Today was all about gifting.
Holland had gifted himself ... finally. He rarely spends $$$ on himself, so I was glad packages arrived for him.
Holland gifted me: a couple days ago, my headphones gutted out on me ... and immedately, Holland went online and ordered me a new set - it was good of Elohim to make sure that everything arrived at the same time.
And my current Cussler-Fargo storyline is about thwarting greedy theives; and gifting South America with their own artifacts, by the Fargo duo working with the governing leadership to stop black market criminals.
After coffee, we drove across the Columbia River to retrieve waiting packages:
Today is basically a Day of Rest, so the morning drive was the extent of busyness. The rest of the Day was pretty laid-back, with lounging, napping, personal choices of low-key activity: we gifted ourselves with just "being".
My choice was getting back to the jungle adventure, in South America, with the Fargos …
{{La Danta: One of the Largest Pyramids on Earth is Hidden Beneath the Forest
I've only posted interesting tidbits of this original article; focusing on the facts touched on in Clive's novel.
~Ivan Petricevic
Built thousands of years ago in present-day Guatemala are the remnants of a lost city called El Mirador. This ancient metropolis thrived from approximately the sixth through the third centuries BC, wholly abandoned around the ninth century. During its heyday, the ancient Maya civilization built within Mirador a pyramid that would stand the test of time. But not just any pyramid. They built a massive superstructure (or better said, complex structures), rising a towering 72 meters into the air. Today, one could pass by it and barely notice a behemoth structure even larger than the Great Pyramid of Giza in terms of volume. But, in fact, some of the largest, most impressive pyramids were not built in Africa but in North, Central, and South America.
Found in 1926
The ancient city was revealed in 1926 by Percy Madeira. A brief survey of La Danta was done by a Carnegie expedition in 1934, but it only lasted a few hours due to a lack of water in the area. In 1962, archaeologist Ian Graham produced the first map of the site where the area identified as La Danta (1967) is known. Later from 1978 until 1983, the Mirador Archaeological Project, led by Ray Matheny and Bruce Dahlin, conducted the first intensive investigations. During exploration, archeologists found, surprisingly, that a large number of constructions were not contemporary with the large Maya classic cities in the area but rather from centuries earlier, during the pre-classic period.
https://curiosmos.com/la-danta-one-of-the-largest-pyramids-on-earth-is-hidden-beneath-the-forest/
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The Ambition, Power, and Downfall of the great Calakmul
I've only posted interesting tidbits of this original article; focusing on the facts touched on in Clive's novel.
~By Carlos Rosado van der Gracht
Calakmul is an ancient Mayan city found deep in the jungle of the southeastern Mexican state of Campeche, near the border with Guatemala. The site is also in the heart of the biosphere of the same name which covers an area of 700,000 hectares. The archeological site itself is well over 70 square kilometers and is home to approximately 6,000 structures that range enormously in size.
Calakmul was first documented by the biologist Cyrus Longworth Lundell in 1931. But it is widely believed that the existence of the ancient city had become an open secret of sorts between the few people living in this remote territory and workers who would delve into the jungle to harvest chicle trees.
In Mayan, Calakmul means “the city of the adjacent pyramids,” but in antiquity the city was known as Oxte’Tun, meaning three stones. The date of Calakmul’s foundation has been lost to time, but most scholars agree that the city first rose sometime between 700 and 350 BCE. During excavations, archaeologists discover a network of Mayan roads or Sacbés connecting Calakmul with the powerful pre-classical age cities of Mirador, Nakbé, and Uaxactún. This fact, even taken on its own, hints at an extremely early foundation date, power, and prestige.
During the classic age, starting in the second half of third-century BCE, Calakmul had risen to considerable importance. But it would not be until several centuries after that the city would reach its greatest splendor. During the fifth century CE, Calakmul had become bold and strong enough to begin challenging the city which would become its greatest rival, Tikal. Hostility turned to war in 562 CE under the leadership of the king of Calakmul, Sky Witness, who launched an all-out invasion of Tikal. The battle was hard-fought, but in the end, Calakmul managed to capture Tikal’s ruling class, including its king who they put to death, and turned the once hegemonic power into a vassal kingdom.
https://yucatanmagazine.com/the-ambition-power-and-downfall-of-the-great-calakmul/ }}
