MAYA ARTIST AND SCHOLAR MERLE GREENE ROBERTSON'S IMPACT ON THE MAYA WORLD

Dos Pilas, Stela 16

Merle Greene Robertson was an artist, scholar, and Maya explorer, but these are merely labels. Her entrance into the study, portrayal, and exploration of the Maya culture was a catalyst for introducing the ancient Maya to the modern world through art, photography, and exploration of numerous Maya sites. After reading her autobiography, Never in Fear, she well could have been the glue that stuck it all together, and with fellow scholars, shaped an understanding of the Maya civilization. She galvanized others—as an organizer, planner, dynamo. She knew everyone in the field, from Eric S. Thompson and Alberto Ruz to Michael Coe, George Stuart, and anyone and everyone who came after.

INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL IN YUCATÁN

Her enthusiasm and limitless energy in regard to Maya culture made her a fulcrum at the very moment the Maya re-emerged on the world stage after an unduly long absence. The first European and American explorers who stumbled onto these pyramid sites in the 1840s were floored by what they saw. A blockbuster bestseller in 1846, Incidents of Travel in Yucatán, written by John Lloyd Stephens with drawings by Frederick Catherwood, two explorers who entered Maya sites at Uxmal, Chichen Itza, and Copan for starters, literally blew the collective mind of the world. No one had any idea that intricate stepped pyramids lay hidden, covered by centuries of vines and foliage, deep in Mexican and Central American jungles. Before the release of Stephens' and Catherwood's book, the word "bestseller" had not yet been coined. 

Frederick Catherwood Drawing

Incidents of Travel in Yucatán, Vol. One

The world clambered for more knowledge of this mysterious unknown civilization, hidden in southern rainforests of North America.

Stephens' concise writing along with Catherwood's magnificent drawings assisted in shaping the identity of one of the world's great civilizations—the Maya. Previously unknown, they were now in an iconic limited club along with other greats such as Egypt, Greece, Rome, China, India, and Persia.

ROBERTSON AND HER WORK

Robertson is nearly indefinable, so interwoven was the role she played with her Maya work over the past 50 years—from assisting in breaking the Maya hieroglyphic code, to co-founding the Palenque Roundtable talks, trekking to and exploring scores of pyramid sites in Mexico and Central America. Not to mention the body of work she left of an ancient archeological rubbing technique using Japanese ink on rice paper.

Robertson created beautiful reproductions of countless stela, columns, tombs, sarcophagus lids, often produced in the most unfavorable circumstances—trekking through rugged terrain and dense rainy forests crawling with snakes and bothersome mosquitoes, including the occasional close call with grave robbers. A life of leisure was never to be hers. She wouldn't have wanted it. Not unlike Frederick Catherwood's drawings, Robertson's sublime rubbings brought the Maya to the world visually.

Ixkun Stela 1 (Merle Greene Robertson)

ANCIENT TECHNIQUE

Finished Rubbing, Stela 16, Dos Pilas

Merle Greene Robertson was a legend in the world of Meso-American studies and Maya epigraphy. With over five thousand rubbings to her name and thanks to a generous heart, many of these gems have landed in museums and universities throughout the world. She not only explored these faraway Maya sites but shared her knowledge with others. Many expeditions included lucky students who accompanied her in what for each of them would no doubt become the experience of a lifetime.

As an anthropology student at New College of Florida, Carol Wheeler, anthropologist and writer from Guadalajara, Mexico, spent summer, 1977, in Palenque to prepare her undergraduate thesis. A former art major, she planned to do field drawings at the site. She explains how she met Robertson along with artist, author, and Maya scholar, Linda Schele. 

"Both Linda Schele and Merle Greene Robertson were in residence that summer," said Wheeler. "I followed them around like a puppy dog, earnest and annoying as only undergrads can be. They were so kind and gracious about it. Linda listened to my questions and explained their work in her Texas accent and Ms. Robertson invited us to her cottage in the afternoons for lemonade... In my mind, Howard Carter had nothing on these brilliant women."

Never in Fear

NEVER IN FEAR 

With a career that spanned close to 60 years, it will be impossible in this single post to condense all that Robertson accomplished. In reading her autobiography, Never in Fear,  I didn't expect to be so wowed—but I was. Turning page after page of her many accomplishments and explorations, it seemed she lived her life in warp-speed.

So, do we shape our lives, or are our lives shaped by our experiences and those we meet along the way? After stumbling onto Robertson's autobiography, it seems her future unfolded while she was growing up in rural Montana where she developed an interest in Native American culture.

EARLY BEGINNINGS

A Doubtful Handshake, Charles Russell 1910

Born in Great Falls, Montana, she lived on land flanked by the Rocky Mountains. Her interest in Native American culture was ignited when her father took her on visits to see Blackfoot Indian chiefs. She was also influenced by nearby Montana neighbor Charles M. Russell, one of the greatest western artists of the US. Both Russell and her father encouraged her interest in art and drawing. The duo of meeting Blackfoot Indians and watching Russell paint may have shaped her future early on. 

Eventually her family moved to Seattle. She attended university in California and graduated with a degree in art. Later she attended the Instituto Allende in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where she studied watercolors, oils, photography, and mural painting for three summers before earning her MFA from University of Guanajuato.

