Human Legacy

Royal Plumage   A new painting re-creates the faded portrait of a Maya king discovered in a special niche in the newfound room. A curtain, held to the wall with a bone rod, was originally used to hide and reveal the portrait, the researchers say . )

Archaeologist William Saturno scrapes ancient debris from a scribe's painting-filled, roughly 1,200-year-old home in Guatemala. Calculations on the walls refer to dates after December 21, 2012—which has been erroneouslycalled the Maya doomsday—as well as the first known Maya house art, according to a new study. (News story: "Unprecedented Maya Mural Found, Contradicts 2012 'Doomsday' Myth.") The long-overgrown house is part of a ruined Maya city named Xultún, rediscovered nearly a century ago but still largely unexcavated. Saturno's team began excavating the home—one of thousands of buried structures at the 12-square-mile (31-square-kilometer) site—in 2010. Published this week in the journal Science, Saturno's research was funded by the National Geographic Society's Committee for Research and Exploration andExpeditions Council, and will be featured in the June issue of  National Geographic  magazine. (National Geo...

In the last known largely unexcavated Maya megacity, archaeologists have uncovered the only known mural adorning an ancient Maya house, a new study says — and it's not just any mural In addition to a still vibrant scene of a king and his retinue, the walls are rife with calculations that helped ancient scribes track vast amounts of time. Contrary to the idea the   , the markings suggest dates thousands of years in the future. Perhaps most important, the otherwise humble chamber offers a rare glimpse into the inner workings of Maya society. "The paintings we have here—we've never found them anyplace else," excavation leader  William Saturno  told National Geographic News. And in today's Xultún—to the untrained eye, just 6 square miles (16 square kilometers) of jungle floor—it's a wonder Saturno's team found the artwork at all. At the Guatemalan site in 2010 the Boston University archaeologist and Ph.D. student Franco Rossi were inspectin...