‘Junglecasts’ reveal Palenque secrets

Quick link: Junglecasts

What’s a ‘junglecast’ you might be thinking; a podcast from the jungle, of course – audio recordings that can be downloaded from the internet on to any device that will play an .mp3 file.

Dave Pentacost (left) and Nicco Mele at Palenque

To be more precise, we can listen in to Nicco Mele (Echoditto) and Dave Pentecost (The Daily Glyph) as they walk around the ancient site of Palenque, accompanied by their guide, Maya specialist Ed Barnhart of the Maya Exploration Center.

This has certainly grabbed my attention this week. This afternoon I downloaded a couple of the ”soundseeing” podcasts to my PC. I then ’bluetoothed’ these files to my mobile phone for listening on the train.

On my commute home, I eavesdropped on “Dr Ed” conveying various pieces of the Palenque story.

It’s fascinating stuff. There’s a backing track, too; I could also make out some of the forest sounds – the distant echoes of howler monkeys, the raucous calls of parrots and other exotic birds. And some Mexican schoolkids.

I was transported back to Palenque. I remember exploring the grassy plazas, excavated structures and overgrown mounds. 

There is no better guide than Ed with whom to go stomping around jungle ruins. He and his team discovered hundreds of Maya buildings and temples buried beneath centuries of jungle growth, and now he’s sharing his findings with tourists and students.

His Palenque Mapping Project was a three-year effort to survey and map the unknown sections of Palenque’s ruins. Over 1,100 new structures were documented, bringing the site total to almost 1,500.

The resultant map [pdf] has been celebrated as one of the most detailed and accurate ever made of a Maya ruin.

Pioneering stuff.

An introduction to podcasting – broadcast on BBC Radio Five Live, 1 June 2005

Filed in: Archaeological Mexico, Palenque