Afterwards she went to Tikal, Guatemala, to work on a University of Pennsylvania project where she made architectural drawings of the Central Acropolis. At that time she also started recording monuments by means of rubbings. The technique is an ancient one, with earliest known rubbings taken either from Buddhist texts on wooden blocks in Japan, 8th century, or from rubbings practiced in China, 2nd century. But Robertson brought it to an art form. Her perfection of the technique showed how rubbings could be a means of documentation of Maya relief sculpture.

SUMMER EXCURSIONS TO MAYA COUNTRY

Central Acropolis, Tikal (Afar)

Robertson's working life was as a teacher at Robert Louis Stevenson School in Pebble Beach, California, where she met her second husband, Lawrence "Bob" Robertson. In the summer of 1960 they began taking students to Guatemala and Mexico for summer vacation. The main purpose of the jungle trips was to record in photos and rubbings the magnificent monuments on which the ancient Maya carved. Even as early as the 1960s, the looting of Maya sites was becoming common and Robertson's desire was to record as much of the Maya civilization as possible before it was hacked to pieces or sold off to private collectors.

PALENQUE AND PACAL'S TOMB

Though Tikal initially stole her heart since it was her first jungle excursion, once in Mexico, Palenque replaced Tikal as her number one site. Her documentation of the site was revolutionary. She started with the Temple of the Inscriptions. In order to photograph it before beginning her rubbing, giant scaffolding needed to be constructed of mahogany beams and planks for her to stand on. Nothing she did was easy. Her rubbing of Pacal's sarcophagus lid, Palenque's greatest ruler, took super-human tenacity.             

Sarcophagus Lid of Pacal, Palenque

In her words, "The first thing I started on was the Sarcophagus lid, down in the crypt of the Temple of the Inscriptions. A rubbing had never been done before and for that matter, it had never been photographed head on, only at an angle, by Alberto Ruz...I worked locked in with only a lantern to see by. It was quite a trick getting myself on top of the lid. It took seven sheets of rice paper (1 x 2 meters) to do the rubbing. Also, I had to use oil paint instead of sumi ink; there could be no way I could work on so much space and keep an inked area from running into the sheet of paper next to it. After two weeks of working on the Sarcophagus rubbing, doing several parts of it over time, I felt that Pacal was not only my friend but a long lost relative."

After the lid, she began on the side. "I was ready to do the glyphs around the edge of the Sarcophagus lid...Standing in the water on the floor of the tomb, trying to do the rubbings and not getting the paper wet was no small feat, especially since the space between the walls of the crypt and the sarcophagus was barely wide enough for me to stand. All of the rubbing equipment had to be kept on top of the sarcophagus, making it difficult to reach when standing on the floor.

THE SCULPTURE OF PALENQUE

"Inch by inch, as different features of the ancestors of Pacal emerged, it was as though I was speaking with these dead kings—I now knew them, could call them a name. Being alone in the tomb was like being in their world long ago."

Temple of Inscriptions, Pacal's Burial Site

The results of her Palenque work in the 1970s was documented in a series titled The Sculpture of Palenque, in which she precisely detailed how the intricate structures were built, layer by layer. She searched out pigment sources in that region to exactly duplicate the colors used by Palenque artists, all those centuries ago. The impressive collection of Merle's rubbings represents a major archive of Maya stone monuments throughout the Maya world and has been a major resource for scholars studying the culture.

At Palenque, she met Moises Morales, head guide and major domo of the site. Her friendship with Moises and the Morales family would be a staple in her and Bob's lives for decades. At first they rented a room from him and later built a house next to his in the La Cañada compound in the 1970s.

Temple of the Sun
Reconstruction Painting

Merle and Bob worked together on the Maya projects—she as artist and he as jack of all trades, performing behind the scene duties that greased the wheels. Their presence in Palenque became an interest to traveling scholars and even tourists, and their house, Na Chan-Bahlum in Palenque, became a meeting place for every archeologist working in Chiapas, the Yucatán Peninsula, and Belize as their door was always open. Palenque is where Linda Schele and Merle met and became fast friends.

A MAYA ROUNDTABLE IN PALENQUE

 In 1973, much was beginning to gel in the Maya world. Through conversations initially with Linda Schele and soon with other Mayanists, an idea emerged, the story goes. Why not have a gathering of like minds? They put together a list and in September, sent out feelers for a get-together. Soon after the letters went out, Merle heard from famed archeologist Michael Coe. He suggested that December would be a good time. Not much notice. But the idea struck a nerve and the first Maya conference took place mere months later, mid-December, 1973, and through discussions, lectures, late nights, and visits to the pyramid structures footsteps away, it served as a beginning to breaking the Maya hieroglyphic code and figuring out just who the ancient Maya were. The conference was named Primera Mesa Redonda de Palenque.

The topics on the table ranged from art, history, chronology, iconography, early explorers, inscriptions, sacrifice, trade, and the surrounding area. Word soon got out and everyone came: guides, archeologists, scholars, artists, students. Fourteen universities from the US, Mexico, and Canada came and everyone was asked to have a paper ready to give as a lecture on the art, architecture, or iconography of Palenque. The second year, 1974, the governor of Chiapas, Gobernador Dr. Manuel Velasco Suarez, opened the ceremonies in Palenque's Municipal Auditorium, it had grown that much. The first had convened in Merle and Bob's house in Palenque, Na Chan-Bahlum.

Temple of the Inscriptions (Merle Greene Robertson)

BREAKTHROUGH AT FIRST CONFERENCE

That first year's highlight was the discovery of the names of Palenque's rulers by Floyd Lounsbury, Linda Schele, and Peter Mathews. The second year's highlight along with the governor presiding was the attendance of archeologist Dr. Alberto Lhuillier Ruz, famous for his discovery of the Tomb of the Temple of the Inscriptions where Pacal's sarcophagus was buried.

