The Second Voyage of the Mimi is a twelve-episode American educational television program depicting a fictional crew of a sailboat named the Mimi exploring Mayan ruins in Southern Mexico. Along the way, they learn about ancient civilization and also attempt to foil the plans of looters who steal the artifacts from the ancient sites. This series is a sequel to The Voyage of the Mimi , produced in 1984, in which the Granvilles rented their boat and services to zoologists studying the humpback whale in the waters off Massachusetts.
The series aired on PBS and was created by the Bank Street College of Education in 1988 to teach middle-schoolers about science and social studies.
In each episode, viewers are taught something scientific relating to plot events in the previous episode of the show. For example, an episode's plot would be about deciphering Mayan writing, and the viewer also receives information about how the Maya wrote various words and numbers.
The Second Voyage of the Mimi saw a young Ben Affleck return as C.T. Granville, and Peter G. Marston as his grandfather Captain Granville. Marston was a scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology [1] during the production of the program and used to own the actual ship, the Mimi.
Main Cast Listing:
Each episode consists of two fifteen-minute segments.
The first segment of each episode follows the serialized tale of scientists studying the ancient Maya and getting involved with thwarting site looters. The two scientists are Victor Cobos, a Mexican man of Maya descent, and Terry Gibbs, an American woman. Terry's husband is revealed to have been killed by site looters. Terry's daughter Quiché has grown up with archeology and can already read Maya writing. They hire the Granvilles in Quintana Roo, Mexico, near Tulum, to help them study the routes of ancient Maya ships. The Granvilles in turn hire Pepper Thornton, the daughter of one of Captain Granville's old sailing buddies, because she is an expert diver. Previously, Pepper worked for Harvey Westerman, a skinflint tour operator, guiding tourists on dives through then reefs.
Each second segment is a standalone exploration of one of the scientific principles touched on in the serialized tale. In these second segments, one of the child actors (Ben Affleck or Carla Douglin) comes out of character and interviews real, in many cases well-known, scientists abouts their work. These scientists include archeologists Bill Fash, Peter Reynolds and David Stuart, and rain forest ecologist Nalini Nadkarni. In addition, Martha Hill, a silver medalist in the Winter Paralympics, comes out of character in an interview with Ben Affleck at the beginning of the information segment titled "Expedition 1 If I can Do This". [2] [ failed verification ]
Episode Number | Episode Name | Expedition Name |
---|---|---|
1 | A Charter to the Past - Tulum | If I Can Do This! - Jackson Hole |
2 | A Tomb in the Jungle - Palenque | Sweating It Out - Doriot Climatic Chambers |
3 | A Light in the Dark | As the Earth Turns - Royal Observatory, Greenwich |
4 | The Underworld | The Incredible Shrinking Head! - North American Hyperbaric Center - City Island, Bronx |
5 | A Stone Puzzle | Feeling the Pressure - North American Hyperbaric Center - City Island, Bronx |
6 | Cracking the Code | Written in Stone - Copán, Honduras |
7 | The Quest Begins | The Ancient Farm [3] [4] |
8 | A Road To Danger | Venom: A Scorpion Tale - Alejandro Alagón, MD, PhD [5] |
9 | A Friendly Village | Curandera - Mexico City |
10 | Discoveries | Up a Tree - Costa Rica - Nalini Nadkarni |
11 | Found and Lost | In the Canopy - Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve |
12 | The Fate of a King | One Stone at a Time - Cathedral of St. John the Divine |
The history of Guatemala traces back to the Maya civilization, with the country's modern history beginning with the Spanish conquest of Guatemala in 1524. By 1000 AD, most of the major Classic-era Maya cities in the Petén Basin, located in the northern lowlands, had been abandoned. The Maya states in the Belize central highlands continued to thrive until the Spanish conquistador Pedro de Alvarado—called "The Invader" by the Maya—arrived in 1525 and began to subdue the indigenous populations.
Teotihuacan is an ancient Mesoamerican city located in a sub-valley of the Valley of Mexico, which is located in the State of Mexico, 40 kilometers (25 mi) northeast of modern-day Mexico City.
In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era, also known as the pre-contact era, or as the pre-Cabraline era specifically in Brazil, spans from the initial peopling of the Americas in the Upper Paleolithic to the onset of European colonization, which began with Christopher Columbus's voyage in 1492. This era encompasses the history of Indigenous cultures prior to significant European influence, which in some cases did not occur until decades or even centuries after Columbus's arrival.
Tikal is the ruin of an ancient city, which was likely to have been called Yax Mutal, found in a rainforest in Guatemala. It is one of the largest archeological sites and urban centers of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization. It is located in the archeological region of the Petén Basin in what is now northern Guatemala. Situated in Petén Department, the site is part of Guatemala's Tikal National Park and in 1979 it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Benjamin Géza Affleck is an American actor and filmmaker. His accolades include two Academy Awards, two BAFTA Awards, and three Golden Globes. Affleck began his career as a child when he starred in the PBS educational series The Voyage of the Mimi (1984–1988). He later appeared in the independent comedy Dazed and Confused (1993) and several Kevin Smith comedies, including Chasing Amy (1997).
Pseudoarchaeology consists of attempts to study, interpret, or teach about the subject-matter of archaeology while rejecting, ignoring, or misunderstanding the accepted data-gathering and analytical methods of the discipline. These pseudoscientific interpretations involve the use of artifacts, sites or materials to construct scientifically insubstantial theories to strengthen the pseudoarchaeologists' claims. Methods include exaggeration of evidence, dramatic or romanticized conclusions, use of fallacious arguments, and fabrication of evidence.
