The remains, seated in an upright position in an unusual tomb and flanked by shells, pottery, vessels, and jade adornments, suggest a surprisingly diverse culture and complex political system in the influential Maya city of Copan around A.D. 650.
Located at the western edge of modern-day Honduras near the border with Guatemala, Copan, was one of the most important Maya sites, flourishing between the fifth and ninth centuries A.D.
But until now, much about the political makeup and cultural range of the city—famous for its funerary slabs—has been poorly understood.
The position of the body, the structure of the tomb, and several unexpected artifacts suggest the interred individual was a political or priestly figure, said discoverer Allan Maca, an archaeologist at Colgate University in New York State.
The entombed individual was found with "a jade pectoral hung from a necklace of dozens of jade beads of various sizes," Maca said. Because jade was a precious commodity, he added, the jewels represent "a level of control over economic resources."
"The incised design on the pectoral likely represents a political title or social affiliation that links this individual to other major sites around the city," Maca said.
The remains belong to a 50-year-old man with various illnesses. He had poor use of his left arm, poor arterial flow through his upper spinal cord, and a chronic infection of the skull known as mastoiditis, according to a bioarchaeological analysis by Katherine Miller of Arizona State University.
Maca discovered the tomb in 2005 in the Copan Archaeological park.
But Maca—whose work was funded by the National Geographic Society's Committee for Research and Exploration—only announced his findings last week, in conjunction with officials from the Honduran Institute of Anthropology and History, after months of excavation.
"The tomb is characterized by a split vault created by interlocking lintels [load-bearing horizontal supports]," said Maca, who is also the director of the Project for the Planning of Ancient Copan.
"The chamber was accessed from above by a stuccoed stone chute that descends from the surface of the temple," he continued.
Maca said the features allowed the tomb to be "reentered years after the original interment, for purposes of ancestor veneration."
The tomb's location, some 1,300 feet (400 meters) west of the Acropolis, Copan's ceremonial core, was unexpected, Maca added.
"The design is without precedent in the Maya area and is the first elaborate tomb construction to be discovered outside the ceremonial center of Copan," he said.
The grandiose tombs belonging to members of the Copan dynasty, royal court, and royal family are typically found in Copan's Acropolis, Maca explained. Copan archaeologists have focused their research in the central area for many recent decades as well as much of the 19th century.
"As we begin to think more broadly about the great extent of the royal city, and about how to protect it against modern looting and population growth, we are coming to understand that the dynasty manifested its power in sectors of the Copan Valley that have never been explored," Maca said.
Oddities
There are other oddities to the tomb.
The position of the buried individual—seated with legs crossed—was not common in Copan or in the Maya lowlands during the Classic period, which lasted from about A.D. 300 to 900.
And several vessels found in the tomb, made in sets specifically for the burial, bear "a type of false or alternative hieroglyphics unlike those used by the ancient Maya," he said.
Some of the pottery vessels likely came from the south near present-day El Salvador, Maca added.
"Thus it is unlikely that these were made in Copan and probable that they signify some sort of cultural affiliation with that region," he said.
Also found in the tomb were seashells laid in a pattern that appears to represent a kind of cosmological map and may be representative of the waters in Maya creation mythology, Maca said."
I'm particularly curious about the non-Mayan "hieroglyphs" discovered in the tomb. I wonder if they resemble Mayan glyphs with differences or are truly from some other culture? Again, I wish there were pictures available!
I posted on this too, at my Buried Mirror website. It's frustrating that more details have not been forthcoming.
ReplyDelete