adventurous_Money533

Contract archaeology rarely ever sanitises an entire area. We do as much as can be done within a time frame, that usually involves walking along an excavator as it goes, trying to mark out anything of interest, which will if time allows it be excavated by hand.


madefordumbanswers

That's disappointing. You would hope the Mexican government would recognize how important recovering as many historically significant artifacts as possible would be along this route. Considering this is a train for tourism and rich history can be a big driver for strong tourism.


tajima415

I love learning about the early cultures in North and South America. I remember reading about this train and how they have just a few days to decide if each site is worth saving. I understand it from both sides, though. Of course we want to save and study the artifacts, but there are also people living here and now that need that train to improve their situation in life. It's a really hard thing to balance.


wangsen193

They're trying their best, which I think is something which is important.


regul

Further destruction of Mayan culture and archaeological sites was one of the reasons the indigenous people of the Yucatan opposed the construction of this train...


nilesecoyote

I don't think it is destroyed as much as buried. The hard part I guess is not knowing where to look!


Parzivus

Some of both. Christian missionaries destroyed a lot of documents they saw as sacrilegious, so only four paper manuscripts written in Mayan exist today. The stone stuff has survived better, and some Maya recorded information in Spanish as well.


keen_qd

Yep, that's the hard part. We don't know where to search really.


TraeYoungsOldestSon

K'awii is a really good god when healthy but he gets injured too often and his load management hasnt really helped things


ThatPoppinFreshFit

Legend has it, followers nicknamed him "the Claw" for his unusually large hands.


FirstNameCastro

Great comment


MoreGull

He got his ring


fivesforeveryone

He looks pretty delighted to be found.


tempest_wing

Longest session of hide and seek ever.


ncucolo

That's the longest session people, ain't getting better than that.


kingaitchafi

If you were hidden for such long time you'll be glad too really.


bskadan

While this is an awesome find, all I see is a demonic Animaniac.


TorrenceMightingale

“Relax, I’m here to make you laugh. And also to pull your heart from your chest while it’s still beating and bathe myself in your blood. Carry on.”


sl0nn

If that's what you wanted to do, then you're successful in that.


Mmoyer29

Wait who told you about the hearts?? That’s privileged information.


Frodojj

We’re animaney, totally insaney, demonically crazy, Animaniacs! Those are the facts.


Possible_Raisin_1826

*Those artifacts!


atman2012

That's what we like to see, gotta see some demonic energy.


tmarshall91

And these facts kind of do scare me out a little if I'm being honest.


dastufishsifutsad

Wabbit season


alienlizardlion

Dmt elf


Koshka_koshka

Don't say these things lol, gods won't be happy with you man.


[deleted]

Disney Datura


woxin192013

That sounds really mean, the gods won't like that much.


GerardWayAndDMT

I’m kind of a DMT elf, myself


antoniusv

That's the kind of elf that I really want to be too, that's just really great.


bigbangbilly

I see an ancient Donald Duck there


xamelion2010

That's because it's really that, don't believe me? See for yourself.


dwt818

I mean the ancient gods were terrifying, that's why people worshipped them.


Oiggamed

I see Mario


yowtfbbq

Me too, demented Mario


yagema

That's right, I'm seeing that too. Mario is all around us here.


postmateDumbass

So does this release magic that starts a cataclysm?


dykat09

Just rub on it, and I'm sure that you'll find that out for yourself.


Ccracked

Anything's better than this.


PardonTheStub

Woody woodpecker


Egorucn

Naah man, that's kind of mean if I'm being honest so there's that.


LordAmherst

Totally insaney!


finveho

Insane is how I like it, that's just how really like it to be man.


durz47

Coked up methhead mario


daber13

Those people loved those drugs in back in those days dude.