Eventually, through the melding of minds, the Maya hieroglyphic code was broken, the turning point being the first Roundtable in 1973. But that is another story. 

Robertson was asked to do The Florida Project and finished it in 1976—beautiful reconstructive color paintings of the Temple of the Sun and Palenque trade, six feet in height each. Other panels accompanied these as well.

Rubbing from the Platform of the Eagles and Jaguars, Chichen Itza

Bob and Merle lived in Palenque and helped host Mesas Redondas until Bob's death in May, 1981. Merle went on to do many more Maya rubbings in the Yucatán, specifically at Chichen Itza, where at Hacienda Chichen, Robertson was given her own suite which became headquarters for her crew. After the Chichen Itza project, Merle traveled the world, visiting other archeologists, artists, and friends while painting and walking ancient ruins everywhere on the planet. 

MAYA SITES VISITED

During her time studying and recording the Maya, these are some of the pyramid sites she worked at: Tikal, Sayaxche, Dos Pilas, Aguateca, Itsimte, Naranjo, Tamarindito, Ixkun, Ixtutz, El Peten, Seibal, Yaxchilan, Lubaantun, El Baul, Bilboa, Jimbal, Uaxactun, Lamanai, Caracol, El Palmar, Calakmul, Copan, Palenque, and Chichen Itza.

Merle Greene Robertson died at her home in San Francisco in 2011. She was 97 years old. 

If you enjoyed this post, check out my other works, Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya. It's available on Amazon with tales of expat life and living within 100 miles of four major pyramid sites. Also, check out my website at www.jeaninekitchel.com. Books one and two in my Mexico cartel trilogy, Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival, and Tulum Takedown, are available on Amazon where my overview of the 2012 Maya calendar phenomenon, Maya 2012 Revealed—Demystifying the Prophecy, can also be found. 

WHAT IS THE SOLSTICE AND WHY DID THE ANCIENT MAYA REVERE IT?

 

June 21 is the summer solstice and the longest day of the year. From now until winter solstice in December, we will lose sunlight each day. Due to the Earth's orbit and daily rotational motion, such as the wobble in the Earth's axis, the time and date of the solstice varies from year to year. Both the solstice and the equinox were important to the ancient Maya, and one cannot be explained without understanding the other. Here's why.

The Maya punched numbers and astronomical calculations that could make our heads spin, but nothing was more meaningful to them than the movements of the sun.

Maya Scribe (Latin America Studies Organization)

The Dresden Codex, one of three paperbark books that survived the mass destruction of Maya documents by Spanish zealots in 1562, is filled with numbers—mostly calculations for lunation cycles and Venus tables. And one of the Maya's main calendars, the Haab, is tied to the earth's rotation. They calculated it at 360 days, with five "extra days" at the end that were considered unlucky time. The Maya were naked eye astronomers, and through sheer volume, they assimilated countless facts about the planets and the impact of the earth's rotation through centuries of observance.

Portion of Dresden Codex (Frederico Custodio)

It's known that the number four held great importance to them. Some archeologists suggest it could be very basic: the body has four limbs with the heart at its center; a house has four corner posts; a milpa cornfield has four entrances; and the sun has four paths it takes on its seasonal journey—two solstices and two equinoxes. Other scholars suggest that the number four symbolized wholeness and is associated with Ahau, the Sun God. In K'iche', the word for day is the same word as sun, and a day is one complete passage of the sun.

Made with 2 images from Project Gutenberg
and CIA's World Facebook via MS Paint

The Maya also observed four cosmic points, which may possibly relate to the four posts of the sun's daily journey: sunrise, noon, the sun on the horizon at dusk, and lastly the nadir, just before the sun moves into the underworld. Scholars call these the four points of the Maya cosmos, and emphasize these are nothing like our cardinal directions of north, south, east and west.

The most relevant positions of the sun are the solstices and the equinoxes, even to us today. For the Maya sky gazers, these were of supreme importance and they paid homage to these positions.

If you've gone to Chichen Itza on a spring or fall equinox to watch the performance of the sun's descent from the top of Temple Kukulkan to the bottom of the staircase ending at the serpent's mouth, you've no doubt been awed by the experience. 

Chichen Itza at Equinox with Serpent's Shadow

Onlookers believe they share a moment in time with the ancient Maya, for legend has it that the Maya also witnessed the same image a thousand years ago. Kukulkan, one of the most monumental of all their sacred works, was the Maya god of rejuvenation and his effigy symbolized the renewal of life.

Why did the Maya immortalize the equinox in this bi-annual spectacle of astronomical showmanship? Although no one knows for sure, scholars believe rites of agriculture may have been the basis for the concept and design of Kukulkan's slithering serpent. Since Kukulkan symbolized rejuvenation, the March date coincides with planting cycles and a September date coincides with annual harvest, which in itself is a renewal of life, for it allows food for the winter months.

Native Corn in Mexico 

The equinox is unique because on that day, in March and September, night and day are equal.

The solstices represent a similar idea, as they are twice a year occurrences and on these days the sun reaches its highest or lowest altitude in the sky above the horizon at solar noon. 

