Maya Actors Used in Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto

A blog post by Erick Laseca who works for Burson-Marsteller as public relations liaison for the Mexico Tourism Board in Chicago begins with:

The height of Mayan civilization may have ended some 1600 years ago, but this enigmatic empire seems to be making a come-back. This past Friday, December 8th, movie theaters across North America released Mel Gibson’s much-anticipated feature, Apocalypto, filmed in Mexico, bringing the late, great Mayan civilization to life on the big screen.

Mexican Mayans Descendant Make Debut in Apocalypto

Although I disagree with Laseca’s calling the Maya, “Mayans,” nonetheless, I found his comprehensive article on the Maya informative, entertaining and interesting. After all, it might be that Laseca uses the term “Mayans” since it works better as a keyword search phrase, “Maya” more often bringing up Maya Angelou.

During filming of the Yucatan Travel Movie, we visited the ruins at Edzna, which is supposed to be the ruin Mel Gibson chose as the model for his Mayan ruin set in the movie Apocalypto. We loved Edzna. The Palace of the Five Stories is gorgeous.