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Ancient Maya Built Sophisticated Water Filter System Light-Years Ahead Of The Rest Of The World:

The great Maya city of Tikal transported zeolites for water filtration thousands of years before other cultures learned or adopted the idea, archaeologists have found. The filtration was probably much better than anything known to the Europeans who conquered the area 1,500 years later.

The Corriental reservoir was one of Tikal's sources of drinking water. Dr Kenneth Tankersley of the University of Cincinnati found crystalline quartz and zeolite when digging at the reservoir. Neither are local to the area and would have had to be brought a long way by the standards of a people who had no beasts of burden.

[...] Tankersley observed the quartz/zeolite combination would have removed multiple pathogens from the water supply, including heavy metals, nitrogen-rich compounds, and bacteria. [...] "This system would still be effective today and the Maya discovered it more than 2,000 years ago," Tankersley said in a statement.

[...] In Scientific Reports, Tankersley proposes a source for the minerals and even explains how people might have come to recognize their value. A decade ago co-author Professor Nicholas Dunning reported volcanic rock known as tuff, rich in quartz and zeolite, in a scarp. "It was bleeding water at a good rate," he said. "Workers refilled their water bottles with it. It was locally famous for how clean and sweet the water was."

Journal References:
Kenneth Barnett Tankersley, Nicholas P. Dunning, Christopher Carr, et al. Zeolite water purification at Tikal, an ancient Maya city in Guatemala [open], Scientific Reports (DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-75023-7)

Original Submission

1. "upstart" - https://soylentnews.org/~upstart/
2. "Ancient Maya Built Sophisticated Water Filter System Light-Years Ahead Of The Rest Of The World" - https://www.iflscience.com/technology/ancient-maya-built-sophisticated-water-filter-system-lightyears-ahead-of-the-rest-of-the-world/
3. "zeolites" - https://www.iflscience.com/chemistry/scientists-discover-new-carbon-structure/
4. "Dr Kenneth Tankersley" - https://www.artsci.uc.edu/departments/geology/research-and-scholarship/qarg/members/faculty/kenneth-tankersley.html
5. "statement" - https://www.uc.edu/news/articles/2020/10/uc-archaeologists-discover-sophisticated-water-filters-in-ancient-maya-city.html
6. "Scientific Reports" - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-75023-7
7. "Professor Nicholas Dunning" - https://www.artsci.uc.edu/departments/geology/research-and-scholarship/qarg/members/faculty/nicholas-dunning.html
8. "10.1038/s41598-020-75023-7" - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-75023-7
9. "Original Submission" - https://soylentnews.org/submit.pl?op=viewsub&subid=44807

printed from SoylentNews, Ancient Maya Built Sophisticated Water Filter System Light-Years Ahead of the Rest of the World on 2024-04-25 08:19:19