Features

Bill Saturno and the Temple of (not quite) Doom
Page 3 of 3

He went back to Guatemala a month later to register his find with the minister of culture, who is extremely excited about the mural, as is the entire Mayan research community. Four full-time guards were hired to protect the site, and Saturno decided not to publicize his find until all the paperwork had been filed with the Guatemalan government and plans to excavate the temple complex were complete. He announced his find to the press in March of this year, and his story appeared in the April issue of National Geographic.

Archeologist William Saturno reattaches a sction of a Preclassic Maya mural discovered at San Bartolo, a remote Maya ceremonial site in northern Guatemala. Research on the mural is funded by the National Geographic Society's Committee for Reasearch and Exploration. Photo by Kenneth Garrett © National Geographic Society

Saturno returns to Guatemala in June to spend 15 months mapping the site and figuring out how large the mural is and how best to conserve it. "We will need to monitor the environment closely before any more uncovering is done," he explains. "We need to measure the humidity in the cave, in the fill, see how temperature affects the environment and so on. This way we'll be able to devise a stable plan for uncovering it."

Saturno wants this to be a model archaeological project, a blend of old-fashioned field work and state-of-the-art technology. His stationery for "Proyecto San Bartolo" shows a maize god with a satellite circling his head. "We will be using computers, radar imagery, a complete wireless network in the jungle," Saturno says. "And we'll be digging with a pick and a shovel." Saturno hopes that excavation of the temple complex at San Bartolo will enable him to analyze how this site fit into the larger Mayan geopolitical system. He'll be taking his family with him for the next phase of the project. At this point, his sons don't want to be archaeologists. "Cenzo wants to be Captain Hook, and David wants to be a whale," Saturno says. "But they haven't seen the jungle yet."

It is certainly premature to call the mural the discovery of Saturno's lifetime. For one thing, he is only 32. But he also possesses a winning combination of what his grandmother called "capo tosto," or hardheadedness, and "buona fortuna," or good luck. Who knows where his next unscheduled day-trip might take him, or what he'll find when he gets there. ~

Anne Downey '95G is a free-lance writer who lives in Eliot, Maine.


Page: < Prev 1 2 3

 Easy to print version


blog comments powered by Disqus