It's long been known that the ancient Mayan ruling classes drilled holes in their teeth and put jewels in them. This was a popular practice at the height of the highly-advanced Mayan Empire, which lasted over a millennium before 900 AD, when it abruptly lost control over vast portions of Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras.

These jawbones, which scientists have identified as being from two individuals, showed up in a small box delivered to the Honduran Embassy in the Netherlands last week. Local authorities speculated that the bones had been stolen in Honduras after researchers at Leiden University ran an analysis on them.

According to the Latin American Herald Tribune:

After the bones were received at the embassy in the Netherlands, the government of that European country requested that they be examined at Leiden University to determine their origin and to document the dental adornment, the Honduran foreign relations secretariat said.

It added that the pieces were studied using strontium isotope analysis, which showed that the ratio of strontium in the tooth enamel was consistent with that found in the water of Honduras' Copan River.

The tests determined that the individuals to whom the remains belonged were from an area of western Honduras now known as the Copan ruins, the Central American country's most important archaeological site.

The bones were delivered anonymously to the embassy, and nobody has any idea who did it. Perhaps a Dutch collector who felt they should go to their country of origin? A guilt-wracked member of an international ring of archaeologist pirates?

Regardless of who it was, the bones have now been returned to Honduras, where they will remain at a research institute.

SOURCE: Latin American Herald Tribune

Photo by Orlando Sierra/AFP/Getty Images.

As our "experts" tell us, the Earth was created for a billion people on bicycles, not 7 billion in SUVs. Wow, really? Good to know that biking to work was all part of why the Earth was created.

Even better is knowing, as our second expert explains, that ancient Mayan prophesies can be explained with references to what happens to VCR and microwave clocks after a power outage. Seriously, I love that this guy tells us so seriously that he's talked to Mayan shamans, and they explain this massive galactic eclipse as being like a VCR clock. Really? Because the VCR clock blinking 12:00 forever does sound like an apocalypse. Especially because everything is Blu-Ray now, so I won't have any movies to watch after the world ends. I really want to know what the Shamans make of DVRs.

Brought to you by the dementoids at Disinformation Video, this flick is a nice mix of freak philosophy featuring some pretty interesting guys waxing weird.

2012 [via Amazon]

These photographs, by Kenneth Garrett for National Geographic, capture the way an ancient civilization can seem alien to us in the present.

In his book Collapse, geographer Jared Diamond describes how many anthropologists now believe that environmental factors like climate change caused the Mayan civilization to collapse. As rainfall grew scarce, the local farmlands could no longer support giant urban areas and finally the population scattered to other parts of Mexico and Central America.

The stylized Mayan art looks a little bit scifi, and a little bit Art Deco.

You can see more pictures of this ancient Mayan city at National Geographic.

Mysteries of the Maya [National Geographic] Thanks, Marilyn Terrell!

Apparently Maya (and brother Alejandro, probably) will soon be meeting up with the other serial killer on Heroes: Sylar, better known as the Unibrow bomber.

Dania Ramirez: Wonder Twin [Entertainment Weekly] [Image by Getty Images]