Naachtun: The Forgotten Mayan City (2015)

An archeological road-movie through Guatemala, Mexico and Honduras in search of clues as to how the last great Mayan city Naachtun endured for more than 150 years, long after all the others had already collapsed.

In Mayan history, two famous cities, Tikal and Calakmul, fought each other for hundreds of years. Taking advantage of this rivalry, a third city developed and achieved city-state status: Naachtun, or "the kingdom of the bat." This city witnessed the fall of its rivals and survived for two hundred years before disappearing in turn. How? Why? Stephane Begoin followed a team of archaeologists across Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico to uncover its secrets and study what remains of Mayan culture and traditions.

Naachtun is the last city of the Maya golden age. We know little about it and archaeologists have started excavation just a few years ago. Isolated in the middle of the tropical forest of Guatemala, the researchers are trying to understand how it can have survived for almost 200 years after the collapse of the Mayan civilization in surrounding cities, and to shed new light on the history of this society. Combining intimately excavations and scientific analyses, this film highlights the flourishing Maya civilization through an expedition to the forgotten city of Naachtun and attempts to unravel its mysteries.

For two thousand years, the Maya built kingdoms and cultivated a civilization of incomparable wealth. Then they mysteriously disappeared. Their story has been lost, covered with an inextricable vegetable mantle. Buried deep into the forest, in the northern Guatemala, Naachtun, discovered in 1922, has not been explored since. Today, an international team of scientists – composed of archaeologists, but also a geographer, an archaeobotanist, an epigraphian, an oceanologist, an archaeozooologist, an ethnologist – led by the researchers of the CNRS, Philippe Nondedeo and Dominique Michelet, is trying to pierce the secret of its longevity, which has surpassed other Mayian kingdoms. Why did Naachtun survived nearly two hundred years after the collapse of the powerful neighbors in the 8th century?

A veritable archaeological road trip throughout Central America, the film sets out to discover the monumental cities of Teotihuacan, Tikal, Calakmul, El Mirador, Copon, who were alternately rivals and allies of Naachtun, along with some of the world's leading Mayan archaeologists. Deciphering Naachtun's political history through its remains, including multiple stelae, the team also focused on relations between its inhabitants and the surrounding jungle. The singularity of this approach makes it possible not only to reconstruct, as closely as possible, the daily Mayan life in the forest, including their many rituals and ceremonies related to nature, but also to obtain new responses to the famous mystery of the collapse of their civilization. The film also unveils surprising 3D models of Naachtun. Never before has the depiction of a Mayan city been so complete.
Using ambitious resources, including 4K cameras, drones, and cutting-edge graphics, the result is an exciting adventure combined with an in-depth scientific study, a documentary account of an epic saga.

Technical Specs:
Video Codec: x264 CABAC High@L4
Video Bitrate: 3 226 Kbps
Video Resolution: 1920x1080
Display Aspect Ratio: 16:9
Frames Per Second: 25.000 fps
Audio Codec: AAC (LC)
Audio Bitrate: 157 kb/s VBR 48000 Hz
Audio Streams: 2
Audio Languages: english
RunTime Per Part: 53 min 45 s
Number Of Parts: 1
Part Size: 1.27 GB
Source: WEB DL (Thanks to HONOR)
Encoded by: DocFreak08 @ MVGroup