Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Hotel & Ocean
My sister thinks that I spend a lot of time on vacation. Actually I spend a lot of late nights in the lab and every once in a while I get out for good behavior and get to present my stuff to others.
The other day I got to present my stuff to a bunch of other scientist in a sweet setting...Cancun, Mexico. AM came along for the ride.
View from our hotel room.
View on the other side of the road.
Hotel courtyard.
Have you ever seen such beautiful blue water? (Okay, yes in Hawaii, but it was still sweet.)
AM walking on the beach.
SD pondering why he only gets to play in the waves in the evening when the science is done.
At a market.
A Mayan village.
The other day I got to present my stuff to a bunch of other scientist in a sweet setting...Cancun, Mexico. AM came along for the ride.
View from our hotel room.
View on the other side of the road.
Hotel courtyard.
Have you ever seen such beautiful blue water? (Okay, yes in Hawaii, but it was still sweet.)
AM walking on the beach.
SD pondering why he only gets to play in the waves in the evening when the science is done.
At a market.
A Mayan village.
Chichen Itza
While in Mexico, we had the chance to tour the ancient Mayans ruins of Chichen Itza.
Chichen Itza was named as one of the "Seven New Wonders of the World."
BofM readers may recognize the pyramid as a model for several painting and films related to this. However, Chichen Itza rose to regional prominence in ~600 AD and was conquered in ~1200 AD. It represents a Mayan in the "old" section of the city and Mayan-Toltec in the newer parts of the city that contains the largest pyramid and ruins. The primary symbol for the Mayan gods were the jaguar and the Chaac, the rain god with a trunk. The Toltec brought with them feathered serpent Kukulkan or Quetzalcoatl, along with Harpy Eagles. On the equinoxes, the shadows that are formed by the stairway outline the body of the serpent, which extends down to the base with the sculpted serpent heads. The pyramid, at its core, was a calender and of course, the Mayans are famous for having a better calender than our current one.
Hopefully you can see the feathered serpent carved into stone.
It is unclear if this carved skulls represent specific killed warriors or just a general motif to serve notice to those that came from other regions to trade at Chichen Itza that they were a powerful and bloody place. It is believed that severed humans heads were displayed on the platform above, showing the unlucky losers in battles with Chichen Itza.
The king's luxury box at the enormous Ball Court.
The famous Mayan Ball Court. Teams of warrior would try to get the ball through the hoop using their feet, legs, and hips, and a racket of sorts. There was a beheading at the end of the game. Current thinking is that it was one of the winning team because it was a great honor to die for the city.
Carving showing the beheading of the player.
The nobles luxury box for the ball court.
You can see the original coloring of the stone carvings. It is believed that all the stone work, including the pyramids, were painted in bright colors with appropriate symbolism.
A pyramid in the older section of Chichen Itza that is much smaller than the main one. It is currently believed that for each of the 52 year cycles of the religious calender, a new pyramid was built over the older one.
The observatory. At the equinoxs, the sun would project a line of light between the door along the interior corridors.
The area that the Spanish called La Iglesia and the nunnery when they discovered the ruins of Chichen Itza but was really part of a government complex. It is in the older section of the city.
Good examples of the Mayan "false" arch, which served the same weight bearing function as the true arch of the Romans.
The stone columns in the Place of a thousand columns. It was probably a market place and the columns held up wooden roofs that have long since decayed.
Another view of the Thousand Columns and the Temple of Warriors.
The south side of the pyramid showing all the damage from stones being removed by scavengers.
The huge senote or well that gave Chichen Itza its name (which means at the mouth of the well at Itza.) On occasion, humans were thrown in the well as sacrifice. Their bones were dredged up by an explorer at the beginning of the 20th century.
Another sinkhole filled with water nearby and probably one of the major water sources for the city.
Chichen Itza was named as one of the "Seven New Wonders of the World."
BofM readers may recognize the pyramid as a model for several painting and films related to this. However, Chichen Itza rose to regional prominence in ~600 AD and was conquered in ~1200 AD. It represents a Mayan in the "old" section of the city and Mayan-Toltec in the newer parts of the city that contains the largest pyramid and ruins. The primary symbol for the Mayan gods were the jaguar and the Chaac, the rain god with a trunk. The Toltec brought with them feathered serpent Kukulkan or Quetzalcoatl, along with Harpy Eagles. On the equinoxes, the shadows that are formed by the stairway outline the body of the serpent, which extends down to the base with the sculpted serpent heads. The pyramid, at its core, was a calender and of course, the Mayans are famous for having a better calender than our current one.
Hopefully you can see the feathered serpent carved into stone.
It is unclear if this carved skulls represent specific killed warriors or just a general motif to serve notice to those that came from other regions to trade at Chichen Itza that they were a powerful and bloody place. It is believed that severed humans heads were displayed on the platform above, showing the unlucky losers in battles with Chichen Itza.
