Today I finished work with a film crew from Committee Films of St. Paul, Minnesota on the premiere episode of a new History Channel series entitled America Unearthed. The episode name is “American Maya Secrets” and is based partly on my research into a Mayan presence in Georgia and Florida.
This was the third and final shoot for my segment of the TV show. It took place on the campus of the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia. We were there to discuss my interpretation of a petroglyph boulder housed in front of the Anthropology Department. My research proposes that the boulder was carved by Mayan astronomer-priests or people influenced by such.
I was interviewed on camera discussing the various symbols carved on the rock and their relationship to Mayan mythology. We also discussed the Mayan pigment called Maya Blue and the possibility that clay from Georgia was used to create it. Finally we discussed the similarities between the image of a Bird Man holding a severed head embossed on a copper plate unearthed at the Etowah Mounds site in north Georgia and a similar image carved on a wall at the Mayan site of Chichen Itza in Mexico.
Before we got fully started we were interrupted by one of Georgia’s notorious Summer thunderstorms. It delayed the shoot for a good hour. (This explains why people are wearing trash bags in the above photos. It was impromptu rain gear!) But both Scott Wolter and myself agreed that the rain actually made the petroglyph boulder look much better on camera!
The interview went on for nearly an hour. It will be interesting to see which parts they use and which parts get scrapped. As a filmmaker myself, I would be surprised if more than five minutes gets used in the final production.
But overall it was a fun experience. I can’t wait to see the final production.
UPDATE:
The Forsyth Petroglyph segment appeared on the premiere of America Unearthed on Dec. 21, 2012. Watch it below. Buy the entire show at Amazon.com.
