Tourist attacked by locals after climbing forbidden Mayan temple in Mexico
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It's great that we're enforcing laws that are there to protect our anthropological heritage. It's not so great that it means this violator is attacked by the locals.
As an aide, I feel like Mexico themselves have quite a ways to go to protect the heritage site. The grounds of Chichen Itzá are absolutely overrun with souvenir stands and obnoxious sellers that don't shy from any tactic to try to get your attention.
Walking around in that area should be serene, educational and immersive. Instead, it's like being in a kindergarten, where hordes of salespeople are incessantly calling out to you ("where are you from, sir, where are you from?"), literally throwing cheap Chinese junk in your direction, playing drums and pan flutes or squeezing squeaky toys and gimmicks that are meant to sound like monkeys. It's a cacophony of cheap garbage that takes you out of experiencing your surroundings. In fact, only from specific angles is it even possible to capture a photo of the Temple of Kukulcán without the brightly colored eye sores of a hundred nearly identical souvenir stands visible directly adjacent to it.
Mexico should also take more pride in this site and treat it with more respect.
It's not so great that it means this violator is attacked by the locals.
It's not?
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No.
Restoring historical artefacts in a way that is sympathetic to its age is more or less impossible.
You're not protecting what's there, rather creating something new.
Well, in 500 years it may be destroyed anyways. Isn't it a little selfish to not try and preserve it in some form for future generations?
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Summary
A German tourist was arrested and attacked after climbing the Temple of Kukulcan at Chichen Itza, Mexico, during the spring equinox.
Video footage shows locals shouting insults and physically confronting the man as National Guard personnel detained him.
The temple, a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of the New Seven Wonders of the World, is off-limits to climbers due to preservation laws and safety concerns.
Violators face fines up to $16,000 and possible prison time.
The incident occurred amid a crowd of 8,000–9,000 visitors.
oh shit... i was there on that day! and i missed it...
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If you study the classical Maya on a university level the experts do agree the Classical Maya preferred aristocrat blood, this is why they had many ceremonies for bloodletting that was a form of non fatal blood sacrifice. Also aristocratic families did have children they intend to sacrifice. War captives were always a big part of Mesoamerican culture, as you can see from the only surviving codexies, and from the surviving stories and culture still a part of Maya culture, but they culturally valued aristocrat blood as the main need of the Gods. It's not a controversial or debated aspect of their culture.
yeah, according to our mayan guide when i was there the human sacrifices never happened... but they were extremely inconsistent with their stories and also believed that the number of days in the solar year is connected with human body through the number of joints so i wouldn't take their word for it.
when i was listening to what guides in other groups were telling about the same spots and traditions i noticed that each and every one of them had their own fantastic and completely different story and many of the things they were saying were clearly wrong (e.g. that the descent of kukulcan shadow play only happens on two particular days of the year).
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It's not so great that it means this violator is attacked by the locals.
It's not?
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No matter how much you try, Chichen Itzá will never be tranquil, it is visited by thousands of tourists every day, so it will always be crowded and full of voices.
Vendors are usually local indigenous people, and selling to tourists is their only source of income, it would be silly on their part not to take advantage of the situation.
Perhaps you've not visited this place, so for an impression: the area itself is very large and open and the site has restricted access with a fairly pricey admission fee.
Voices don't carry very far in this environment, however the issue is that there are literally hundreds if not close to a thousand vendors literally screaming for attention. My objection is to the authorities who have permitted this kind of presence at a heritage site. Of course locals have taken advantage of the situation, that much is very clear.
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It's great that we're enforcing laws that are there to protect our anthropological heritage. It's not so great that it means this violator is attacked by the locals.
As an aide, I feel like Mexico themselves have quite a ways to go to protect the heritage site. The grounds of Chichen Itzá are absolutely overrun with souvenir stands and obnoxious sellers that don't shy from any tactic to try to get your attention.
Walking around in that area should be serene, educational and immersive. Instead, it's like being in a kindergarten, where hordes of salespeople are incessantly calling out to you ("where are you from, sir, where are you from?"), literally throwing cheap Chinese junk in your direction, playing drums and pan flutes or squeezing squeaky toys and gimmicks that are meant to sound like monkeys. It's a cacophony of cheap garbage that takes you out of experiencing your surroundings. In fact, only from specific angles is it even possible to capture a photo of the Temple of Kukulcán without the brightly colored eye sores of a hundred nearly identical souvenir stands visible directly adjacent to it.
Mexico should also take more pride in this site and treat it with more respect.
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The headline annoys me, it makes it sound like a hapless tourist was attacked by vicious indigens.
