Talk:Nohmul

A news item involving Nohmul was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the In the news section on 14 May 2013.

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Comparison to Afghanistan[edit]

The sentences comparing the destruction to that of Buddhist statues in Afghanistan is flawed and should be removed. The Taliban destroyed the statues out of religious, not commercial motives. That doesn't make it better or worse, but it does make it non-analogous. (16 May 2013) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.95.126.178 (talk) 19:51, 16 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Removed it as original research. Kaldari (talk) 23:51, 18 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Before pictures anyone?[edit]

Didn't seem to resemble pyramid. More like hill with vegetation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.158.33.66 (talk) 00:30, 16 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The best that I can find is This Image from some sort of Northern Belize tourism/photo site. The image is the most promising candidate for a suitable Wikipedia image, if someone can get the proper permissions for it.

For comparison, here are 3 less suitable ones from some sort of Texan Hummer SUV travel group that visited the site on 7/19/01: Image 1, Image 2 and Image 3. Mystyc1 (talk) 01:27, 16 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Coordinates[edit]

Are these the correct coordinates? 18°13′02″N 88°35′05″W / 18.217357°N 88.584732°W / 18.217357; -88.584732 --Tobias1984 (talk) 08:40, 14 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

No idea. Where'd you get them from? Kaldari (talk) 23:11, 14 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I found a few approximate coordinates on various pages and then I looked at the satellite images and that white spot in the field fit the description. Even if that is not the right spot, the coordinates are probably precise enough (on a 100 m scale). --Tobias1984 (talk) 07:31, 15 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sic[edit]

Any reason to have "sic" after "endemic"? The word endemic seems appropriate and correct. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.16.192.234 (talk) 11:40, 15 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Size[edit]

The article says the pyramid was 30 meters tall, but in these pictures it appears far shorter: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/13/mayan-pyramid-destroyed_n_3268401.html#slide=2445590 128.248.8.237 (talk) 23:59, 15 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Some of the pictures of the machine give a wrong impression, the structure was far larger than it looks. Just look at this picture taken from one of the videos. you can see that the machine actually is on an elevated portion (a part of the pyramid itself)!

Pyramid from some distance

It is in fact 8 meters tall: http://www.nichbelize.org/ia-maya-sites/nohmul.html 128.248.8.237 (talk) 00:07, 16 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The page is mistaken, or maybe they talk about another structure at the site. Just look at the picture I linked to (above) of the current structure, the picture was taken from some distance - it's obvious that it is far taller than 8 m. The digging machine is 3 m tall to the roof. Just look how many times this height the structure is. The digging machine can reach over 8-9 m up, yet they had to use an elevated portion to reach the centre of the structure - and the structure is even taller than that. Though it's difficult to make out where the actual top is, if you watch the actual videos it becomes obvious that the structure is around twice as tall as the reach of the digging machine, and as mentioned, the reach of the machine is over 8 m. I can't claim to know how tall it is, but it's definitely a lot taller than 8 m, at least relative to the fields in front.

I found a reference for the alleged 8 m height. The 8 m. refer to one of the platforms of the structure. The description is as follows:

The description of the alleged 8 m tall structure, from page 63: "...Prec1assic when a two meter thick platform, 300m x (almost) 200m in area, was built as a central plaza. On the north side of this plaza, the acropolis, a secondary platform (structure 1) some eight meters tall was built; upon this platform structure 2 rose about another nine meters... " The source is "The settlement of Nohmul: Development of a prehispanic Maya community in northern Belize" Pyburn, Karen Anne. So, if we ignore the basal platform, the height of the structure is 8+9 m, in other words it is 17 m. tall, excluding the basal platform. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.249.52.211 (talk) 17:29, 13 June 2013 (UTC) Additionally http://7newsbelize.com/sstory.php?nid=25513 That is a link to an article with the Director of the Institute Of Archeology in Belize, Dr. Jaime Awe. He says "The building in question here is about 70ft tall." (that's a little taller than the 19 m quoted above, but it's close, and it wasn't an exact measure anyway) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.249.52.211 (talk) 20:10, 17 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I've changed it to 17 meters per the Pyburn source. Kaldari (talk) 01:59, 5 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Units[edit]

Someone also needs to switch the article to "metric (US-system)". This is not a US-article, so by default the metric system should be given priority. --Tobias1984 (talk) 06:32, 16 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Use Template:Convert. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 06:19, 18 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the structure measurements should be in meters by default. For the distance measurements, miles are acceptable as the default since 'miles' are still more commonly used in Belize than 'kilometers'. Kaldari (talk) 23:49, 18 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]