– English Lyrics

Lyrics & Translation

[English]

Heat. Heat.

[Music]

In the early 19th century, stories

emerged of mysterious ruins that lay

buried and forgotten deep inside the

jungles of Central

America. But a lost civilization in this

region was thought to be impossible in

the 1800s.

Everyone knew that the continent had

only ever been people by

savages, but they couldn't have created

such sophisticated

structures. Someone else must have done

it. So Egyptians or Asians had come to

the Central America and built these

ruins and then left again.

But then an American lawyer named John

Lloyd Stevens and a British artist

Frederick Cather went to see these ruins

for

themselves. An artist and a lawyer go

into a jungle. I mean that what how more

preposterous can it be?

They traveled hundreds of miles through

the jungles of Mexico, Guatemala, and

Honduras to search for the

ruins.

Eventually, they uncovered the remains

of 44

cities. It was extraordinarily exciting

for them because they knew they'd found

something the world had never seen

before.

[Music]

With their astonishing discoveries, the

two amateur explorers overturned

everything we thought we knew about the

history of the new

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world. This is the amazing story of how

Stevens and Catherwood discovered one of

the world's greatest

civilizations, the Maya.

[Music]

John Lloyd Stevens was born to a

prosperous New Jersey family in

1805. He was classically educated, a

trained lawyer, and a rising Democratic

Party politician.

And so he might have remained but for a

chance event. During a mayoral campaign

in

1834, Stevens's voice became so hoarse

with public speaking that he developed a

serious throat

infection. His doctor advised an

immediate change of climate.

[Music]

Stevens took his doctor at his word. He

enjoyed the thrill of traveling around

Europe and the Middle East, writing

about his adventures amongst the ruins

of the old world.

By the mid 1830s, he goes to Egypt in

the Holy Land. He travels to Greece and

Poland and Russia and he really takes to

it. He seems to have a real talent for

uh travel

[Music]

[Applause]

writing. On his way back to New York,

Steven stopped off in London in

1836.

Here he met Frederick Catherwood, a

well-known British

artist. Catherwood was trained as an

architect to begin with. So he

understands buildings, he understands

structure, and then he goes to the Royal

Academy Schools in London and trains as

an

artist. Cather studied under some of the

greatest masters of his

time. Turner gave him lessons on

perspective.

Others taught him how to draw buildings

and Catherwood became a highly

accomplished architectural

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painter. Like Stevens, Catherwood had

traveled to many of the great ruins of

Europe in the Middle East between 1821

and 1832.

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Stevens a Cath acquired really very

extensive knowledge both of them of the

kind of archaeology that was was known

about at that time in the old

world. While Stevens had written about

these ancient worlds, Catherwood had

painted their ruins in great detail.

[Music]

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But then Stevens and Catherwood would

hear rumors of a new world

civilization which would define the path

they would follow for the rest of their

lives. They come together and discuss

what is just about on on the radar at

the time. And this is these curious

remnants of some sort of ancient

civilization in in Central

America. Cather showed Stevens an

intriguing book called Descriptions of

an Ancient City.

Published in 1822, it displayed

illustrations of ruins with palaces and

pyramids covered with characters and

symbols in a mysterious place called

Penke in southern Mexico. Kath would

show him a series of books. One of them

provided quite an avid description of

Penke, but had decided that like so many

scholars of the time that it couldn't

have been the native Indians that had

created these ruins.

[Music]

The idea that there had ever been a

Native American civilization deep in the

jungles of Central America was

unthinkable to many in the 1800s.

[Music]

Indigenous Indians could not have built

these ruins, could not have built such

great palaces. And they were magnificent

palaces for a culture that never moved

beyond stone

tools. Indians, according to historians

of the day, were thought to be savage

and primitive and not capable of

building such sophisticated cities.

The view was that the ruins at Paleenke

must have been the work of other

cultures.

They must have been an ancient culture

from across the sea. So Egyptians or

Asians had come to Central America and

built these ruins and then left again.

[Music]

The reason for this view was that

historians had very fixed

ideas. Critically they believed all

civilizations had to conform to a

certain set of

rules. In the 1830s I mean Stevens and

Catherwood when talking about

civilization would define it in terms of

cities and impressive looking

architecture.

[Music]

evidence of rulers and

rule complex kind of agricultural

systems, a writing

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system. And then there is time for

people to be artists, to sculpt

monuments, to study the sciences,

travel, trade, have a wealth of goods,

have teachers, schools.

