Maya

Images via Mars, Inc/Graphic by Brandy Cruz Okay, before you start boycotting, settle down and hear us out — we don’t hate M&M‘s new look, and we definitely don’t hate its new spokesperson. Caught in the midst of what seems to be a chocolaty culture war, this iconic candy company has recently decided to replace its beloved mascots with none other than comedian, actress, and all-around legend Maya Rudolph. Equally appreciated, Rudolph seems to be the perfect choice to take over the chocolate snack brand.…

The Mars Inc. brand said Monday that its candy characters—known as “spokescandies”—will begin an “indefinite pause” from their duties. Comedian Maya Rudolph will take their place as the brand’s spokesperson and will star in the candy’s upcoming advertisement at Super Bowl LVII in February, the brand said. “We are confident Ms. Rudolph will champion the power of fun to create a world where everyone feels they belong,” the brand said.  Representatives for Ms. Rudolph, the comedian…

When it comes to discovering lost civilizations, it's a pretty big find: close to 1,000 previously hidden Maya settlements have been found in northern Guatemala thanks to LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) laser scanning from the air.The area that these settlements cover is vast: the buildings and structures spotted by researchers stretch across some 650 square miles (1,683 square kilometers) of the Mirador-Calakmul Karst Basin (MCKB) and its immediate surroundings. These places would have been occupied around 1,000 BCE…

In the western, volcano-ringed highlands of Guatemala, Guillermo Barreno Minera keeps watch over the skies. As an ajq’ij, a daykeeper and spiritual guide, the stars and landscape help him keep track of the 260-day calendar that has ruled the life of his Maya K’iche’ community—an Indigenous group of about 1.6 million people—in Quetzaltenango for generations. Exactly how long people have been using this timekeeping system has posed a mystery. But a new study…

Archaeologists working on the Plaza of Columns Complex site at Teotihuacán have made a surprising discovery in the ancient Maya capital: the remains of a 1,700-year-old spider monkey, which the archaeologists suspect was once a state gift between elites.The Plaza of Columns sits between the Sun and Moon pyramids at Teotihuacán, the ancient seat of Mesoamerican power. As far as the urban planning of Teotihuacán goes, the plaza is prime real estate, and the objects found in the area are associated with Maya elites—perhaps…

Seventeen hundred years ago, a female spider monkey was presented as a treasured gift – and later brutally sacrificed – to strengthen ties between two major powers of pre-Hispanic America, according to a new study.The paper, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), compared the offering by Maya elites to Teotihuacan to China's panda diplomacy that accompanied the normalization of Sino-US relations in the 1970s.By using multiple techniques – including extraction of ancient DNA,…

In assembling its annual list of the 50+ men and women who matter most in comedy today, The Hollywood Reporter surveyed the top performers, writers, producers, showrunners and execs in the industry to get their read on how the business of making people laugh is evolving. Below, long-established superstars (e.g. Will Ferrell, Maya Rudolph, Kevin Hart), as well as some of this year’s breakouts (e.g. Kate Berlant and John Early, and the makers of smash hit half-hour The Bear) share their thoughts on the most…

Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse LoughreyGet our The Life Cinematic email for freeMaya Rudolph has revealed she once made a “risky” assumption after meeting Amy Adams.The Hollywood stars appear in Disney sequel Disenchanted, and appeared on a chat show to promote the new film on Tuesday (15 November).Rudolph said that they first met at a birthday party in 2009 when she was “severely pregnant”, and remembered telling Adams she thought she was pregnant, also.“I do…

Hollywood actress-comedian Maya Rudolph, who plays the villain Malvina in the musical fantasy film `Disenchanted`, feels the film`s honesty about domestic life will resonate with the audience.Elaborating on the same, she said, "I think people will love `Disenchanted` for its honesty about domestic life. Giselle (played by Amy Adams) is well-intentioned in her efforts to create a fairytale life for her family, but life cannot always be a fairytale. Through it all, it is just important to think about all the little moments…

Ceramics, human burial grounds, and bullets from Spanish guns are among artifacts that have been uncovered by archaeologists in Guatemala at the site of the last Maya city to resist European conquest, officials said Friday.​The new excavation project began last June in an effort to understand more about the Tayasal outpost where Maya inhabitants first settled in 900 BCE during their Preclassic period, the archeologist in charge of the dig told AFP.​Tayasal was the last Maya city to yield to the Spanish conquest in 1697,…