Winter solstice, which we've just observed, is the traditional beginning of the earth's yearly cycle. Though I never adhered to the end calendar belief of the 2012ologists who claimed 2012 would be the end of time, John Major Jenkins, author of Maya Cosmogenesis 2012, had a point when he suggested the solstice was so important to the Maya that they placed  buildings in alignment with its zenith.

                                                   

Jenkins believes that a stela at Izapa (a site in southern Mexico that may or may not be Maya) leaves a code for us to decipher. In particular, Group F Ballcourt, which displays what Jenkins calls creation imagery, is aligned within one degree of December solstice sunset and the June solstice sunrise direction. He claims this could have been no coincidence.

Archeo-astronomer Anthony Aveni states there are at least 73 city alignments to the solstice throughout the Maya world. He thinks there is evidence for a solstice-based calendar. He leans towards June because it marks the time of the peak rainy season in the year.

El Caracol Observatory at Chichen Itza (Veteezy.com)

At Chichen Itza, the equinox is visible through a window in El Caracol Observatory's tower. And the great ballpark at Chichen Itza, the largest known ballcourt in the ancient Maya world, encodes many alignments involving the Milky Way and the solstices. The ballcourt was aligned with the Milky Way at midnight on June solstice 865 AD, and if one had stood in the center of the ballcourt on that night, the arc of the Milky Way could have been seen touching the opposed horizons to which the lengthwise axis of the ballcourt pointed. Overhead, one would have seen where the Milky Way and the ecliptic cross.

Picture of Milky Way (Discovery)

This incredible symmetry was planned on a grand scale. The why's and wherefores we may never know, but what we do know for certain is this: the Maya were well aware of the solstice and equinox dates and they paid homage to them in the most obvious way. They were so important that they commemorated them by building ethereal stepped pyramids that lasted for centuries that would align with both solstice and equinox, and are still viewed with wonder to this day. Today we view the solstices as the shortest and longest days of the year, and know once December comes, the earth will soon be tilting towards the sun, reaching for more light. 

If you enjoyed this post, check out my memoir, Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya. It's available on Amazon with tales of expat life and living within 100 miles of four major pyramid sites. Also, check out my website at www.jeaninekitchel.com. Books one and two in my Mexico cartel trilogy, Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival, and Tulum Takedown, are available on Amazon where my overview of the 2012 Maya calendar phenomenon, Maya 2012 Revealed—Demystifying the Prophecy, can also be found. 

Lead photo: Welcoming Winter Solstice, is from the Navajo-Hopi Observer.

UP THE RIO NEGRO, DOWN TO THE AMAZON

 

In 2008, I cruised the Amazon on a 90-foot 19th century replica of a Brazilian riverboat for seven days. Our journey began in Manaus, a Covid hotspot in 2020 and one of the world's hardest hit areas, where it was necessary to dig mass graves due to the high death toll. This article first appeared in the Sunday Living section of The News, Mexico City, March, 2008.

River Boat Tucano (My Brazilian Tours)

I sat with Edivan, one of our two jungle guides, inside the sunny, wood-paneled salon of the Motor Yacht Tucano, an elegant 90-foot, nine cabin replica of a 19th century Brazilian riverboat, and watched lush, pulsating rainforest float by as we headed up the Rio Negro. 

LAST OUTPOST OF CIVILIZATION

We were cruising through the world's largest river island system, the Anavilhanas Archipelago in the heart of the Amazon, sometimes called the lungs of the planet, and by mid-afternoon we'd be well past Manaus, Amazonas, a former frontier settlement with a population of 1.5 million, known as the last outpost of civilization. 

Map of Amazon Basin (Brazil Travel Guide) 

"Is there hope for the future of the rainforest?" I asked the serious, competent man who would show the 12 of us on board both the obvious and hidden beauties of the vast eco-system we were entering.

"That's like asking do you believe in God?" he countered. "You've got to have faith in something. Me, I have faith in the forest but I believe it can get better. We can get better. But people's ignorance always gets in the way.

"Today everyone is more worried about the state of the forest, not just for the trees, but for its food, its oil and it's vegetables."

"I read," I interjected, "in 2003, almost 150,000 square kilometers of Amazon's rainforest disappeared, about the size of New Hampshire. Is this ongoing?"

RUBBER AND SOY

Edivan, Our Guide

"Because of globalization," Edivan continued, as a shadow crossed his face,"we are all merged together. The future looks very dark but many things are happening. Before the problem was rubber."

"Like with Chico Mendes?" I asked. "The environmentalist who stood up to the rubber industry when 180,000 rubber trees were destroyed along with a million valuable hardwoods?"

"In 1988 Mendes was murdered for his beliefs," Edivan said. "Now it's not the rubber industry. It's not even cattle ranching. Now the threat is soy. If anyone stands up to the soy producers, they will die."

He sweeps his hand past the finely crafted mahogany windows toward the translucent green forest and that dark, flat river,

"See how thick the forest is? The Rio Negro, this part of the Amazon, has heavy sediment from falling leaves which creates a high pH balance and turns the water black. It makes it hard for life, for fish, to survive, unlike the Amazon where everything thrives. Maybe a thousand people live in this large region. Maybe. I don't think they can bulldoze it down here." Finally I saw the possibility of a smile.

I gazed out at 150-foot high trees. They're staggering in height although in reality, I thought they'd be taller. I was told by Aguimaldo, our indigenous guide, that farther inland, they are. Anything you can see from shore has already been cut, so this could be second or third generation.