The hickatee or in Spanish tortuga blanca, also called the Central American river turtle, is the only living species in the family Dermatemydidae. The species is found in the Atlantic drainages of Central America, specifically Belize, Guatemala, southern Mexico and probably Honduras. It is a relatively large-bodied species, with records of 60 cm (24 in) straight carapace length and weights of 22 kg (49 lb); although most individuals are smaller. This is a herbivorous and almost completely aquatic turtle that does not even surface to bask. Bizarrely for reptiles, the eggs can remain viable even after being underwater for weeks -in the recent past, some scientists mistakenly claimed it nests underwater, likely due to visiting Central America during a frequent flood, when nests are often submerged.
Hot chocolate, also known as hot cocoa or drinking chocolate, is a heated drink consisting of shaved or melted chocolate or cocoa powder, heated milk or water, and usually a sweetener. It is often garnished with whipped cream or marshmallows. Hot chocolate made with melted chocolate is sometimes called drinking chocolate, characterized by less sweetness and a thicker consistency.
The Voyage of the Mimi is a thirteen-episode American educational television program depicting the crew of the ship Mimi exploring the ocean and taking a census of humpback whales. The series aired on PBS and was created by the Bank Street College of Education in 1984 to teach middle-schoolers about science and mathematics in an interesting and interactive way, where every lesson related to real world applications. Its budget was 3.65 million dollars.
The archaeology of shipwrecks is the field of archaeology specialized most commonly in the study and exploration of shipwrecks. Its techniques combine those of archaeology with those of diving to become Underwater archaeology. However, shipwrecks are discovered on what have become terrestrial sites.
The Maya civilization was a Mesoamerican civilization that existed from antiquity to the early modern period. It is known by its ancient temples and glyphs (script). The Maya script is the most sophisticated and highly developed writing system in the pre-Columbian Americas. The civilization is also noted for its art, architecture, mathematics, calendar, and astronomical system.
Chichén Itzá was a large pre-Columbian city built by the Maya people of the Terminal Classic period. The archeological site is located in Tinúm Municipality, Yucatán State, Mexico.
The 2012 phenomenon was a range of eschatological beliefs that cataclysmic or transformative events would occur on or around 21 December 2012. This date was regarded as the end-date of a 5,126-year-long cycle in the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar, and festivities took place on 21 December 2012 to commemorate the event in the countries that were part of the Maya civilization, with main events at Chichén Itzá in Mexico and Tikal in Guatemala.
Blue Creek is a riverine system and major archaeological site located in North-Western Belize, Central America. It is situated geographically on the Belize–Mexico border and then continues south across the Guatemala–Mexico border. The river is commonly known as the Río Azul or ‘Azul River’ in Spanish, which translates to ‘blue river’ or ‘blue creek’ in English.
The Tomb of the Red Queen is a burial chamber containing the remains of a noblewoman, perhaps Lady Ix Tz'akbu Ajaw, and two servants, located inside Temple XIII in the ruins of the ancient Maya city of Palenque, now the Palenque National Park, in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas. It has been dated to between 600 and 700 AD. The tomb was discovered in 1994 by the Mexican archeologist Fanny Lopez Jimenez after being commissioned to perform routine stabilization work on a set of temple stairs by the local Archaeologist Arnoldo González Cruz. It takes its popular name from the fact that the remains of the noblewoman and the objects in the sarcophagus were covered with bright red cinnabar powder when the tomb was discovered.
Economy is conventionally defined as a function for production and distribution of goods and services by multiple agents within a society and/or geographical place An economy is hierarchical, made up of individuals that aggregate to make larger organizations such as governments and gives value to goods and services. The Maya economy had no universal form of trade exchange other than resources and services that could be provided among groups such as cacao beans and copper bells. Though there is limited archeological evidence to study the trade of perishable goods, it is noteworthy to explore the trade networks of artifacts and other luxury items that were likely transported together.
The history of Maya civilization is divided into three principal periods: the Preclassic, Classic and Postclassic periods; these were preceded by the Archaic Period, which saw the first settled villages and early developments in agriculture. Modern scholars regard these periods as arbitrary divisions of chronology of the Maya civilization, rather than indicative of cultural evolution or decadence. Definitions of the start and end dates of period spans can vary by as much as a century, depending on the author. The Preclassic lasted from approximately 3000 BC to approximately 250 AD; this was followed by the Classic, from 250 AD to roughly 950 AD, then by the Postclassic, from 950 AD to the middle of the 16th century. Each period is further subdivided:
Peter G. Marston was an American scientist, businessman, actor, and musician. He served as chief executive officer of Cambridge Environmental Technology and held a visiting professorship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in the Plasma Science and Fusion Center. Marston also served as a member of the Moscow-based International Academy of Electrotechnical Sciences.
Tren Maya is a 1,554 km-long (966 mi) inter-city railway in Mexico that traverses the Yucatán Peninsula. Construction began in June 2020 and the Campeche–Cancún section began operation on December 15, 2023, with the rest of the railway opening in subsequent stages, with the final segment from Escárcega to Chetumal beginning operation on December 15, 2024. The railway begins in Cancún International Airport and travels southwest towards Palenque, Chiapas, via two routes that encircle the peninsula.
This page lists significant events of 2022 in archaeology.