From Ek Balam to Chichen Itza to Ruinas de Ake to Oxkintok to Uxmal, we climbed what we could climb and took company with the iguanas in their kingdoms of carved rock (and these iguanas were as colosal as their stone fortresses). I was awe struck by these other worlds. Another temporal context over which I was intruding spatially. There was a mysteriousness about the ruins, and a magical quality inherent. The shear enormity of these sites was enough to overwhelm. And the intricate patterned tributes to the gods and emperors added to the splendor.
In learning of the customs of this past civilization, my head began swimming. It is amazing what we conjecture about people from what they leave behind, I thought. I wonder what they will think about us when all that is left is our computers of plastic, metal and glass. I am glad I am not an archeologist of the future for the information of this civilization will be a lot harder to discern than what is carved in stone. Our art, our writing, our custom is written over periodically as the times demand. Nothing is sacred.
The empires we build today may be a lot less 'permanent', but our cultural evolution has reached lightning speeds. What the Mayan people have retained from their past is an integral component of our knowledge of the ancient, so that not all that is known is really conjecture based upon artifacts of the past. Their culture continues to evolve just like the culture in which I am immersed. The archeologists of this civilization may no longer need to be grave diggers, but need to be our historians, our writers, our poets, and our artists. They propagate the evolution of our civilization, and what is sacred is no longer monumental relics to the gods but what we deem worthy to pass on.