#335 Ed Barnhart - The Amazon Rainforest is Hiding a Lost Civilization?

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
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**Shawn Ryan** (0:27)
Cash rules everything around me.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:36)
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**Shawn Ryan** (0:40)
Obey your thirst.

**Edwin Barnhart** (0:41)
Sprite.

**Shawn Ryan** (0:47)
Dr. Ed Barnhart, welcome to the show.

**Edwin Barnhart** (0:50)
It is a pleasure to be here. Thanks for inviting me.

**Shawn Ryan** (0:53)
Pleasure to have you. But yeah, I think I ran across your YouTube channel a little while ago, and we've been wanting to dive into some ancient civilization stuff and some historic type stuff. So we reached out and here we are. So originally, I wanted to talk about just the Mayans, and do a whole episode on that. But it looks like we've got a lot more to cover, so we'll see how it goes. But I love this kind of stuff. We've had a couple of guys on. We've had Randall Carlson on. We've talked with Graham Hancock a couple of times, but haven't been able to work it out.
And yeah, we've had some guys on talking about ancient Egypt, and Tim Albarrino has been on. So here you are.

**Edwin Barnhart** (1:45)
Well, I'm happy to be here. And thanks for highlighting the Americas. Most of the archaeology people knows about is somewhere outside of our hemisphere, and there's so much here.
I'm thrilled to get a chance to talk about it.

**Shawn Ryan** (2:00)
Perfect. Let me start you off with an introduction here.
Dr. Ed Barnhart, you're an archaeologist and explorer best known for your work studying the ancient civilizations of the Americas. You discovered and mapped the Maya city of Maksna in Belize and later led the Palenque Mapping Project in Mexico. In 2003, you founded the Maya Exploration Center and have served as the director ever since. You also have a YouTube channel offering weekly deep dives into the ancient cultures of the Americas in addition to being the host of the ArchaeoEd Podcast. Welcome to the show.

**Edwin Barnhart** (2:47)
Thank you very much. Nice introduction. Thanks for that.

**Shawn Ryan** (2:51)
So before we get started, everybody gets a gift. Those are Vigilance Elite gummy bears made here in the USA, actually up in Michigan, and it's just candy.

**Edwin Barnhart** (3:02)
Well, thank you. Yeah, I'm from Colorado. It might have had more in it, but I like candy just fine. Thank you very much, Shawn.

**Shawn Ryan** (3:09)
You're welcome.
And then one other thing to knock out, I actually heard you have a Patreon account as well. I walk into that conversation.

**Edwin Barnhart** (3:22)
I do have a Patreon account. It's a fraction of what yours is, but I think Patreon is great. I think that Google and all those other things, those algorithms are not really treating you and I well. I think Patreon is a great way for people that care about what we do to support us directly.

**Shawn Ryan** (3:41)
Yeah. So when I started out, I started this in my attic and Was the year?

**Edwin Barnhart** (3:49)
It was 2019?

**Shawn Ryan** (3:51)
When I started this? Yeah. Yeah, I started this in Christmas of 2019

**Edwin Barnhart** (3:56)
I think we're very much the same. I started my podcast like right when COVID started and I was trapped at home and I could not travel and couldn't do anything. I just went nuts and went into my holiday closet and just started talking to a microphone.

**Shawn Ryan** (4:12)
Right on. It worked out.
So these guys have been with me since the beginning and they were the ones that really supported me and carried me through all the way to today. And so we've turned it into one hell of a community. And one of the things I do is they get the opportunity to ask each and every guest a question. So this is from Mad Dog Crazy.
Do you believe the Mayans interacted with aliens into what degree? And how do you interpret the Mayan calendar or its supposed predictions when you compare them to what's happening in the world today? Let's leave out the Mayan calendar because I know we're going over that later.

**Edwin Barnhart** (4:55)
That's a long one. That's a long one.

**Shawn Ryan** (4:56)
So do you believe the Mayans interacted with aliens into what degree?