<p><strong>Archaeologist <a href="http://www.nationalgeographic.com/explorers/bios/william-saturno/?source=news_xultun">William Saturno</a> scrapes ancient debris from a scribe's painting-filled, roughly 1,200-year-old home in <a href="http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/travel/countries/guatemala-guide/">Guatemala</a>. Calculations on the walls refer to dates after December 21, 2012—which has been erroneously <a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/12/111220-end-of-world-2012-maya-calendar-explained-ancient-science/">called the Maya doomsday</a>—as well as the first known <a href="http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/geopedia/Maya?source=news_xultun_mural">Maya</a> house art, according to a new study. </strong></p><p>(News story: <a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/05/120510-maya-2012-doomsday-calendar-end-of-world-science/">"Unprecedented Maya Mural Found, Contradicts 2012 'Doomsday' Myth."</a>)</p><p>The long-overgrown house is part of a ruined Maya city named Xultún, rediscovered nearly a century ago but still largely unexcavated. Saturno's team began excavating the home—one of thousands of buried structures at the 12-square-mile (31-square-kilometer) site—in 2010.</p><p>Published this week in the journal Science, <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/content/336/6082/714">Saturno's research</a> was funded by the National Geographic Society's <a href="http://www.nationalgeographic.com/explorers/grants-programs/cre/?source=xultun_mural">Committee for Research and Exploration</a> and <a href="http://www.nationalgeographic.com/explorers/grants-programs/expeditions-council/?source=news_xultun_mural">Expeditions Council</a>, and will be featured in the June issue of <em>National Geographic</em> magazine. (National Geographic News is a division of the Society.)</p><p><em>—Chris Combs</em></p>