Living History
Cultural artifacts are crawling with damaging microbes
Tourists who visit the Maya temples at Ek’ Balam in Yucatán, Mexico, aren’t allowed to pocket souvenir chunks of the intricate carvings on the centuries-old buildings. Visitors aren’t supposed to even touch the soft limestone with their hands for fear they’ll rub away the structures’ delicate sculptural details. Yet even as Ek’ Balam’s caretakers keep people from destroying the archaeological site, microbes are working in a rock-eating bacchanal that could, if unchecked, leave behind nothing but dust.
Recent research has revealed that hordes of bacteria living inside the temples’ stones are physically and chemically dismantling the structures bit by grainy bit. The onslaught is slow, so the temples will probably stand for centuries. But the buildings are gradually losing their finely chiseled designs and images of people, gods, and animals.