Everyone agreed that the primitive

nomadic people of Central America

couldn't have achieved anything like

this.

Though they weren't professional

historians, Stevens and Catherwood

believed that those who held that view

were wrong. They could see no evidence

that Egyptians and Phoenicians had ever

been to Central America, and the images

they were looking at were very different

to anything they had seen in the old

world. They must have been made by an

unknown Native American culture.

Stevens and Cathwood were

extraordinarily different people. I

mean, that's what's makes them so

marvelous as a pair. This is a sort of

Holmes and Watson, you know, of my

archaeology. They could see that was

evident in the new world was something

very very different. He and Catherwood

together were the first to look at these

sites um without the filters of thinking

about old world archaeology. both are

very much interested in these being

indigenously authored sites.

These illustrations and vague accounts

of a lost city aroused Stevens and

Catherwood's

curiosity. They decided to look further.

[Applause]

[Music]

Two years later, in

1838, Stevens got another

lead. A New York book seller showed him

several more works relating to ruins in

Central

America. One was a large folio based on

the personal explorations and

illustrations of French archaeologist

Jean Frederick Walddeck, which had just

been published in Paris.

These pages showed again the

illustrations of the Paleenke ruins in

Mexico, first made known to Stevens by

Catherwood. And there was more. The book

also revealed illustrations of another

strange ruin in Oshar in the Yucatan

region of Mexico.

Stevens then learned from the book

seller that yet a further set of ruins

were said to exist in an area called

Copan in modernday

Honduras. Stevens had read an account by

a man called Juan Galindo who'd actually

been to Kopan and written a description

of what of what he'd seen there.

Monstrous fears are found among the

ruins. One, a colossal alligator having

in his jaws a figure with a human face,

but with the paws of an

animal. Stevens was stunned. He had now

heard of three separate ruined

cities. Paleenke in southern Mexico,

Ushar in the Yucatan, and Copan in

Honduras. All in the same region but

hundreds of miles apart. And who knew if

there were any

more? Stevens began to wonder, could

these ruins be evidence that there had

once been a great civilization in that

region? He is, you know, among the first

of these explorer writers to begin

connecting the dots and thinking about

this as a coherent civilization.

Stevens could see that there must be

some connection between these ruins. And

these weren't just one palace here and

one palace there, completely different

groups. There must have been something

between them.

Back at home, Stevens became convinced

he was on to something and was

determined to find these three ruins

he'd learned about. Pelenke, Ushmile,

and

Copan. He began to plan an expedition to

Central America.

[Music]

Because Stevens was now earning

substantial royalties from his

successful travel books, he invited his

artist friend Frederick Catherwood to go

with

him. Stevens sent him word to get

ready. The deal meant that Catherwood

would illustrate any ruins they find in

Central America, and Stevens would pay

for it.

Catherwood packed his brushes, paints,

and reams of

paper. He also packed machetes and

pistols as there was a real chance of

trouble where they were

[Music]

going. British Honduras and Guatemala

were in the middle of a violent border

dispute and the area was considered a

very dangerous place to visit.

Stevens realized that they were going to

need all the help they could

[Music]

get. He persuaded the US President

Martin van Buren to appoint him as a

special ambassador to Central America to

help ease their way through the unstable

region.

He's even given a special sort of frock

coat to wear for the sort of official

occasions. So he has that diplomatic

mission which runs alongside the the

artistic and and historical

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mission. The only problem was the four

previous US ambassadors to have held

this position had all died in office in

Central America.

Stevens received a letter from one of

their widows whose husband had died of

malaria. It concluded with the ominous

words, "May you be more fortunate than

any of your predecessors have been."

[Music]

Stevens and Catherwood left New York on

the 3rd of October

1839, determined to locate the three

ruins buried deep in the jungles of

Central

America. After a month at sea, the two

explorers arrived in Bise on the

northeastern coast of Central America.

Their plan was to first head towards one

of the mysterious lost cities Stevens

had heard about in New York. It was

called Copan and it lay in the western

region of Honduras, close to the

Guatemalan border.

[Music]

In honor of Steven's diplomatic

position, they were guests of the

British governor in Bise. Colonel

Macdonald, a veteran of the Napoleonic

Wars. Macdonald warned them they were

entering dangerous country and his

diplomatic pass would hold no sway with

any rebel forces they may encounter.

[Music]

Macdonald put Stevens and Cather on a

government steamboat and told them that

if danger did threaten, they were to

hang out their flag and send word to

him. Then he sent them on their way with

a 13 gun salute.