The king's luxury box at the enormous Ball Court.
The famous Mayan Ball Court. Teams of warrior would try to get the ball through the hoop using their feet, legs, and hips, and a racket of sorts. There was a beheading at the end of the game. Current thinking is that it was one of the winning team because it was a great honor to die for the city.
Carving showing the beheading of the player.
The nobles luxury box for the ball court.
You can see the original coloring of the stone carvings. It is believed that all the stone work, including the pyramids, were painted in bright colors with appropriate symbolism. 
A pyramid in the older section of Chichen Itza that is much smaller than the main one. It is currently believed that for each of the 52 year cycles of the religious calender, a new pyramid was built over the older one.
The observatory. At the equinoxs, the sun would project a line of light between the door along the interior corridors.
The area that the Spanish called La Iglesia and the nunnery when they discovered the ruins of Chichen Itza but was really part of a government complex. It is in the older section of the city.
Good examples of the Mayan "false" arch, which served the same weight bearing function as the true arch of the Romans.
The stone columns in the Place of a thousand columns. It was probably a market place and the columns held up wooden roofs that have long since decayed.
Another view of the Thousand Columns and the Temple of Warriors.
The south side of the pyramid showing all the damage from stones being removed by scavengers.
The huge senote or well that gave Chichen Itza its name (which means at the mouth of the well at Itza.) On occasion, humans were thrown in the well as sacrifice. Their bones were dredged up by an explorer at the beginning of the 20th century.
Another sinkhole filled with water nearby and probably one of the major water sources for the city.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Statues
One of our relatives, Cyrus Dallin, was a famous sculptor. Many people are probably familiar with his sculpture of the Angel Moroni on top of the Salt Lake Temple, but my (SD) trip to New England afforded the opportunity to see two other of his famous sculptures, the Chief Massasoit which stands on the hill overlooking Plymouth Rock, and the Paul Revere statue in front of the North End Church Tower in Boston.
A brief history can be found here.
The statue is nearby the remains/monument for the pilgrims who died in the first year at Plymouth. It was Chief Massasoits people who helped the settlers survive. As thanks, they eventually drove his people out of the area and annihilated his tribe. For this reason, there is a Native American gathering at the Massasoit statue every Thanksgiving day to solemnly remind our nation that there are some who are not thankful for the arrival of the Pilgrims.
This statue of Roger Williams in Providence was not done by Cyrus Dallin, but it seemed fitting to add to a post of statues.
A brief history can be found here.
The statue is nearby the remains/monument for the pilgrims who died in the first year at Plymouth. It was Chief Massasoits people who helped the settlers survive. As thanks, they eventually drove his people out of the area and annihilated his tribe. For this reason, there is a Native American gathering at the Massasoit statue every Thanksgiving day to solemnly remind our nation that there are some who are not thankful for the arrival of the Pilgrims.
This statue of Roger Williams in Providence was not done by Cyrus Dallin, but it seemed fitting to add to a post of statues.
Whale Watching
When I (SD) was young, I wanted to be a marine biologist. Now that I'm old, I still want to be a marine biologist. So I jumped at the chance to go with my brother whale watching on Capt. John’s whale boat out of Plymouth, MA.
After some lovely views of the Bay, we head out to sea and sighted our first whale shortly. Since that whale was spending of the time diving, we quickly moved on.
Our next whale encounter allowed us to see a behavior which our biologist guide said was only seen in about 10% of trips, “lobtailing”. The whale was continuously picking up its tail fin well out of the water and then slapping it down hard against the water. Current thinking is that this signals that the whale is upset about something and represents a temper tantrum.
While watching this very interesting behavior, we were joined by an ocean sunfish, one of the more bizarre looking of the large fish species. In essence, the sunfish swims on its side, and therefore appears as a massive flat disk swimming at the top of the water. He swam a straight course, more or less oblivious to either us or the huge whale nearby. 
During this time, our whale surfaced directly next to the boat and below our position on the upper deck. Had we been on the lower deck we might have been able to reach out and touch it!
We finally moved off, when we got a call from another whale boat that they were watching a group of four whales. We chased them down and found ourselves in the midst not of four whales but 15-20 whales! These whales were bubble feeding, an amazing behavior where they blow a circular stream of bubbles that trap small fish and krill in a bubble curtain and then swim up through the curtain with their mouth open to swallow all the trapped fish. So we got excellent views not only of the whales’ backs and tails, but also of their faces and mouths as well. The whales surrounded us, so there was always something exciting to watch. Most fun was watching a mother and calf feeding together, occasionally joined by other whales. This was simply an amazing afternoon and the best $40 I ever spend.
