An exhibition on the first floor of the Faculty of Geography and History brings us to the world of the ancient Maya and modern populations of wild Department of Petén, Guatemala.
The exhibition, consisting of 20 panels very visual, collects the work done in Maya cities of La Blanca and Chilonché since 2004 by a cross-disciplinary team from the Universitat de València, Universitat Politècnica de València and San Carlos de Guatemala. It will be opened on Wednesday, 26 November, at 16:30 until Christmas.
La Blanca. A decade of heritage development.
Curated by Cristina Vidal Lorenzo (UV) and Gaspar Muñoz Cosme (UPV), directors of La Blanca Project (Petén, Guatemala), this exhibition shows the work done by this project from 2004 to 2013. Ten seasons of an interuniversity and cross-disciplinary project funded by different entities (mainly by the Ministry of Education of Spain, the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation and the Prince Claus Fund of the Netherlands) and the support of participating universities: Universitat de València (General Study), Universitat Politécnica de València and Universidad San Carlos de Guatemala.
During this decade has conducted scientific research, excavation, restoration and enhancement of the ancient Mayan city of La Blanca, in which neighbouring populations have always been involved, by carrying out various actions addressed to the inhabitants of these villages (especially in La Blanca), to improve the living conditions and increase social, economic and cultural development.
Therefore, it is a project that was initially proposed as an intervention of cultural heritage for development.
Expository discourse
The year 2014 marks ten years since the first work began at the archaeological site of La Blanca, on 15 September, 2004. At that time a team of seven people arrived at the scene to start the first clean-up of vegetation and topographical and architectural survey of the territory that was occupied more than a thousand years ago by the ancient Mayan city of La Blanca.
From that time until the present the work of archaeology restoration, conservation and enhancement have been developed following the rhythm of the excavations and research on the history of this city and other archaeological sites of the surroundings, including Chilonché.
Major archaeological discoveries have provided new perspectives for research, such as the abundant graphite displayed in the buildings, the “Mascarón” of Chilonché, the Hall of Murals of the same archaeological site, the “Friso” of the Acropolis of La Blanca or the Burials for the time of abandonment by the ancient Maya of these major cities (event known as the “collapse” of Classic Maya civilization). These and other findings of the project are shown in the corresponding panels in this exhibition.
Moreover, the challenge posed by the incorporation of new technologies into the research and enhancement of these archaeological sites is explained in other panels, so it is opening new archaeological and architectural cultural perspectives of dissemination of knowledge and research and analysis thereof, for both the scientific community and the general public.
The exhibition, which opens on Wednesday 26 November at 16:30 is sponsored by the UNESCO Chair in Development Studies of the Universitat de València, which manages the Patronage Sud-Nord, together with the Universidad Politècnica de Valencia, and is an initiative of the curators, Dr Cristina Vidal Lorenzo (UV) and Dr Gaspar Muñoz Cosme.
