It will premiere next month on the Discovery Channel, but why wait - you can see a new documentary on Belize's caves first right here on Channel 7 tonight. The documentary is called Ancient Clues which features the Director of the Institute of Archaeology Dr. Jaime Awe. Awe says the documentary is important both from a historical and a tourism perspective.
Dr. Jaime Awe,
"The showing of this recent documentary that we did on the caves in Belize is I think very important for us, both scientifically and also in terms of tourism. Scientifically because it demonstrates that the work that we are doing in Belize is cutting edge research. We are at the forefront of some of the new developments in terms of our understanding of the ancient Maya. It is important from a tourism perspective because it allows us to expose Belize and the national treasures, especially the natural and archaeological treasures of the country. Because its Discovery Channel, which I think is part of National Geographic, this type of exposure gives us millions of viewers who will be seeing this. I have lots of people come to Belize and say we saw you on television and we wanted to visit some of those sites. So I think its good for us from any angle that you want to look at.
There is no doubt that the study of the ancient Maya has now come onto its own, so to speak. It's getting as much attention as we use to see in the past with Egyptology, Greek prehistory, and Roman prehistory. In fact in the last month we have done programs for German television, Austrian television, Australian television, the BBC, and again with National Geographic and Explorer Channel. And obviously we at the Institute of Archaeology and also at NICH, our responsibility is to promote Belizean culture and Belizean archaeology."
As we said the documentary has its world premiere right here on Channel 7 after tonight's news.