[Music]

Undaunted, they arrived on the coast of

eastern Guatemala the following

morning. Now the two explorers had to

climb over the Miko mountain range to

reach the Guatemalan border with

Honduras. Once there, they would enter

Honduras and go on to Copan.

[Music]

Stevens hired a guide who was fluent in

Spanish and knew the grueling mountain

pass that loomed

[Music]

ahead. Although only just over 4,000 ft,

Mo was a treacherous route to cross.

[Music]

Stevens later described their experience

in his book of the expedition, Incidents

of Travel in Central

America. For five long hours, we were

dragged through mud holes, squeezed in

gullies, knocked against trees, and

tumbled over roots. Every step required

care and great physical

[Music]

exertion. I felt that our and glorious

epitap might be tossed over the head of

a mule, rained by the trunk of a

mahogany tree, and buried in the mud of

Mo

Mountain. Catherwood looked at Stevens

and groaned.

If I'd known of this cursed Mo Mountain

before I agreed to come, you would have

come to Central America

alone. Here's a guy in a jungle with

guns on each hip and a

sword and in all likelihood wearing

shades because he suffered from eye

problems, inflammation of the iris, and

there's a reference to him wearing

spectacles. I mean, that picture when

you think about it, I mean, Keith

Richards got nothing on that.

[Music]

Over the next two weeks, the party

hacked through jungles and traversed

perilous

ravines. It was jungle. End to end

jungle with no roads or places to stop

off for the night. Food was a big issue.

It seemed like they lived on chocolate

and cigars most of the

time. They passed hillsides with grazing

cattle that reminded Stevens of rural

England, wereounded by biting insects

and tropical

fevers. And there was also the

everpresent threat of running into

ruthless

rebels. People get very nasty in civil

wars

and the factions

were already known to have committed

atrocities and massacres and whatnot.

Um, and they had a very real suspicion

of foreigners.

One evening, Stevens and Cather set up

camp in an abandoned

[Music]

church. As they slept, drunken soldiers

burst in, brandishing swords and

musketss. Stevens recalled this incident

in his account of the

expedition.

Here we were in the hands of men who

would have been turned out of any decent

state prison lest they should

contaminate the other

inmates. Their appearance was ferocious

and doubtless if we had attempted to

escape they would have been glad of the

excuse for murder.

[Music]

Luckily, the following morning, the

soldiers had sobered up. Stevens and

Catherwood were allowed to continue

their journey to Copan.

[Music]

14 days after arriving in Bise, the two

men finally reached the area of

Copan, a remote jungle region little

known by locals and rarely visited by

travelers.

[Music]

As the two explorers worked their way

through the dense forest, they suddenly

came to a bank of a

[Music]

river. Across the water, Steven's eyes

fell on a large stone wall rising out of

the undergrowth.

[Music]

It was 100 ft high and covered in thick

constricting

vines. It had more the character of a

structure than anything we had ever seen

ascribed to the aboriges of America.

[Music]

[Music]

Stevens and Cather crossed the river to

investigate. Stevens would vividly

describe their experience of Copine and

how they first set eyes on the ruins in

his book of the expedition.

I am entering abruptly a new

world. It is impossible to describe the

interest with which I explored these

ruins. The ground was entirely new.

There were no guide books or guides. The

hole was a virgin

soil. We could not see 10 yards before

us and never knew what we should stumble

upon next.

[Music]

Stevens realized they had to clear the

ruins of its tangle of jungle vines

before they could really understand what

lay beneath them.

[Music]

Just as they were about to begin, they

had an unexpected

problem. The local land owner

[Music]

appeared. Stevens explained he wanted to

clear and explore the ruins and offered

to buy the land.

when his host is uh sort of bulking at

the idea, the first thing that Stevens

does is he opens up his trunk, pulls out

his diplomatic, you know, sort of

uniform and claims that his host was

overwhelmed by his shiny, you know,

American Eagle

buttons. At last, Steven's diplomatic

status became useful. He was allowed to

purchase the Copan land for

$50. Now they could set to

[Music]

[Music]

work. The following morning, the

systematic clearing of the Copan ruins

began.

Copan was extraordinarily overgrown at

this point. So they were seeing little

bits and pieces of Copan at a

[Music]

time. At one time we stopped to cut away

branches and vines which concealed the

face of a

monument and dig around and bring to

light a fragment, a sculptured corner of

which protruded from the earth.