HEART OF THE AMAZON

My dialogue with Edivan continued on this seven-day journey into the heart of the Amazon. Daily we divided into two groups, climbed into outboard rigged wood canoes, and took excursions up small tributaries and canals off the Rio Negro. We saw ringed kingfishers, pink dolphins, blue macaws, red macaws, white-throated toucans, three-toed sloths, squirrel monkeys, green ibis, reddish egret, wattled Jacanas, black nun birds, Amazon kingfish, yellow cacique, puffbirds, black collared hawks, white-tailed trojans, and crimson topaz hummingbirds. For starters.

Reflection of Trees on Amazon (Research Gate) 

We took forest walks wearing leather leg chaps from knee to ankle for protection against snakes. We saw buttressed trees, bullet ants, medicinal plants. We met a subsistence farmer and his wife who grow manioc root and process it into tapioca. We stopped at a boat building factory in a local village where the Tucano was built ten years ago. We saw the flooded forest where water levels will rise 20 feet in just a few months. We sat in canoes at dawn to watch the sun rise over the river. Occasionally we would get caught in a light, tropical rain storm.

Cruising the River 

In between excursions we came back to the boat to eat incredible food prepared by Gemma and Angelina, our cooks, from the smallest most cramped kitchen you can imagine. The dining room buffet at meal times overflowed with fresh salads and fruits—some which I hadn't seen before—along with rice and beans,  vegetables, chicken, occasionally a meat dish, and always a spectacular freshly caught fish.

Tucano Dining Room (My Brazilian Tours)

The desserts make me gain weight by proxy. Even at breakfast there's cake on the table and at dinner, not only cake but a Brazilian custard made with papaya, coconut, pineapple, or crème brulée or flan. Some nights there would be something conjured from manioc root, the food staple which takes shape in everything from cakes to breads. And no meal was complete without fresh squeezed juice.

WELCOME TO THE AMAZON

We'd landed in Manaus in the heart of the Amazon rainforest to begin this journey in late January. Copa Air dropped us from Miami into a small, dilapidated airport where one unruffled immigration officer diligently stamped tourist visas. On the side of the runway, four vine-covered DC 10s languished in various stages of mold and decay, a startling example of nature at work. Welcome to the Amazon. 

Convergence of Rio Negro and Amazon (by Isopada)

The Motor Yacht Tucano river trip would combine the best elements of the Rio Negro for 300 kilometers north before heading back to the Amazon, or Solimoes River, as it's known to the locals, where we'd see the confluence of the waters. The Rio Negro's black water converges just outside Manaus with the white or café au lait colored Amazon. It's a spectacular sight, this distinct color variation that stretches for seven kilometers.

I'd researched the trip intensely before deciding on the Tucano. It was either that or a people's ferry. The guidebooks I'd read all assured me I'd have everything stolen on the ferry plus I'd have to sleep in a hammock, possibly on an open deck, with strangers. No. No. No. Twenty years ago I wouldn't have thought twice about it, but this was now.

HOTEL TROPICAL

We arrived a few days early and checked into Hotel Tropical, a well-preserved, gentile grandy with 600 rooms, 13 kilometers from Manaus. Towering tress surrounded walled gardens that circled the hotel. Our drive passed the hotel zoo, the tennis courts, the carefully marked trees, on a wide asphalt road. I spot white columns rising over a sweeping entrance. Inside, a 40-foot atrium adjoins a long, L-shaped reception desk. Heavy dark woods prevail along with high-vaulted ceilings. I'm ensconced in my favorite type of luxury—colonial turn-of-the-century in a jungle setting. Heaven. 

Vintage Luggage Label, Hotel Tropical

In Brazil, size is not an issue: everything is huge. We walk what seems miles to our room; the bellboy shows us into an attractive 30 x 40 foot suite with French doors overlooking a terrace. Dark wood trim adorns all closets and mirrors as does the Brazilian granite—Jacinta, speckled grey-rose-black—that I will soon identify in every bathroom, every bar, every countertop throughout the country.

At this point I still haven't seen the water flush the opposite way as I've heard it does in the Southern Hemisphere. The hotel has low flow toilets but not so for the shower. With the mighty Amazon just 200 feet from our window, the shower blasts me with the force of a fire hose, filling the glass shower stall and floor so quickly I turn off the faucet a moment so the drain can catch up. We languish in this gracious spot two days before boarding the Tucano.

YOU CAN'T PICK YOUR NEIGHBORS

"Do you know what an alligator feels like? It feels like a purse, ha ha," laughed one of the less lustrous of our travel companions. "Or a pair of boots."

Thank God there were ten others who could drown out this bloke's personality disorder. On booking the cruise, my main fear was the human factor—not snakes, piranha, or jaguars. I feared the species Americana Erectus—the strident mouthpiece I seemed to never avoid, even by moving to Mexico. After a few days I removed myself from conversations and sought solace and found it. In the upstairs deck.

THE UPSTAIRS DECK

Painted spic-and-span white and peppered with lounge furniture I enjoy the balmy breezes and near 360 degree views of river and forest. In the morning the river is flat as a lake and Dante Inferno red. The perfectly mirrored reflection of trees in the water is apparent even under cloudy, mottled skies. From my vantage point I see a half moon of green wild rice, shockingly florescent in color, like a stubbled layer of beard on a man's chin. I hear a flock of scarlet macaws jabbering in the distance long before I see them; their brilliant feathered bodies jettison out of faraway trees, all the while squawking incessantly.

