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MAYA REMAINS AND TREASURE REVEAL MYSTERY

Thursday, April 18, 2024

In today’s newsletter, we examine the dramatic burning of royal remains during the Maya collapse, share tips on how to create your own ‘Blue Zone’ ... and point toward the Lyrid meteor shower, which happens once once a year—and is about to peak.

Burnt and cracked greenstone ornaments from the Ucanal Burial 20-1 deposit.

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY C. HALPERIN

The Maya civilization was collapsing elsewhere. A new ruler sought to stop the tide, plundering the tombs of buried royals and burning the remains. That seems to be what happened at a mysterious site in Guatemala more than a millennium ago. (Pictured above, objects discovered in a burned deposit that would have been buried with Maya royalty.)

The rare evidence of regime change also reveals points of prosperity as other Maya strongholds shriveled and eventually disappeared. Read on!

SCORCHED ROYAL REMAINS

Related: How new technology is upending what we know about the fall of the Maya

STORIES WE’RE FOLLOWING

Rock formations next to a small, sandy beach and calm, turquoise blue sea

PHOTOGRAPH BY RICCARDO DEIANA PHOTOGRAPHY, GETTY IMAGES

You don’t have to move to Sardinia or Okinawa to live longer and healthier. How you create your own ‘Blue Zones’ (pictured above)

Scientists have resurrected an ancient ‘miracle’ cure—does it even work?

Plagued by headaches? Your neck may be to blame.

Scientists just found an evolutionary holy grail (Free article)

The exercise phenomenon born in a POW camp

How ancient Indigenous artists left their mark on the landscape

Get moving outdoors: It’s good for your health as you age

This 80-foot-long sea monster was the killer whale of its time (Free article)

These poisonous books may be on a shelf near you

Ground-level ozone is getting worse. Here’s what that means for your health.

IN THE SPOTLIGHT

A large fragment of a scroll on a white background

PHOTOGRAPH BY GALI TIBBON, AFP/GETTY IMAGES

How do we decipher the writing on ancient scrolls? From translating the Rosetta Stone, to AI deciphering the Dead Sea Scrolls (fragment pictured above), we have unearthed the meaning of writing in ancient texts in a number of ways. Here are a few examples of how the experts did it.

WHAT’S IN THE WRITING?

LAST GLIMPSE

Shooting stars are visible amongst a clear view of the Milky Way over the Baltic Sea

PHOTOGRAPH BY DANIEL REINHARDT, PICTURE ALLIANCE/GETTY IMAGES

One of the oldest annual meteor showers on record, the Lyrid meteor shower, reliably delivers bright streaks across the Northern Hemisphere sky once a year. (Above, clear skies over the Baltic Sea allow for a clear view of the spectacle.) As the event reaches its peak over the next week, here’s where it comes from and how to see it.

Related: This star only appears once every 80 years—see the once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon
Also: Jupiter’s moon Io is a volcanic hellscape—and has been since the solar system began

Today’s soundtrack: Blue Night on Jeju, Deulgukhjwa

We hope this newsletter brightened your Thursday! It was curated and edited by David Beard, Nancy San Martín, and Nishita Naga. Know someone who might want our newsletter in their inbox? Here’s the signup. See you tomorrow!

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