The lost world

Sunday, July 18, 2004

This has been one of the truly great adventures of Liz Hayes' life. A journey back in time — back almost 3000 years into the jungles of Central America, in search of an amazing lost world. It’s an ancient civilisation just as breathtaking as the Aztecs and more fascinating than the Incas, but one that history forgot. They were the Mayas and they built magnificent cities and towering pyramids hundreds of years before the birth of Christ. Despite all the clues they left behind, the Mayas are still very much a mystery. But, as you'll see, there's a dedicated and charismatic detective on their case.

INTRO — LIZ HAYES: This has been one of the truly great adventures of my life — a journey back in time, back almost 3000 years into the jungles of Central America in search of an amazing lost world, an ancient civilisation, just as breathtaking as the Aztecs, as fascinating as the Incas, but one that history somehow forgot. They were the Mayas and they built magnificent cities, towering pyramids, hundreds of years before the birth of Christ. And despite all the clues they left behind, they're still very much a mystery. But, as you'll see, there's a dedicated and charismatic sleuth on their case.

STORY — LIZ HAYES: We're on our way to one of the most isolated places on earth. Below us, the rainforests of Guatemala — jungle as far as the eye can see — and a lost world, a lost civilisation, where we hope to find the biggest pyramids in the world.

RICHARD HANSON, ARCHAEOLOGIST: The idea is to bring this to the world attention, a saga of humanity, of the birth, the origins, the dynamic rise, and then the sudden demise of a complex society. We're looking at the life and death of a civilisation, and it's here!

LIZ HAYES: This is where America's first culture flourished thousands of years ago and archaeologist Richard Hanson is trying to unlock the secrets of this ancient Maya world.

RICHARD HANSON: These were major world-class, world-calibre civilisations. They were making their own contribution to humanity and we're just now getting to the knowledge of who these people were, what they were doing at this early period of time.

LIZ HAYES: First stop, one of the hubs of Maya civilisation, the city of Tikal.

RICHARD HANSON: The idea of these high steps like this — look at the height this is — was to get as high as possible in the least amount of building.

LIZ HAYES: No, it's designed to make me crawl up, that's what it's about.

LIZ HAYES: The Maya ruled this land from 600BC to 150AD. And in its glory days, Tikal was a bustling city of more than 80,000 people.

LIZ HAYES: So this would have been a central point in the city?

RICHARD HANSON: This was. This was the focal point. There would have been kings that would have been paraded down here, we would have had priests that were attending to events that occurred up in here. We would have had marriages take place down here.

LIZ HAYES: You make it sound so exciting, I feel I should have been there.

RICHARD HANSON: You know, sometimes I wish I was. I wish I was, too. Sometimes I feel them. I can sense their presence, I can … there's a saga there. Places like this would have had such a panorama of human behaviour at any one point in time. When you look at the volume of these buildings, you get some idea of the labour involved in this, the extensive labour that was involved in making these buildings.

LIZ HAYES: And this is inside one of the great Maya pyramids.

RICHARD HANSON: We're the first people to see this material since the Maya had left it.

LIZ HAYES: Unlike the Egyptian pyramids, these weren't just tombs for royalty. They were functional buildings, often mansions for the rich, in thriving cities.

RICHARD HANSON: The earliest examples of writing that we have in the Maya world.

LIZ HAYES: No wonder Richard Hanson has made this his life's work. For 25 years he's been coming down to Central America, here to the Mirador Basin in Guatemala, the very heart of the lost world of the Maya.

RICHARD HANSON: It's a passion, um, that I cannot explain. It happened when I was a small child — the knowledge of, the fascination of ancient cultures, fascination with the systems that propelled them. The idea of working in a tropical rainforest in an ancient city, that's only in the movies, right? That doesn't really happen to real people. Well, here we are, in the middle of the largest ancient city in the western hemisphere, the largest pyramids in the world, in a tropical forest that's threatened. We think that this is a saga that humanity, 200 years from now, or 500 years from now, will appreciate.

LIZ HAYES: It's a saga of a sophisticated society, one that archaeologists like Richard Hanson think looked something like this. Much about Maya life is still a mystery, but we do know they understood the planets, had their own complex economic system and their own intricate form of writing, their hieroglyphics. But it was also a violent society, in which human sacrifice was not unknown.

RICHARD HANSON: We're all human beings, that's what we all have in common, we're human, and they were human, too, but what we're seeing is culture. This is culture at its finest, or at its worst, but it's culture. It's unique to this society. There are things we find in all societies of the world, but they had their own culture.

LIZ HAYES: And this is Mayan culture?

RICHARD HANSON: And this is Maya.

LIZ HAYES: But Tikal was just one city. The vast Mirador Basin actually conceals the ruins of 26 major communities and about 50 smaller ones, home to hundreds of thousands of people. The scale of the whole thing is just staggering. Just consider this — at Mirador, the plaza, the Acropolis, this temple, and this temple, would all fit inside just one pyramid.

LIZ HAYES: You get a sense of just how large it is here, actually.

RICHARD HANSON: Up we go.

LIZ HAYES: And this is the biggest pyramid of them all, Danta. Over the years, the rainforest has reclaimed this area, making the haul to the top longer and much more exhausting. I think one of the hardest parts is just imagining what was here. It looks like the jungle and it is the jungle, but I am walking on one of the world's largest pyramids. We've just come 55 metres up and we still have another 17 metres to get to the top. But when you look at that wall, you start to understand the effort that must have gone into building such a massive structure. That wall was built by hand, inch by inch, stone by stone. The Maya were masters of all they surveyed.

