New technologies virtually reconstruct the pre-hispanic city of Tingambato

New technologies reconstruct the pre-Hispanic city of Tingambato virtually, in today’s Michoacan. Photo: Archaeologist José Luis Punzo. INAH.

Translated by Liz Marie Gangemi

MEXICO CITY.- In the 70’s, two archaeologists, Román Piña Chan from Mexico and Kuniaki Ohi from Japan, undertook an extensive exploration project in Tingambato, Michoacan, finding, among other structures, a game involving a ball and a mass burial grave, which is still under investigation by the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH).

From that project anecdotes remain of how Piña Chan used his privileged sense of smell to know where to dig, or about the karate lessons that Kuniaki gave in his spare time to the children of Tingambato, in exchange that they read at least one book a month.

This is what archaeologist José Luis Punzo Díaz, of the Michoacan INAH Center, announced in a video conference that he participated in on April 30th in the series "Archaeology Today", coordinated by archaeologist Leonardo López Luján at El Colegio Nacional.

Via remote methods, in accordance with the measures of the National Day of Safe Distancing Campaign to avoid mass gathering and mitigate the infection of COVID-19, the researcher read the essay entitled “Tingambato: LiDAR, Drones and Tombs in a City of Michoacan from the Classic and Epiclassic”.

The conference addressed the way in which, thanks to devices like drones, high-resolution cameras and LiDAR instruments -acronym in English for Light Detection and Ranging-, made possible the innovation of traditional archaeology and generation of digital models, based on the most recent research led by Punzo since 2013, which reconstruct Tingambato at its peak.

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Ball court



A yacata of 280 meters per side was also found.

(Haven't been able to find out what "yacatas" are, yet. Found this video of "yacatas" from another site in Michoacan, but the simple images don't explain to someone this clueless what they are....)