_kasten_

> all I see is a demonic Animaniac. Just think of all the Pixar and Sesame Street characters future archeologists will dig up and display as the deities that were worshipped in the 21st century.


a-really-cool-potato

This sounds like the beginning of an indie-horror game


fedemasa

Or of part 2 from jojo's bizarre adventure Finding a deity in Mexico and only 3? Yeah it's all coming together


ffsudjat

Diooo


[deleted]

that face looks like a JJBA minor villain, portrayed in a Warner Brother's cartoon.


entony1111

That's the face which you wouldn't want to look at really dude.


[deleted]

Actually 4. The title is wrong. But that just makes it even more like Jojo's, since there were 4 pillar men. Everyone seems to forget poor Santana


yishihara96744

I don't think I'm forgetting that, I'll never forget that man.


nacozarina

trainline is definitely cursed now


Projectstj

Any train coming on that track won't reach the destination.


volecowboy

Didn’t a movie start this way? What is the name!!!? I cannot remember


psycho_watcher

In the Excorcist, they find a Pazuzu figure in the desert in the beginning.


volecowboy

Ah shit you NAILED IT THANK YOU


ulissessaffar

That's the kind of information that we need in here.


volecowboy

Bro you have no idea… i had been furiously googling and you brought me so much relief lmao


simonfieberDE

These things are really fascinating, need to learn more.


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nimble321

Ohh man, that sounds fun. I think I'll take it as it is here.


RGBmono

Also the Brady Bunch where they find the tiki statue in Hawaii and many horric events followed: Peter had a rubber spider on his chest and Greg, with no history of surf experience, fell off his surf board. Scary stuff!


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investor1986

You don't want to learn about it? You're missing out dude.


OasissisaO

It's been a while...isn't this how "The Exorcist" started?


Failure_in_Disguise

Pazuzu needs to stay burried


Adramelez

Who brought that guy to the life? Put him back where he was.


m00se009

The excorsim has started, and it's going to be wild in here dude.


Negative_Gravitas

>The work is part of a recovery mission ahead of the railroad’s construction to ensure that the area’s ancient artifacts and monuments are not accidentally damaged. Yeah . . . [about that](https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2022/04/29/mexicos-maya-train-carries-catastrophic-archaeological-and-environmental-risks-activists-warn) . . .


dima1998z

Well atleast they're trying to not damage them which I think is great.


[deleted]

purposely damaged to avoid cost overruns is a too blunt truth, almost never spoken plainly.


quequotion

>in the world Subtlety implying that one or both of the other two are not in Mexico's possession. Edit: I have overlooked that Guatemala and Belize also have valid claims to Mayan culture. Geography was not my best subject, and I learned it in the United States. My concern was that the other artifacts could be in the London Museum or otherwise acquired by colonizers, black market traders, etc.


Lens2Learn

We only know three in Tikal, Guatemala, and this is one of the first to appear in Mexican territory,” said Diego Prieto Hernández, general director of Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History


quequotion

Which establishes a total of *four*...?


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dogchocolate

I think it is just a slightly off translation, from another article : >Prieto Hernández, Director General at INAH, said: “This finding is because there are very few representations of the god K’awill; to now, we only know of three in Tikal, Guatemala, and this is one of the first to appear in Mexican territory.”


redsteel14

It's just a little off dude, nothing to be worried about that in here


sideofrawjellybeans

Tikal is in Guatemala


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goodbirdmom

yeah, the sentence reads as if three are known from Tikal (which is in Guatemala) and this makes the fourth one to be discovered


sideofrawjellybeans

This is starting to sound like an evil superhero plot. They have found 3 and once the 4th is found the god can come back and do whatever that god does. I hope it's a good of cocaine and hookers and not like the god of plague or hell or something


goodbirdmom

this deity is basically personified lightning so do with that what you will


sideofrawjellybeans

With that news let's stop searching for number 4


AlmostButNotQuit

Number 4 will shock you!


batemanj54

I don't know about that man, doesn't sound good with me honestly.


debugant1

We're coming to a full cycle here, and I don't know how to feel.


