Archaeologists have announced the discovery of a remarkable and “extremely rare” jade mask from the tomb of an ancient Maya king who died around 1,700 years ago.
The stunning mask, which is thought to have belonged to the king, was found in June 2022, during investigations in the ancient city of Chochkitam—a little known Maya archaeological site nestled within the dense rainforest of northeastern Guatemala in the Petén department.
Researchers dated the tomb to around A.D. 350, making it one of the oldest royal burials from the Maya Classic Period (A.D. 250 to 900) ever found, archaeologist and National Geographic explorer Francisco Estrada-Belli told Newsweek.
The Maya civilization dominated what is now southeastern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize and the western areas of El Salvador and Honduras for more than 3,000 years until the era of Spanish colonization.
An image of the jade mask found in the tomb of a Maya king at Chochkitam in Guatemala. The tomb and artifacts inside it are thought to date to around 1,700 years ago.
Tulane University Holmul Archaeological Project/Francisco Estrada-Belli
The ancient Maya were notable for their striking architecture and art; advanced calendar, mathematics and astronomical system; and for creating the only fully developed writing system in pre-Hispanic America.
While Chochkitam has been known since the early 20th century, the tomb where the jade mask was found, which lies within a pyramid structure, had never been investigated before. The archaeologists found the tomb intact, despite looters’ failed attempts to reach it.
Inside the tomb, archaeologists found a coffin-shaped stone box, a mostly decayed skeleton and a series of offerings accompanying the burial, as first reported by National Geographic. The offerings included a pot, a collection of large oyster shells, some carved, decorated human bones from separate individuals and a number of jade pieces, which the researchers determined made up an elaborate mask.
“We realized it was [a] royal [tomb] the moment we saw all the offerings inside the burial,” Estrada-Belli said.
The mask is made up of a mosaic of 33 postage-stamp-sized jade pieces that were scattered among the chest area of the skeleton.
“It was difficult to piece together … we did not know exactly how they fit. So, it took some trial and error to refit them all, with the help of an expert in conservation,” Estrada-Belli said.
The kind of mask found in the tomb was known as a “k’oj” (pronounced “koh”)—and it usually represented a god or deified ancestor.
“It could be mounted on a rigid belt or worn on a special rack tied to one’s back. It could also be occasionally worn over one’s face when an ancestral or divine spirit was meant to possess and communicate through a living body,” Alexandre Tokovinine, researcher with the Department of Anthropology at the University of Alabama, told Newsweek. “It could also be part of a sacred bundle or a full-size devotional statue.”
“As far as our understanding of the Classic Maya culture goes, only the royals had those belt masks.”
Aside from the primary skeleton found in the tomb—that of the king himself—the additional human bones that archaeologists uncovered helped shed light on the ruler’s identity.
These additional bones, which form part of the burial offering, include two finely carved femurs belonging to two separate individuals, as well as other carved bone fragments that appear to come from two other people. The researchers are awaiting DNA results to determine whether any of them were related to the king.
The bones are important because one has the image and name of the enigmatic king and two of his ancestors carved into it. The second femur also bears the same name in hieroglyphic writing. The carved name reads “Itzam Kokaj Bahlam”—which roughly translates to “sun god/bird/jaguar.”
According to Estrada-Belli, discovery of the royal tombs and the remains within is “significant on several levels”—not least because they shed light on a little known period in Maya history.
Firstly, the tomb “miraculously escaped the extensive looting that has ravaged archaeological sites in this part of Guatemala. At Chochkitam, we had already encountered several tombs left empty by looters. Antiquities looting is an ongoing problem tied to international organized crime, unfortunately,” Estrada-Belli said.
Secondly, jade masks and incised human bones are “extremely rare” finds in Maya archaeology, according to Estrada-Belli. And it is quite rare to find the name of the buried king on one of the tomb offerings.
One of the femur bones found in the tomb beside a drawing showing the detailed artwork carved into it. Other carved bones were identified in the cave alongside the king’s skeleton.
Francisco Estrada-Belli/Alexandre Tokovinine/Tulane University Holmul Archaeological Project
Furthermore, researchers were able to glean a wealth of information from the skeleton and offerings about portions of the Classic Period that remain poorly understood.
The Classic Period represents the peak of ancient Maya civilization, but scholarly knowledge of the political history between A.D. 300-500 is still very fragmentary.
“[Our knowledge] is shaped by the history of specific archaeological projects rather than by what is actually on the ground. In the case of Chochkitam, no one has considered its role in regional politics because prior archaeological investigations concentrated on the nearby sites of Xultun and Rio Azul,” Tokovinine said.
“Findings at Chochkitam, including this burial, reveal that the political situation was more complex and dynamic with three rather than two royal houses competing for the local top spot in a network of alliances and patronage.
The objects associated with the burial link the king found in the tomb to other important kingdoms, suggesting that he was part of a network of Maya royalty under the influence of more powerful dynasties, according to Estrada-Belli. The dynasties in question are another Maya kingdom known today as Tikal and a more distant hegemonic state called Teotihuacan, in Mexico, more than 600 miles away.
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