One of Belize's largest Mayan pyramids has been essentially destroyed by a construction company. The Associated Press reported that the construction company was extracting crushed rock for a road-building project. The Mayan pyramid is called the Nohmul complex and it is a ceremonial center that dates back to at least 2,300 years.
The head of the Belize Institute of Archaeology, Jaime Awe, said that the destruction at Nohmul complex was dected late last week. He said to the AP,"It's a feeling of Incredible disbelief because of the ignorance and the insensitivity ... they were using this for road fill. It's like being punched in the stomach, it's just so horrendous."
Awe said that he doesn't believe that the workers could have mistaken the pyramid mound for a natural hill.
"These guys knew that this was an ancient structure. It's just bloody laziness", Awe said to the AP.
"Just to realize that the ancient Maya acquired all this building material to erect these buildings, using nothing more than stone tools and quarried the stone, and carried this material on their heads, using tump lines," said Awe. "To think that today we have modern equipment, that you can go and excavate in a quarry anywhere, but that this company would completely disregard that and completely destroyed this building. Why can't these people just go and quarry somewhere that has no cultural significance? It's mind-boggling."
The AP reported that the Belize community-action group Citizens Organized for Liberty Through Action said that the destruction "an obscene example of disrespect for the environment and history."
The police are conducting an investigation and criminal charges could be possible.
Norman Hammond, an emeritus professor of archaeology at Boston University said in an email to the AP that "bulldozing Maya mounds for road fill is an endemic problem in Belize (the whole of the San Estevan center has gone, both of the major pyramids at Louisville, other structures at Nohmul, many smaller sites), but this sounds like the biggest yet."
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