Almost nine months of intensive work was required to digitally restore the Lienzo de Quauhquechollan to its original appearance by eliminating stains and blurs. Web Map as Time Machine An ancient story of conquest is heard again By Monica Pratt, ArcUser Editor Lienzos are maps that tell the story of a place. The story of the Lienzo de Quauhquechollan, one of the oldest of these maps, is being told on the Web 500 years after the events it records occurred. A responsive and intuitive Web site developed by the Universidad Francisco Marroquín (UFM) and Geosistemas y Tecnología Avanzada, S.A. (Geosistec), Esri's distributor in Guatemala, using the recently implemented ArcGIS API for Microsoft Silverlight, has made sharing this cartographic treasure with potentially millions around the world possible. The Original Multimedia Experience For the peoples of Mesoamerica, place and past were inseparable. Lienzos not only recorded the details of a geographic location but also communicated what happened there in a form of mapping now described as historical cartography. Graphic symbols designate people, places, and dates while stylized images of plants, animals, rivers, roads, and other features indicate Continued on page 68 ArcUser Fall 2009 67 The lienzo was worn; faded; discolored; and, in places, torn. Identifying locations and deciphering the pictographs were difficult, but trying to physically repair the map's fragile cloth would likely damage it. www.esri.com