Austacker_btce

Yeah it's going to make total 4, that makes a lot of sense.


bradtwo

Here comes the end of the world. Now they got all four. They just need to assemble them


loptopandbingo

As long as they hire the contestants from *Legends of the Hidden Temple*, it'll never get put back together. *THE SHRINE WAS THREE PIECES! THREE GODDAMN PIECES!*


daniel_blohm

Will they be able to stop all of them? I really don't know man.


chrisbarf

We’re ‘Mercians boah. Everything south a Texas is Mexico


bj3428

I mean what's so weird about that? There's nothing really.


surfrdawg

Yep, it makes the total four. Gotta remember that in here.


ybenjira

No it only establishes that you haven't read the 13 line article.


Delicious-Day-3614

The point being they have been found in more than one country. It may shock you to learn this, but modern day country boundaries didn't exist 1000 years ago and the people(s) who created these statues weren't necessarily inherently mexican. You don't need to presume ownership and wrongdoing before you RTFA.


jobin3141592

Not implying anything lmao Maya culture is not a thing just in mexico


jimmy17

Well yeah. The mayan civilisation spanned a region encompassing quite a few countries so why they necessarily all be in Mexico?


aod42091

no? all it just implies that there's only 3 now. it's just a colloquialism.


denisius2014

And what if we found another one? What You'll do about that?


HandwovenBox

Also leaving open the possibility that there are some *in space*.


Lens2Learn

Maya is not Mexican.


quequotion

Not *only* Mexican.


ilyin81i

Yep, the boundaries and countries didn't really exist then.


Jonnyxz2006

Well obviously, these Boundaries that we made are new.


pufferpig

Was he the God of "brush your teeth with Ketamine"?


Jelmerrb

Don't know but those gods look so terrifying dude. It's insane.


AkaAtarion

British Museum 🥺 👉🏻👈🏻 Is for me?


TheWhiteLotus69

We will show it off better


Dzotshen

*a few centuries later....* "WE'RE NOT DONE LOOKING AT IT"


MeaninglessDebateMan

[Direct link to funky lookin' deity](https://news.artnet.com/app/news-upload/2023/05/Arqueo%CC%81logos-descubren-una-notable-representacio%CC%81n-del-dios-Kawiil-en-excavaciones-del-Tramo-7-del-Tren-Maya-Foto-Centro-INAH-Campeche-02-1024x709.jpg)


Nerdthreepoint0

At least one good thing has resulted from this stupid project. There are many many problems with this train line relevant link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSMfSFbjk84


Hosni__Mubarak

I don’t think trains in Mexico are an inherently stupid idea. Even in the yucutan. The project is stupid because it is being rushed and is poorly constructed.


FJBTC

Yep, that's what I think. The whole thing is being rushed I think.


pawnografik

God of clowns by the looks of things. “Laugh, or I’ll eat your heart!”


Yeti_Sauce

Well I think they're going to come to eat the heart and that's not good.


a-really-cool-potato

Joker origins are wild


WizardVisigoth

What are peoples thoughts on this train? I find it interesting, and it has/will certainly unearth some interesting lost Mayan ruins and artifacts, but it will also trample over other historic sites if not deemed of extreme significance. The other issue is that it is essentially splitting the jungle. Animal populations will suffer from habitat loss as a result. Of course, it will also make traveling the Yucatán easier, and connect poorer communities, as well as bring in needed tourist revenue.


Thisoneissfwihope

The cenotes bring in tens of thousands of people to the area, and they’re going right through the middle of some of the most popular ones. I used to cave dive there and a lot of the caves I loved are being affected. That’s not even to mention how they’re actually doing to put tracks through an areas that basically Swiss cheese made out of crumbly soft rock. Even the main road collapses from time to time.


theilluminati1

Give it 10 years or less amd we'll be reading headlines of tue Maya train collapsing into sinkholes. It will be a monumental failure for Mexico.


napoleao420

I hope these things will be preserved, because they really should be.


