{"id":15171,"date":"2019-12-05T14:45:23","date_gmt":"2019-12-05T14:45:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.travelcenter.uk\/?p=15171"},"modified":"2020-02-21T04:24:49","modified_gmt":"2020-02-21T04:24:49","slug":"two-tourists-were-prisoned-for-defacing-1300-year-old-mayan-temple","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.travelcenter.uk\/blog\/two-tourists-were-prisoned-for-defacing-1300-year-old-mayan-temple\/","title":{"rendered":"Two tourists were prisoned for defacing 1,300-year-old Mayan temple"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><span style=\"color:#000000\" class=\"tadv-color\">Vandals are caught carving initials on an ancient temple wall in the city of Tikal&nbsp; &nbsp;<\/span><\/li><li><span style=\"color:#000000\" class=\"tadv-color\">Temple was considered to be a UNESCO declared site for tourists<\/span><\/li><li><span style=\"color:#000000\" class=\"tadv-color\">The government imposes hefty fines for defacing the country&#8217;s monuments<\/span><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"color:#000000\" class=\"has-text-color has-text-align-justify wp-block-paragraph\">Two tourists were caught red-handed carving their initials in the walls of a 1,300-year-old Mayan temple in Guatemala.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"color:#000000\" class=\"has-text-color has-text-align-justify wp-block-paragraph\">Vandals were spotted scribbling \u2018A + P&#8217; on a wall of the ancient Tikal Temple II pyramid in Flores of the northern Guatemalan, the temple is <a>considered<\/a> as one of the largest archaeological Mayan sites in Mesoamerica.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"color:#000000\" class=\"has-text-color has-text-align-justify wp-block-paragraph\"><a>This ancient temple was found in 732 AD, Tikal Temple II<\/a>&nbsp;is a part of Guatemala&#8217;s Tikal National Park which holds up to 142,333 acres of wetlands, savannah, tropical forests and out of all approximately 1,000 acres are filled with precious monuments and structures that make up to be declared as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1979.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"color:#000000\" class=\"has-text-color has-text-align-justify wp-block-paragraph\"><a>The tourists who have been vandalising the pyramid are known as Mesoamericans, a cultural site from the pre-Columbian societies that flourished before the Spanish c<\/a>olonisation of America in the 16th century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"color:#000000\" class=\"has-text-color has-text-align-justify wp-block-paragraph\">The two tourists were spotted by a local tour leader Vinicio Alba Ruiz\njust after carving their initials into the ancient temple wall. As an\nenvironmentally-minded Guatemalan, he has warned them saying, if you visit this\nsite you should respect the rules. He added, \u201cThey do not need further\nexplanation, it is common sense.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"color:#000000\" class=\"has-text-color has-text-align-justify wp-block-paragraph\">Alba Ruiz also urged officials to recruit more staff to ensure their\nheritage is more protected.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"color:#000000\" class=\"has-text-color has-text-align-justify wp-block-paragraph\">The Guatemalan Tourism Industry (INGUAT) complained about the incident\nin a public statement and demanded that the Public Ministry of Culture and\nSport, which manages the world heritage monument, hold the tourists accountable\nfor the damage, CEN reports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"color:#000000\" class=\"has-text-color has-text-align-justify wp-block-paragraph\">The Guatemalan Law for the Protection of the Cultural Heritage allows for fines of between \u00a310,053 (100,000 GTQ) and \u00a3100 (1 million GTQ) for causing damage to ancient sites, as well as prison sentences of between six and nine years, according to reports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Vandals are caught carving initials on an ancient temple wall in the city of Tikal&nbsp; &nbsp; Temple was considered to be a UNESCO declared site for tourists The government imposes hefty fines for defacing the country&#8217;s monuments Two tourists were caught red-handed carving their initials in the walls of a 1,300-year-old Mayan temple in Guatemala. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":346,"featured_media":15174,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[612],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.travelcenter.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.travelcenter.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.travelcenter.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.travelcenter.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/346"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.travelcenter.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15171"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.travelcenter.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15171\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16392,"href":"https:\/\/www.travelcenter.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15171\/revisions\/16392"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.travelcenter.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.travelcenter.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.travelcenter.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.travelcenter.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}