Acid Rain Erasing Ancient Mexican Carvings!
posted in Amazing Facts, Devastation, Latest News, Pollution |The pre-Aztec city of El Tajin, which is located on Mexico’s Gulf coast, is famous for its temple pyramids and the intricately carved relics. Acidic air pollutants that are being pumped out by oil-drilling platforms and power stations along the coast are slowly ruining these carvings, according to Humberto Bravo, an air pollution specialist.
“The deterioration is alarming … and could cause irreparable damage to monuments that are an important part of our cultural heritage,” said Bravo of the University of Mexico’s Center for Atmospheric Sciences.
El Tajin was built in what is now considered the state of Veracruz by the Totonac, a civilization that reached the peak in early 9th to the early 13th century A.D. Major of El Tajin city name refers to the names for the Totonac god of thunder that still remains unexcavated. The most famous building prevalent in the site is an elaborate niche-studded pyramid.
This center also has many temple pyramids, palaces and courts for playing a ritual Mesoamerican ball game that is sometimes compared to basketball. Now the carvings depicting the game are eroding at an alarming rate, according to Bravo.
Bravo and his colleagues spent many years to increase the effects of polluted air and acid rain on El Tajin’s soft limestone buildings. They found that the erosion may have been caused due to contaminants like chlorine, sulfates and nitrates in the air from power stations and oil refineries.
They also claim that the erosion is caused due to acid rain because of the sulfuric acid and nitric acid that reacts with the calcium carbonate to form gypsum that just flakes off. Acid rain is caused when the pollutants in the air mix with water droplets in a cloud. The pollution is then carried down to earth along with the rain.
“The Vera Cruz region has some of the highest acid levels in the air in Mexico,” Bravo said.
Common Problem
Other scholars expressed similar alarm at the detrimental effects of pollution on El Tajin.
“The art of El Tajin is crucial to our understanding of the ancient history of the Gulf coast,” said John Machado, a pre-Columbian art historian at Chaffey College in Rancho Cucamonga, California.
“It gives evidence of a powerful and complex civilization that had broad interaction with Mesoamerican cultures in both central Mexico and Maya-controlled regions but still cultivated its own unique Veracruz style and iconography.”
“The loss of these images would be devastating to the cultural heritage of the area,” said Machado, who has done extensive research at El Tajin. But the problem of pollution affects archaeological sites throughout Mexico.
The sources of degradation vary, said Maria Lourdes Gallardo, chief conservator at the main Aztec temple, Templo Mayor, in Mexico City. “The pollutants … in the archaeological zone of Templo Mayor … range from the smog to water filtrations underground,” Gallardo said.
“We found that there had been a significant change in the rate of pollutants derived from sulfur, which had reduced to a great extent, compared to an increase in the quantity of chloride and heavy metal pollutants.”
The site has Olmec-style bas-relief carvings that can be dated back to 700 B.C. in granodiorite, a rock that is harder than limestone.