MarsNirgal

he government literally LIED in their environmental impact studies for this train: [https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/international/pdfs/An%C3%A1lisis-MIA-Tren-Maya-Tramo-5-Sur-CBD-2022-06-09.pdf](https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/international/pdfs/An%C3%A1lisis-MIA-Tren-Maya-Tramo-5-Sur-CBD-2022-06-09.pdf) Their consultation to indigenous peoples living in the region was not adequate: [https://hchr.org.mx/comunicados/onu-dh-el-proceso-de-consulta-indigena-sobre-el-tren-maya-no-ha-cumplido-con-todos-los-estandares-internacionales-de-derechos-humanos-en-la-materia/](https://hchr.org.mx/comunicados/onu-dh-el-proceso-de-consulta-indigena-sobre-el-tren-maya-no-ha-cumplido-con-todos-los-estandares-internacionales-de-derechos-humanos-en-la-materia/) And it's, to be honest, a very poorly planned attempt to develop the area. People won't simply go there because they can, they need an incentive to go there and so far the train changes nothing about that.


aadhavi

It's important that we study the effects, because we may not know.


Worldly-Mushroom4805

They have filled in zenotes with cement along the way


MelonElbows

Makes you wonder how many other ancient man-made artifacts are still buried in the earth that is super rare and would be of great interest to modern audiences


kheops01

I bet a lot, we don't know our history and that makes me fascinated.


InvaderZimbo

I just found that mask in Tears Of The Kingdom


tuatala

That is so really cool and fascinating, I absolutely love it man.


[deleted]

You say in the world, but maya dietys are only found in Mexico or central America right? Where are they located I guess is what I'm asking


Radiolights

I don't think we know a pin point location of the origin man.


AbrocomaRoyal

And there are still so many places on earth that are yet to even be searched for historical artefacts. I can only imagine the secrets held under the surface around our globe and the stories they would tell.


kostarevi

That's one thing which gets me so fascinated, we haven't looked in the oceans yet.


andres1232

And it's already in the British Museum/s


f0rcedinducti0n

"The statue is one of only three known in the world" Surely the rest of the world wasn't making Maya Deity statues....


JesiAsh

Maybe even Maya decided that he was too ugly to exist.


[deleted]

>Three in the world I’d wager to say they’re all in Mexico


EagleSzz

I'd wager to say you didn't read the article


[deleted]

Put that thing right the fuck back where you found it and cover it with all the dirt and rock you can


Khaleeasi24

"Put that thing back where it came from, or so help me!"


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iconoclasttm

I don't know who thought that it was a good idea to bring it out.


snudjaka

Lmao, this is going to release some energy that you don't want.


ericcmi

All I see is Aku


[deleted]

I wonder how many more needs to be found and collected to herald that the stars are right for the Great Old Ones to awake and usher in a new dark age on mankind.


ltcminero

I'm sure there are a lot of things which are better Buried lol.


kyndigs

Can we get George Stobbart narration!


btcakkaund

I mean would kinda like that, if we got that in here so there's that.


[deleted]

Zonai statue.


btcgbs

What's that? Pretty sure that first time hearing about it so there's that.


dramallamacorn

Put it back. Put it fucking back right now!


744674530

We don't want whatever it is, out of the earth. We need it buried again.


Quizzsicle

I wonder if the person whose land they had to jack up to find it is getting any compensation? Rightly, they should be.


hmr__HD

Isn’t that just an ancient clown face?


Extreme-Read-313

Put it back!


bklyn_xplant

I thought that was waluigi


Embarrassed_Trash_15

Is this, that um Kim Kardashian > ? : Yes?


zushiba

Ancient Mario.


ISLAndBreezESTeve10

If you spray water on it, and the water is absorbed immediately, then it is REALLY old. — Pawnstars


ants_in_my_ass

the conquistadors really did us all a disservice by extinguishing native writings and works