The southern Mexico Mayan ruins of Calakmul have become the country's first site to receive the "mixed" World Heritage designation from the United Nations. The designation cites both the pyramids of the ancient city-state and hundreds of thousands of acres of well-preserved tropical forest that surrounds them. Read more
Exterior walls on a "painted pyramid" buried for centuries in the Mexican jungle have revealed a series of unusual Maya wall murals, complete with hieroglyphic captions, providing archaeologists with a priceless look at day-to-day life in the Mayan empire during 620 to 700 AD. The murals, discovered in 2004 at the Maya site of Calakmul, depict ordinary people enjoying much more casual pursuits, according to the new, detailed description of the wall art.