It'd be like finding one statue in

Egypt and not knowing yet that the

pyramids were there.

We go now and we travel there now and

they look very clinical almost cuz they

very nicely cut lawns and all of the

trees have been taken away, but they

would have seen them thoroughly immersed

in jungle.

I leaned over with breathless anxiety.

An eye, an ear, a foot, or a hand was

disintuned.

And when the machete rang against the

chiseled stone, I cleared out the loose

earth with my

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

[Applause]

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hands. As Stevens ran the excavations,

Catherwood set up his station in the

jungle to record the mysterious

structures they were

discovering. He used a piece of

equipment called a camera lucid to help

him detail what he was seeing with great

[Music]

accuracy. He had with him this

apparatus, the camera lucid. the light

came through a kind of prism and gave

you an image which you could see on a

piece of paper and you pretty much

sketch it or trace it and it was a great

help to to

Catherine. Katherine with his incredible

knowledge of

architecture must have realized right

away that this was something quite

unique and that he was in a unique place

qualified to record it.

[Music]

As Stevens and Catherwood gradually

cleared away the jungle vines, they

began to unearth evidence of a very

sophisticated

society. They saw fantastic little

elements of sculpture which intrigued

them. And then eventually as they

carried on, they began to see these very

large great big monoliths.

seeing these which clearly convinced

them that this was something. They'd

never seen anything like that

before. Working our way through the

thick woods, we came upon a square stone

column about 14 ft high and 3 ft on each

side from the base to the top.

The front was the figure of the man

curiously and richly dressed and the

face evidently a portrait. Our guide

called it an

idol. And before it was a large block of

stone sculptured with figures which he

called an altar.

The sight of this unexpected monument

gave us the assurance that the objects

we were in search of were interesting

not only as the remains of an unknown

people but as works of art. Proving that

the people who once occupied the

continent of America were not savages.

Right away you can see how open he is

because he doesn't say, "Oh, that's a a

monster or a a crude representation of

the devil or something." He observes

that they're very complex, must have

been made by very, you know, talented

people.

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

[Applause]

As the days passed, Stevens and

Catherwood uncovered monumental

structures that could have housed

hundreds of people and building blocks

that showed all the hallmarks of a great

civilization.

They found large squares, terraces and

platforms with stepped pyramids,

temples, ceremonial buildings and

shrines with altars.

[Music]

We reached a terrace so overgrown with

trees that at first we could not make

out its form, but which on clearing we

ascertained to be a square and with

steps on all the sides as perfect as

those of the Roman amphitheater.

I think they really were kind of

astounded once they got to Copan. Uh the

extent of the cities,

the beauty of the sculpture, the

desolation of the city, and the mystery

that hung over it, all created an

interest higher, if possible, than I had

ever felt among the ruins of the old

world.

What is amazingly sort of human and

endearing of him is the way he puts it

is that he says, you know, after a time

looking at these things, it was evident

these weren't the monuments of of

savages. These are sophisticated people.

Now there could be no doubt the two

amateur men had found what professional

historians had said could not

exist. Proof that some form of

civilization had once thrived in this

area.

[Music]

And then came something even more

extraordinary writing.

standing at the center of the ruins,

their eyes fixed on a large stone

monument with 16 seated human figures

carved around it and 36 blocks of

hieroglyphs on its

top. Catherine knew from seeing all the

Egyptian hieroglyphs that he' drawn over

and over again along the Nile that this

was a writing system and that the

writing system they talked together

about this probably had something to do

with the images on the front.

As Stevens and Catherwood's eyes

examined the hieroglyphs, they were

aware that all the great cultures of the

past had developed their own writing

systems. The people of Copan had clearly

done the same, just like the

civilizations of the old

world. There were no associations

connected with the place. None of those

stirring recollections which hallow

Rome, Athens, and the world's great

mistress on the Egypt

plane, but architecture, sculpture, and

painting. All the arts which embellish

life had flourished in this overgrown

forest. Orators, warriors, and

statesmen, beauty, ambition, and glory

had lived and passed away.

[Music]

But it beg the question, who had built

this place, and what had become of

them? The city was desolate. It lay

before us like a shattered bark amidst

the ocean. Her masks gone, her name a

faced, her crew perished. and none to

tell when she came, to whom she

belonged, how long in her voyage, or

what caused her

destruction. In the ruined cities of

Egypt, even in the longlost Petra, the

stranger knows the story of the

vestigages around him.

