Fundacion La Ruta Maya has invited Dr Hellmuth to give two lectures in Antigua Guatemala: Oct 23rd in the evening; and Oct 30th in early afternoon. Both topics will be on the iconography and cosmology of water-related symbolism. So we went on another field trip to a water eco-system in Peten to do more documentation for these lectures.

Examples of water lilies blooming underwater, Arroyo Pucte (Rio de la Pasion, Sayaxche) and Canal de Chiquimulilla (Monterrico). All this will be discussed and explained during the presentation Oct 23rd, Antigua Guatemala.

 

The focus of the evening lecture is on water lily eco-systems, both above water and underwater. This is because a percentage of these plants bloom underwater; these flowers never reach above the surface. Botanists said this was not true, so we went underwater to record this “impossible” botanical situation.

Three flowers which grow in the swamps alongside the Rio San Pedro Martyr, with water lilies blooming in the river in front of them.

 

But the full-color presentation Oct 23rd will showcase all the other beautiful flowering plants which thrive on the shore facing the water lilies in the river. Of these, an unexpected discovery is a 4-petaled flower.

4-petaled flowers are pictured in Late Classic (Tepeu 2) vases, bowls, and plates of Tikal, Uaxactun and neighboring Mayan ruins of Guatemala. Nicholas found several bowls and vases with 4-petaled flowers in the Tomb of the Jade Jaguar which he discovered in Tikal in 1965. No botanist nor archaeologist that we are aware of was able to identify which species of flower was represented until Dr Hellmuth spent three years searching throughout Guatemala to document every single solitary 4-petaled flower that exists.

It turns out that the most common 4-petaled flower grows in the same eco-system as water-lilies (along the Rio San Pedro Martyr in front of Las Guacamayas Biological Station).

   

Posted October 7, 2015