RICHARD HANSON: There it is. Look over here on the horizon, see those three little bumps. That's the city...

LIZ HAYES: That's one of the 26 cities, is it?

RICHARD HANSON: One of the 26. They controlled the world from this point here.

LIZ HAYES: But after eight centuries in control, Mirador society mysteriously collapsed. By 900AD, the Mayans were history. They disappeared off the face of the earth, leaving behind some tantalising clues to their life and times.

RICHARD HANSON: Here's a piece of pre-classic pottery, right here on the surface.

LIZ HAYES: History is everywhere in the Mirador Basin.

RICHARD HANSON: This is late pre-classic, it would date to between 300BC and about the time of Christ.

LIZ HAYES: And what would this have been?

RICHARD HANSON: It's a bowl, part of a bowl, large bowl. History, right there.

LIZ HAYES: That's what brings it to life.

RICHARD HANSON: To think the last person that held that was one of the pre-classic Maya living here.

LIZ HAYES: From deep inside a giant Maya pyramid...

RICHARD HANSON: This is the burial vault of a classic structure, built between AD 300 and AD 400.

LIZ HAYES: …to conversations with the local wildlife. This is where Richard Hanson feels most at home. But he fears it may all be lost, that looters and logging will destroy both the ruins and the rainforest. But being Richard Hanson, he has a plan, a wild plan. It's called tourism.

RICHARD HANSON: They will come. And if it's by a narrow gauge rail, which I envision, a narrow gauge rail that goes around trees, goes around mounds, and leaves the canopy intact, so that you have a two to three hour ride in here, you're looking at jungle, you're looking at animals, you're looking at orchids, you're looking at the entire system, on your ride in here, world-class accessibility without roads.

LIZ HAYES: It seems a contradiction for an archaeologist to say that, to save this, you need to bring people in.

RICHARD HANSON: That's right. Well, it is. But people are the lifeblood of this. In fact, years ago I came to the conclusion that science for the benefit of science is sterile if it doesn't bless the lives of people.

LIZ HAYES: There's no point in uncovering this, if others can't enjoy it?

RICHARD HANSON: That's right.

LIZ HAYES: But while Hanson welcomes tourists, he wants to shut everyone else out, even local communities that rely on the forest for their survival. It's a stance that has made him many enemies.

ANKA MUELLER: I think he's obsessed. He's obsessed and he's blind.

LIZ HAYES: Anka Meuller represents 20 communities who are fighting Richard Hanson's grand plan.

ANKA MUELLER: He doesn't want to have poor people running around in his forests, you know, crossing the way of tourists.

LIZ HAYES: How do local communities view Richard Hanson?

ANKA MUELLER: They say he's a very dogmatic person in a way, a very tough guy, and he's very selfish, so of course, the people are fed up with this, this kind of behaviour.

RICHARD HANSON: I understand these people. I've been around them for many years. They have been around me — we're on the same page. It's the uninformed and the uneducated or those who have other interests that would be against us.

LIZ HAYES: How dangerous has it been for you?

RICHARD HANSON: Well, we've had to take precautions. I've tried to keep a low profile.

LIZ HAYES: Why?

RICHARD HANSON: Why? Because of threats on my life.

LIZ HAYES: Saying what?

RICHARD HANSON: If you kill the dog, you eliminate the rabies.

LIZ HAYES: So you're the problem?

RICHARD HANSON: I'm the dog.

LIZ HAYES: Not that that stopped Richard Hanson. He says the Guatemalans can't be trusted when it comes to protecting their own priceless past.

LIZ HAYES: If it is not protected, how long would something like this last?

RICHARD HANSON: Well, if it's not protected we'll lose this quickly.

LIZ HAYES: How quickly?

RICHARD HANSON: Two, three years.

LIZ HAYES: Really?

RICHARD HANSON: They'll plant corn all through here. They'll loot the buildings while they're doing it. We have the proof of all of that. This is not something I'm pulling off the top of my head.

LIZ HAYES: Here in the jungle, Richard Hanson has no doubt that he's right. He started this 25 years ago, and he remains committed as ever to his dream.

LIZ HAYES: Do you think that you can achieve this in your lifetime?

RICHARD HANSON: No, but I think we can protect it in my lifetime. I think we can develop the infrastructure and get the communities to understand the economic importance for them in my lifetime.

LIZ HAYES: Don't you ever go to bed at night and think, "What have I started?"

RICHARD HANSON: (Laughing) Yeah, I do. I do. For good or for ill.

LIZ HAYES: You started it, now you'll have to finish it.

RICHARD HANSON: I've gotta finish it.

RICHARD HANSON (in jungle): This is all artificial construction, all brought in, basket by basket, rock by rock, by thousands of labourers. We calculated five million man days of labour, in this one building. It's amazing. Top of the world.

LIZ HAYES: Oh, wow.

RICHARD HANSON: We run the risk of losing this entire thing. We run the risk of losing these sights, we run the risk of losing this forest, the risk of the opportunity for this country to be able to take advantage of an unprecedented, world-class cultural and natural heritage — that's what's at stake here.

LIZ HAYES: Well, it's not every day you get to stand on top of a pyramid in Guatemala and watch the sun go down.

RICHARD HANSON: Especially one of this size, this antiquity and with this historic saga, all this incredible sequence of cultural national events that occurred here. It makes it … it makes telling the story worthwhile.

Reporter: Liz Hayes
Producer: Lincoln Howes