[Music]

Stevens was convinced the answer to who

had built this civilization had to lie

in the

hieroglyphs. One day, when someone could

read them, they would be able to

understand the history of those who had

lived

here. In regards to the age of this

desolate city, I shall not at present

offer any conjecture. One thing I

believe that its history is graven on

its monuments.

Stevens really believed that these were

historical documents, that they weren't

simply um say astronomical observations,

that they're the stories of real

people's

[Music]

lives. Spurred on by their amazing

discovery at Copan, Stevens and

Catherwood continued their trek across

Central America in search of other

ruins.

[Music]

They know that somewhere out there

there's this palenke and they've seen

illustrations of that. So they were

maybe already considering well maybe

there's a very large area here. We don't

know how it's construct whether it's an

empire whether these are kind of city

states with something definably similar

um across across a wide area. Over the

next 2 years, they explored a vast

region and traveled through Honduras,

Guatemala, and the Yucatan in

southeastern

Mexico. Stevens and Cather uncovered,

surveyed, and recorded another 43 ruined

cities that had lain buried and

forgotten for hundreds of years.

including

[Music]

Oshma,

Palenke, Chichin,

Ita, and

Tulum. And they found evidence of

everything that people believed was

needed for a civilization.

Vast cities with central areas

containing grand plazas, royal courts,

and governor's palaces. Proof of a

sophisticated social

hierarchy. Ornate temples, stepped

pyramids, and monuments bearing

hieroglyphic descriptions, proof of an

organized religion.

Gymnasiums and ball courts, astronomical

observatories, intensive farming land,

markets and trading centers, outlying

villages, lookout towers and defensive

walls with linking roads and

causeways. All with a common

architectural style that confirmed that

there was once a single vast

civilization here.

[Music]

Stevens and Catherwood returned to New

York in the spring of

1842. They faced a new challenge. They

had to convince the world that what they

had discovered in Central America was

truly

groundbreaking. There really was a vast

civilization that had once existed and

thrived in a place where nobody believed

there could be

[Music]

one. Stevens decided the best way to

achieve this would be to publish a

written illustrated record of their

expeditions.

His first book, Incidents of Travel in

Central America, came out in

1841 and was quickly followed by

Incidents of Travel in Yucatan in

1843. Steven's books contained over 200

Cathwood engravings and were an instant

success, selling more than 20,000 copies

within the first 3 months.

His volumes were really within the reach

of the middleclass American reading

public. And so the ruins reached a far

wider audience than they ever had

before. Edgar Alan Poe called Steven's

work perhaps the most thrilling book on

travel ever published.

[Music]

Cather then released his own volume,

Views of Ancient Monuments in Central

America, the following year.

It documented their spectacular

discoveries with 25 stunning handcoled

lithographs which vividly brought the

beautiful carved monuments, temples and

pyramids back to life.

[Music]

What Catherine Wood did with his drawing

was not so much just make pictures. He

he used the word draw in its larger

sense of pulling. He pulled basically

drew an entire civilization out of the

past into the present.

I think that there is a real parallel

between um Catherwood's painstaking

illustration of every inch of a monument

uh and Stevens doing the same thing in

in

pros. Together, the writings of Stevens

and the illustrations of Catherwood

would captivate the imagination of their

readers.

Steven had a fantastic rhetoric. His

writing style was

clear, descriptive, immersive, and he

really portrayed a lot of his passion

for what he was doing through his

[Music]

writing. It was a perfect example of how

the words and the images complemented

one another, but neither one could have

pulled this off on their own.

[Music]

But for all their extraordinary

revelations, there was still one

question they could not

answer. As Stevens wrote, "I now bid

farewell to the ruins. I leave them with

all mystery around them and in the

feeble hope that these imperfect pages

may in some way throw a glimmer of light

upon the great and long vainly mooted

question. Who were the peoplers of

America?

[Music]

Stevens and Catherwood would never know

the answer. They both died early in

their

lives. Stevens from malaria at the age

of

47 and Catherwood drowned when his ship

sank crossing the Atlantic in

1854. He was 55.

[Music]

But eventually Steven's prediction would

come true. When someone could read their

hieroglyphic descriptions, they would

understand who these people

were. Over the next 170 years, the

secrets of this culture's history were

indeed proved to be in their

writing. Stevens is really the first

western explorer in Central America and

Mexico, both to believe in indigenous

authorship of the ruins and to glean the

importance of the glyphs.