Author on Tucano's Upstairs Deck

I rejoin the group for most outings but now I've located my escape hatch and retreat back to it a few more times before the journey's end. Our last day is spent on the Amazon at the confluence of the waters. We're two degrees off the equator and a full moon rises that night in the tropical sky. Gazing out at large container ships in the distance, I'm glad I could take this journey into Amazonas, a place that is far from fully explored, where there is more Amazon rainforest and indigenous people than any other place in Brazil.

Living Section, The News, Mexico City 2008

RAINFOREST UPDATE: Deforestation Statistics in Brazil's Rainforest (Reuters) 

Year-to-date deforestation in Brazil remains nearly double what it was during January to August, 2018, before Jair Bolsonaro became president and took immediate steps to weaken environmental enforcement prompting a boom in logging. A Reuters news agency witness traveling in southern Amazonas state during August (2021) saw massive fires billowing smoke miles into the air with the haze blanketing the landscape. Many fires were near the edge of existing cattle pastures. Much of the burned land will likely become pasture too, with cattle ranching the main driver of deforestation, according to a draft of a landmark study compiled by 200 scientists and published July 2021.

Smoke from Burning Vegetation in Amazonas state (Reuters)

If  you enjoyed this post, check out my memoir Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya. It's available on Amazon with tales of expat life and living within 100 miles of four major pyramid sites. Also, check out my website at www.jeaninekitchel.com. Books one and two in my Mexico cartel trilogy, Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival, and Tulum Takedown, are available on Amazon where my overview of the 2012 Maya calendar phenomenon, Maya 2012 Revealed—Demystifying the Prophecy, can also be found. 

  

TRIBUTE TO A MERIDA TRADITION—ALBERTO'S CONTINTENTAL PATIO RESTAURANT

                                    

Plaque on Alberto's wall (Yucatán Times)

Since the holidays are upon us, what better time to reminisce about food and places we just couldn't get enough of. My pleasure with Alberto's Continental Patio restaurant in Merida went so far that I even wrote it into the story of Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival.

"Clay and Layla stopped in front of Alberto's Continental Cuisine, a white-washed mansion turned restaurant a few blocks from the main plaza. After a quick nod of acceptance from Layla, the couple entered. Inside they discovered an oasis filled with antiques and art.

The back wall displayed Madonna art, all in wood and brass next to an ethereal painting of a floating Guadalupe along with a twelve foot cross displayed amid Maya idols. They walked up polished marble stairs to where an older gentleman in a tired business suit stood next to a mostradore." 

Alberto Salum (by Joe Stines)

For the record, Merida is a city obsessed with food, from street vendors selling peso-tasty tacos and salbutes to high-end establishments sporting white tablecloths, silver candelabra, and old school wait staffs trained to anticipate your every need. Alberto's fell into the latter category.

ALBERTO SALUM

Though Alberto's Continental Patio has been closed since 2013, then reincarnated as Patio 57 until 2018, I'm sharing a memory of both the iconic restaurant and it's equally charming and loquacious owner, Alberto Salum. It is with great sadness I report Alberto died October 1, 2021, in Merida. He was in his eighties.

Outdoor patio, during Patio 57 reincarnation. (TripAdvisor)

His great-grandfather had migrated to Mexico from Syria in 1894, and Alberto and his brother José were Mexican born and bred, perfect delegates for the glories and grandeur of the country, city and peninsula they called home. Alberto's Continental Patio was an ode to not only their chosen city, Merida, but to foods native to Merida, the Yucatán Peninsula, and Syria, their family's homeland, though the restaurant's Lebanese dishes were borrowed from their great-grandfather's recipes. 

MENU POTPOURRI

What? you say. How does one combine shish kebab, baba ghanoush, and hummus with chicken pibil, gulf seafood, and margaritas? With innovation and grace, found in copious amounts at Alberto's. It's why, as stated in Alberto's obituary in the Yucatán Times, "the strikingly handsome dining spot was full of character, with an eclectic collection of antiques, paintings, and sculptures."

And oh, what an assortment of art! I stumbled onto the restaurant on an early trip to Merida in the late 1980s. Wanting to not be too near the main plaza, we began to make wider concentric loops around the tourist district and hit pay dirt when we fell upon Alberto's at Calle 64 and Calle 57. 

Foyer of Alberto's Continental but during Patio 57 years

We entered and climbed the marble stairs that stretched onto a long, welcoming foyer. Before us on the left we viewed a wall chock full of grand paintings. Directly in front of us was a massive credenza. Standing next to it was a tall older gentleman in a tired business suit. He smiled and made a slight bow. Could it be Alberto? Indeed it was!

"Dinner?" he asked, waving menus with a flourish. We nodded.

"Dining room?" He pointed to a well-lit room on his right filled with a long center table and a number of four-tops placed around it. Crisp white table cloths and silver candelabra lit by gorgeous glass chandeliers gave the room a patina of pageantry and decorum. "Or," and he paused theatrically as he pointed to his left, "The courtyard garden?" 

CHOICES

A difficult choice. I couldn't take my eyes off the lavish dining room with its sublime lighting, the pomp and circumstance.

He must have seen the pickle I was in. Glamorous dining room or jungly courtyard that bore a tumble of palms, orchids, bromeliads and dead center, the largest banyan I'd yet to see. White linen-draped tables surrounded the massive tree and an ornamental bar to one side boasted more art—but this time with crucifixes in every conceivable material. They cluttered the wall above a liquor-laden mahogany counter, a dueling oxymoron of sin.

