[Aztlan] BBC Story on Sacred plants of the Maya forest

[Elaine Schele]

Below is a direct copy and paste from the website:

Some of the Central American rainforest's hidden treasures are being
revealed by the Maya, more than a millennium after their passing.

A study of the giant trees and beautiful flowers depicted in Maya art
has identified which they held sacred. Created during the Maya Classic
Period, the depictions are so accurate they could help researchers
spot plants with hitherto unknown medicinal uses. The research is
published in the journal Economic Botany. Plants played a significant
role in the ecology, culture and rituals of the Maya people, whose
artwork reflected the rich diversity of plant life around them. But
while numerous examples of such artwork exist, few have been studied
to see exactly which plants they depict.

So natural historian and archaeologist Charles Zidar of Missouri
Botanical Garden in St Louis, US, and botanist Wayne Elisens of the
University of Oklahoma, Norman, US, decided to find out. They hope to
discover plants of importance to the Maya that are either unknown to
modern people, or have since been forgotten.
	
The team's first analyses focused on artwork produced within the
southern lowland region of the Maya, located in the modern countries
of Belize, Guatemala and Mexico.
They examined more than 2,500 images of Maya ceramics created within
the Maya Classical Period of AD 250 to 900. The images are held within
an image collection taken by Justin and Barbara Kerr, curated by the
Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, based in
Crystal River, Florida, US.

For the rest of the story:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8083000/8083812.stm

Elaine Schele
http://volunteermayameetings.blogspot.com/