[Music]

Archaeologists inspired by Stevens and

Catherwood's explorations managed to

read the writings and the

images and a picture emerged of the rise

and fall of one of the world's greatest

civilizations, the Maya.

[Music]

The earliest traces of their existence

go back to 1500 BC and possibly as far

as 2,500

BC. Their kingdoms stretched across a

vast area of Central America from

southern Mexico to the Atlantic and the

Caribbean coast of Bise.

Stevens and Catherwood's first

discovery, Copan was established in 450

AD and lasted for 400

years with 20,000 people in an area of

100 square miles. It was the Athens of

Central America from the 5th to the 9th

centuries AD at a time when Europe was

lost in the dark ages.

Copan by any standards was a highly

developed and advanced

civilization. The Maya were a hugely

sophisticated society and culture. They

had a very complicated mathematic

system. They were one of the few ancient

groups to use the concept of zero which

is hugely important for

mathematics. They had very detailed

astronomy. They knew the movements of

the planets and stars. They mapped the

movement of Venus, for example, with a

great amount of

detail. Their calendar was very, very

accurate, more accurate in many ways

than western calendars of a similar

period. They managed to build these

temples without the use of metal tools.

They had very little metal work um other

than gold and silver for decorative

purposes. They never had the wheel. They

didn't have pack animals. There was no

horses or carts or anything like that.

But they were able to create temples as

large if not larger than those in Egypt.

[Music]

Stevens and Cather's revelation that a

mighty Maya civilization lay buried in

the Central American jungle was one of

the greatest discoveries of their

age. An artist and a lawyer go into a

jungle. I mean that what how more

proposers can it be? But the thing

was the very different personalities

with that overlap produced this amazing

scope which would never have happened if

they hadn't been that different.

Stevens and Catherwood proved that you

didn't need to be a professional

academic to be a great historian. What

you needed was passion and attention to

detail. and an open

mind. I think you know essentially in

finally judging their achievement you

have these two people that complement

each other wonderfully well with this

extraordinarily vivid text and the

marvelous uh illustrations and what you

do have here you have two people that

have established the study of the

Maya it was remarkable not just an

intellectual achievement it was a feat

of endurance these were heroes they

produced a remarkable event under

life-threatening circumstances I think

it was one of the

exploratory triumphs absolutely in

history.

With their astonishing discoveries, the

two amateur explorers overturned every

prejudice we had about the development

of cultures in the new

world. Stevens and Cather had proved

beyond doubt. Native Americans had

constructed a sophisticated civilization

that compared to any of the finest

ancient

civilizations of the old world.

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Okay.

Key Vocabulary

Vocabulary	Meanings
civilization /ˌsɪvɪlaɪˈzeɪʃən/ B2	noun - an advanced state of human society with complex social, cultural, and political development
ruins /ˈruːɪnz/ B1	noun - the remains of a building or other structure that has been destroyed or badly damaged
discovery /dɪˈskʌvəri/ B2	noun - the act of finding something for the first time, or the thing that is found
expedition /ˌɛkspəˈdɪʃən/ C1	noun - a journey or voyage undertaken by a group of people with a particular purpose, especially travel into unknown territory
archaeologist /ˌɑːrkiˈɒlədʒɪst/ C1	noun - a person who studies the buildings, grave sites, tools, and other objects of past human cultures
hieroglyph /ˈhaɪərəɡlɪf/ C2	noun - a picture or symbol that represents a word, used in some writing systems, such as those of ancient Egypt
monument /ˈmɒnjəmənt/ B2	noun - a statue or building that is built to honor a person or event of great historical importance
pyramid /ˈpɪrəmɪd/ B2	noun - a large structure with a square base and four triangular sides that meet at a point at the top
temple /ˈtɛmpl/ B1	noun - a building intended to be used as a place of worship by people of a particular religion
indigenous /ɪnˈdɪdʒənəs/ C1	adjective - originating or occurring naturally in a particular place; native
sophisticated /səˈfɪstɪkeɪtɪd/ C1	adjective - having a lot of experience of difficult situations and therefore knowing how to behave in them
ancient /ˈeɪnʃənt/ A2	adjective - belonging to a period of history that is thousands of years ago
mysterious /mɪˈstɪəriəs/ B1	adjective - difficult or impossible to understand, explain, or identify
explore /ɪkˈsplɔːr/ B2	verb - to travel to or into an area of land in order to learn about it; to examine something in detail
travel /ˈtrævl/ A2	verb - to make a journey noun - the activity or act of traveling