Wall behind bar in a more recent iteration (Yucatan Times)

But that first night, I was drawn to the spacious dining room with its sublime lighting and decorum. An obliging smile crossed his lips. "First would you like a cocktail in the courtyard? A margarita? Then we'll move to the dining room."

We followed him as though he was the Pied Piper. He moved towards the Holy Bar to mix up a couple concoctions after seating us with another flourish at the perfect table. We were the only customers to be had. We fell on the drinks as though we'd spent a waterless month in the Sahara. A not wholly unexpected second round was to follow.

As we entered the dining room. Alberto found us another perfect spot. Only one other table was occupied at the far corner of the room and the couple appeared ready to depart. He brought menus, we ordered, and after we finished a delectable meal, he walked over to check if everything had been up to par.

AND SO IT BEGINS

Here is where the true story begins. Or as Alberto would often say, "And that's how my story began in the land of Yucatán."

"Would you like to see my private collection in the back?" he asked without fanfare.

Indeed we would. He took us down a hall crowded to near overflow with antiques and paintings into a small crowded room. The walls were crammed with oil paintings. Pre-Columbian style artwork sat on the floor—statues, plaques, artifacts. He had numerous stories about it all and we were rapt listeners as this highly unusual raconteur talked on. He told us the building itself dated back to 1727 and was adorned with some of the original stones from the Maya temple it replaced. The mosaic floors were from Cuba. I'm sure much more was said but one can only take in so much. (Damn those margaritas).

Mosaic floors in Patio 57 phase (TripAdvisor)

Perhaps this occasion of seeing his back rooms and hearing unbelievable stories of Merida, the art world, the Yucatán and his early life in nearby pueblo Sisal as a cloth salesman before opening the restaurant, a short stint in Palo Alto, CA, as a dentist, and archeological tales about pyramid sites—not to mention the great food—were what bequeathed him early on a successful business that was lauded by numerous and well-known reviewers. His secret: he treated the place as if it was his own living room.

THE HEYDAY

According to obit writer Lee Steele, Merida had already changed quite a bit from its 1960s, '70s and 80's heyday, back when it was listed in guide books and travels stories. In 1985, The New York Times food writer R.W. Apple Jr. included Alberto's "lime soup" and excellent Arab dishes in a nationwide list of recommended dining spots. And ten years later, Susan Spano, also of the Times, called Alberto's a "culinary institution."

"At my courtyard table there, I could see the stars between the branches of an ancient rubber tree snuggled against the wall. Candles glowed. A guitarist played. The menu featured Mexican, Yucatan, and Lebanese dishes—which make surprisingly happy plate mates," she wrote. Even Diana Kennedy, famous expat Mexican author, in her Essential Cuisines of Mexico cookbook clocked in when she described being in his kitchen and charbroiling a chicken for the recipe Pollo en Escabeche.

Outdoor patio (Yucatan Magazine)

Alberto's was a romantic restaurant of the old school. The curved Moorish arches, the mosaic floor. And, as stated by Yucatán Times, it's antiquity was underscored by the countless antiques and oils, archeological relics in this softly lit over-the-top charming hacienda.

What star was I born under that I could experience Alberto and his cuisine over and over again? Every chance I had I dragged our family and guests that three-hour drive from Puerto Morelos to Merida. We'd spend the night in the Gran Hotel in the historic district, play all day in Merida's many markets and shops and walk its narrow streets. Around seven we'd head over to Alberto's. It's still a fond memory for them all, I am delighted to say; you simply cannot forget Alberto. 

"No one met Alberto and left without a story, a memory, or artifact," said Joe Stines, a close friend.

Gran Hotel in Merida

If you enjoyed this post, check out my memoir Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya. It's available on Amazon with tales of expat life and living within 100 miles of four major pyramid sites. Also, check out my website at www.jeaninekitchel.com. Books one and two in my Mexico cartel trilogy, Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival, and Tulum Takedown, are available on Amazon where my overview of the 2012 Maya calendar phenomenon, Maya 2012 Revealed—Demystifying the Prophecy, can also be found. 

 

 

ANCIENT MAYA QUEEN LADY SIX SKY CONQUERS THE YUCATÁN PENINSULA

Stela found at Naranjo of Lady Six Sky (or K'awiil Ajaw)

PART 4 

Warrior queens were not uncommon in the waning days of the Late Classic Period of the Maya, roughly 600 to 900 AD, though their domains tended to be concentrated in southern Mexico and Guatemala.

              

Map showing Dos Pilas, Naranjo, Calakmul and Tikal by Todd Decker

LADY SIX SKY

The warrior queen Lady Six Sky, also known as Lady Ik Wak Chan Ajaw or K'awiil Ajaw, entered the world in the seventh century, 667 AD to be exact, in Dos Pilas in the Peten, Guatemala, but during the course of her life, traveled far from there. And what a winding road she took while serving as de facto ruler of the city Naranjo, once if not twice, as she waged war against numerous competitors.

Drawing of Lady Six Sky from Stela 24 by artist/scholar Linda Schele

Born into a centuries-old ruling dynasty of Dos Pilas, at a young age she was selected over her older brother to be sent to the failing capital of Naranjo. At that time, first born sons stayed in the kingdom while second sons would normally be dispatched to handle tricky political or military business, so this situation was unique. Instead, the king used her as a political pawn as part of an arranged marriage between the Maya cities of Dos Pilas, where she was from, and Naranjo, to bring it into the Calakmul-Dos Pilas alliance and to help regenerate its obliterated dynasty.