I can well imagine how they told him not to do it, and eventually had to resort to physically getting him back down when he just didn't listen. Maybe technically an attack, but at the very least it should've read:
"Tourist violating ancient artefacts restrained & attacked by locals" or some such.
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It's just a little corrupt, the democracy's still good, the democracy's still good
When pigs fly hahahahahahahahahaha wa what
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Summary
A German tourist was arrested and attacked after climbing the Temple of Kukulcan at Chichen Itza, Mexico, during the spring equinox.
Video footage shows locals shouting insults and physically confronting the man as National Guard personnel detained him.
The temple, a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of the New Seven Wonders of the World, is off-limits to climbers due to preservation laws and safety concerns.
Violators face fines up to $16,000 and possible prison time.
The incident occurred amid a crowd of 8,000–9,000 visitors.
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Good. Wish more locals in tourists hotspots would gang up on asshole tourists. Like Bali is infested with entitled westerners and asshole bogans. It’s the colonial mindset these tourists have.
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Virtue signaling BS. That motherfucker deserves his ass to be beaten to shit
Honestly wish he fell from the top
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Good. Wish more locals in tourists hotspots would gang up on asshole tourists. Like Bali is infested with entitled westerners and asshole bogans. It’s the colonial mindset these tourists have.
How's Bali
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Colonialism is about extracting resources. Living in a low cost of living area on passive income attained globally is quite the opposite.
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A German tourist
Sorry for not sending out best. I hope the guys wore socks in sandals at least to properly represent our national outfit.
I'm only German by heritage, not citizenry... but goddamn do I love socks-n-'stocks, aka Birck-n-socks.
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Colonialism is about extracting resources. Living in a low cost of living area on passive income attained globally is quite the opposite.
Is it, though? You aren't contributing anything to the local economy or culture while simultaneously stimulating gentrification...
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Summary
A German tourist was arrested and attacked after climbing the Temple of Kukulcan at Chichen Itza, Mexico, during the spring equinox.
Video footage shows locals shouting insults and physically confronting the man as National Guard personnel detained him.
The temple, a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of the New Seven Wonders of the World, is off-limits to climbers due to preservation laws and safety concerns.
Violators face fines up to $16,000 and possible prison time.
The incident occurred amid a crowd of 8,000–9,000 visitors.
Hell yeah! When you're visiting another country, you are a guest in their country and should obey their laws and rules.
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Colonialism is about extracting resources. Living in a low cost of living area on passive income attained globally is quite the opposite.
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yeah, according to our mayan guide when i was there the human sacrifices never happened... but they were extremely inconsistent with their stories and also believed that the number of days in the solar year is connected with human body through the number of joints so i wouldn't take their word for it.
when i was listening to what guides in other groups were telling about the same spots and traditions i noticed that each and every one of them had their own fantastic and completely different story and many of the things they were saying were clearly wrong (e.g. that the descent of kukulcan shadow play only happens on two particular days of the year).
Ending human sacrifice in many cultures can be seen in their more modern folklore, the Maya creation myth in the 1500s had the hero twins tricking the death gods which allowed them to avoid human sacrifice, other cultures around the same time had versions where the hero twins obeyed the death gods without tricking them. So local stories from different groups will clue you in to how they view human sacrifice historically, if you understand the context of the stories, you also have to keep in mind there's no one Maya culture, it was always diverse city states Maya is more accurately a region than a people, they're 20 some odd languages that all derived from the classical Maya spoken today in those lands, and still there are languages today that appear to not be derived from classical Maya, so there's a lot more going on than one culture or history, the powder keg situation the Spanish walked into in Tenochtitlan that allowed them to conquer the Mexica was due in part to clashing religious and cultural groups with in the Nahuatl speaking dominant groups, within the city were multiple ethnicities, languages, and cultures all coexisting, there simply isn't one story and never will be. They're are descendants of Mexica and Maya that come from groups that didn't do blood sacrifice, there's groups where this was a very rare thing to do, and there's motivations beyond what people accept, only recently are archeologists looking at temple grounds and finding remains there and realizing the remains of infants all have markers of illness or congenial problems that were likely fatal. Imagine if a cathedral was discovered by an Asian archeologist who didn't have information about the religious or cultural people who used it, and finding an attached graveyard with the remains of hundreds of elderly and infant people decided that the cathedral was a place for the elderly and infants to fight to the death to amuse their evil Gods. After all they had human skeletons in armor with weapons on display and scary ugly monsters all around the outside, and cages at the top of the building with human remains on them.
