New Finds Put Maya Culture Back a Few Centuries
Wed May 5, 7:55 AM ET
By Thomas H. Maugh II Times Staff Writer
Archeologists excavating a 2,500-year-old Maya city in Guatemala
have unearthed buildings and massive carvings indicating the
presence of a royal metropolis of more than 10,000 people at a
time when, scientists had previously believed, the Maya were only
simple farmers.
New studies at the Cival site in the Peten jungle have unearthed
the oldest known carved portrait of a Maya king and two massive
stone masks of the Maya maize deity, discoveries indicating that
the Maya developed a complex and sophisticated civilization
hundreds of years earlier than previously believed.
The city of towering pyramids and sweeping plazas is yielding
other surprising artifacts, including jade and ceramic offerings
to the gods that may mark the beginnings of the Maya dynasties,
Vanderbilt University archeologist Francisco Estrada-Belli said
Tuesday during a National Geographic (news - web sites) Society
telephone news conference from Washington.
Estrada-Belli "is pushing back the time for the evidence of Maya
state institutions by several centuries," said archeologist Elsa
Redmond of the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
"We had hints of these kinds of buildings from El Mirador,"
another Maya city of the so-called Preclassic Period, which dates
from roughly 2000 BC to AD 250, Redmond said.
The Maya civilization came into full bloom at cities such as
Palenque in Mexico and Tikal in Guatemala during the Classic
Period, beginning about AD 300. But other Preclassic sites have
been built over, often repeatedly, rendering interpretation of
the findings problematic. Cival, for reasons that are not clear,
was abandoned about AD 100, "never to be occupied again,"
Estrada-Belli said, and has lain relatively untouched since. "It
is very unusual to have a completely preserved Preclassic city
that was not buried by subsequent building," he added.
"It may have been a forgotten city", he said, "or it may have
been a sacred site whose memory was preserved and where building
was forbidden. And because it was preserved, it is now clear that
'Preclassic' is a misnomer," he said. The new evidence shows
that "Preclassic Maya societies already had many features that
have been attributed to the Classic Period ? kings, complex
iconography, elaborate palaces and burials. The origin of the
Maya civilization has to be found in the first part of the
Preclassic period, rather than the last part." Cival, which is
about 25 miles east of the much better known city of Tikal, was
discovered in 1984 by Ian Graham of Harvard University. Most of
the site was overgrown by jungle, however, and Graham's team
thought it was a minor outpost.
Estrada-Belli has been studying the nearby Classic Period city of
Holmul and was using satellite imaging and global positioning
systems to explore the surrounding area when he rediscovered Cival
four years ago. _The new technology showed that its ceremonial
center spanned half a mile, more than twice Graham's initial
estimate.
Estrada-Belli and his colleagues have been digging there with
support from the National Geographic Society.
Their findings and those of others studying the Preclassic period
are the subject of a National Geographic documentary, "Dawn of
the Maya," which will air May 12 on PBS.
The most spectacular find at Cival occurred by accident.
Estrada-Belli reached into a fissure in the wall while examining
a dank looter's tunnel in the city's main pyramid and came into
contact with a piece of carved stucco that felt like a snake or a
mustache.
Digging into the site from the other side of the pyramid, he
discovered a 15-by-9-foot stucco mask. The one visible eye was
L-shaped and the mouth was squared, with snake's fangs in its
center.
"The mask's preservation is astounding," he said. "It's almost as
if someone made this yesterday." The looters, he added, "just
missed it." More recently, the team discovered a second,
apparently identical, mask on the other side of a set of stairs.
The eyes appear to be adorned with corn husks, suggesting the
Maya maize deity.
Estrada-Belli believes that the masks flanked a pyramid stairway
that led to the temple room, providing a backdrop for elaborate
rituals in which the king ? viewed by people in the plaza ?
impersonated the gods of creation.
The team also found a stela, or carved stone pillar, dating to
300 BC, showing the accession of a king whose name has not yet
been determined. _Such stelae were quite common in Classic Period
cities, but none this old have previously been found. "We didn't
know there were kings then," Estrada-Belli said.
The large plaza in front of the pyramid was the scene of offerings
to the Maya gods. In a recess in the plaza, the team found a red
bowl, two spondylus shells, a jade tube and a hematite fragment.
Behind the recess was a cross-shaped depression containing five
smashed jars, one on each arm of the cross and one in the center.
The jars signify water and date to 500 BC, he said.
Under the center jar were 120 pieces of jade ? an unusual
concentration of wealth for the period ? most of them round,
polished pebbles. Nearby were five jade axes, placed with their
blades pointing upward. The pebbles probably symbolize maize and
the axes sprouting maize plants, Estrada-Belli said.
Kings in the Classic Period were thought to embody the maize god
on Earth, and it seems that this tradition started much earlier
than was originally thought, he said.
The team also found a major clue to what probably was the ultimate
fate of Cival ? a hurriedly constructed defensive wall built about
AD 100. The 6-foot-high wall "was a desperate attempt to close off
the inner core of the site," he said. The find surprised him, he
said, because "there was no previous evidence of warfare in the
Preclassic Period." Ultimately, he said, Cival "probably met the
same end as many cities in the Classic Period": conquest by a more
powerful neighbor.
Copywright © 2004 Los Angeles Times
Links:
http://community-2.webtv.net/Topiltzin-2091/AncientAmericaand
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/05/0504_040505_mayamasks.html
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=3Dns99994956
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/05/04/mayan.metropolis/index.html
Other than that I've only heard that it's safe. And there's guides and people trying to flog you things, supposedly.