Rendering of Dos Pilas from Alcheron, the Free Encyclopedia

Her father authorized the young princess to clean up the city which was in a shambles as indicated by hieroglyphics and stela dated at that period. (Stela are large limestone slabs placed in front of pyramids to commemorate births, deaths, victories). Stelas Number 24 and 29 from Naranjo depict Lady Six Sky trampling captives in a manner well-known to warrior kings, evidence that she'd taken her father's marching orders seriously.

A child of Lady B'ulu' and Calakmul ruler B'alaj Chan K'awill, her courageous deeds helped assure that her dynasty retained power. Though she was always loyal to her home, she became known as one of Naranjo's rulers during the Late Classic Period. Monuments note she was also a spiritual leader. Even though she performed many rituals she was never given the title Holy Lady Six Sky. She was also a day keeper of the Maya calendar, counting moon phases and one such ceremony commemorating the Long Count calendar was memorialized on Stela 29 at Naranjo. In it, the caption indicates she is impersonating a goddess, and is dressed in spiritually charged regalia. In the portrait she underscored both her strategic prowess and divine right to rule.

Stela 29 text, drawing Linda Schele

Archeologist Kathryn Reese-Taylor (University of Calgary) found the epigraph or inscription from the work of renowned Maya scholar Linda Schele which revealed that at the height of the rainy season in 683, a Maya princess from Dos Pilas (now in what is west Central Guatemala) arrived in shattered Naranjo, just west of the Belize-Guatemalan border.

Enemy kings had long fought over the region's lucrative river trade, which had prompted her father to dispatch his daughter to marry the king, indicating a declaration of peace. When the ruler died shortly after they married, he left Lady Six Sky in charge.

She didn't blink, stepping deftly into the role of leader. Over five years, she launched eight military campaigns, torching the cities of her enemies.

Her successful battlefield record helped archeologist Reese-Taylor understand the trajectory of women warriors through Maya history. And as evidenced by Parts 1-3 of Maya Musings' warrior queen posts, Lady Six Sky wasn't the only Maya princess who scooped up the reigns of power.

Rendering of Maya Warrior Queen from Discover magazine

Beginning in 2004, another Maya archeologist and author of Ancient Maya Women, Traci Ardren (University of Miami), also sifted through evidence from royal tombs and inscriptions searching for traces of female rulers. Two dozen tombs of women queens have been discovered so far.

Ardren has "brought together studies from throughout the ancient Maya world to show that women were not sidebars in Maya society but significant actors in their own right," stated Reese-Taylor in a Discover magazine article detailing her recent Maya excavations.

Reese-Taylor is now building on Ardren's work and continues to search for clues about powerful queens who were also fierce warriors. (Women Warriors, Part 1, October 1).

 

Sacred White Road near Cobá, from News.Miami.edu

In her quest to conquer more Maya cities to better her clan, Lady Six Sky may have been affiliated with the Maya sac-be, a 62-mile sacred white road, that stretched from Cobá to Yaxuná, two cities in southern Mexico she sparred with during her conquering phase, according to Journal of Archeological Science.

"There's still no concrete evidence pointing to who built the elevated 26-foot wide road or how long it took to construct it," archeologist Travis Stanton (University of Riverside) told Live Science.

                                                                                                                                                                    

LiDAR scan of Sacred White Road, by Traci Ardren

But some scholars believe, as does Ardren, Lady Six Sky may have either constructed the road or used it—already built—for moving troops from Cobá to Yaxuná as she continued her warring phase. In 2021, an archeological team plans to complete a dig at the site of a settlement identified by new LiDAR (light detection and ranging technology) imaging scans. Scholars believe the white road that derived its name from sascab, a Maya limestone plaster, would have been visible even at night. The mixture for the road would eventually prove to be a recipe similar to that of Roman concrete.

Whatever the material, this road connected thousands of people and hundreds of villages across what was once harsh, jungly terrain. Whoever controlled it took ownership of the central Yucatán Peninsula.

Previous researchers found evidence that a queen of Cobá set out on

numerous wars of territorial expansion. If it was Lady Six Sky, whose 

Badly eroded stela at Cobá, photo Richard Crim 

image appears on a monument at Cobá, and she was said queen, she held that power. If eventually the stela is verified as Lady Six Sky, this sign of dominance and respect will secure her place as a ruler of great renown in the Maya world.

Lady Six Sky was first recognized in the 1960s by the famous Russian archeologist, Tatiana Proskouriakoff, pioneer of Maya inscriptions, who dubbed her Lady of Tikal. At the time, however, three Maya cities used the same emblem glyph, so it's not a sure sign she actually had affiliations with Tikal. And first and foremost, Lady Six Sky's loyalty was to Dos Pilas, where her death was recorded in 741 AD.

There are so many Maya mysteries yet to be uncovered, but thanks to ongoing excavations, one recurrent theme is dominant: Women, too, ruled the Maya world.

If you enjoyed this post, check out my memoir Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya. It's available on Amazon with tales of expat life and living within 100 miles of four major pyramid sites. Also, check out my website at www.jeaninekitchel.com. Books one and two in my Mexico cartel trilogy, Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival, and Tulum Takedown, are available on Amazon where my overview of the 2012 Maya calendar phenomenon, Maya 2012 Revealed—Demystifying the Prophecy, can also be found.