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| GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach | |
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Thanks Renfield, wildbill, Perdogg, and csvset. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. |
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Posted on 09/25/2011 6:27:22 AM PDT by Renfield
Reeking of decay and packed with bowls of human fingers, a partly burned baby, and gem-studded teeth—among other artifacts—a newfound Maya king's tomb sounds like an overripe episode of Tales From the Crypt.
But the tightly sealed, 1,600-year-old burial chamber, found under a jungle-covered Guatemalan pyramid, is as rich with archaeological gold as it is with oddities, say researchers who announced the discovery Friday.
"This thing was like Fort Knox," said Brown University archaeologist Stephen Houston, who led the excavation in the ancient, overgrown Maya town of El Zotz.
Alternating layers of flat stones and mud preserved human bones, wood carvings, textiles, and other organic material to a surprising degree—offering a rare opportunity to advance Maya archaeology, experts say.
"Since [the artifacts] appear in a royal tomb, they may provide direct insights in the political economy of the divine kings that likely involved tribute and gifts," Vanderbilt University anthropologist Markus Eberl, who was not involved in the project, said via email.
Excavation leader Houston added, "we're looking at a glimpse of lost art forms."
Fingers, Teeth, and a Taste of Things to Come
The researchers found grisly deposits even before they reached the Maya tomb.
Almost every layer of mud above the tomb contained blood-red pottery filled with human fingers and teeth wrapped in decayed organic material—perhaps leaves.
The fingers and teeth were "perhaps a kind of food or symbolic meal offering," Houston speculated. "Sacred breads in [Mexico's] Yucatán are wrapped in such materials today."
In another bowl above the circa A.D. 350 to 400 tomb, the team found a partly burned baby. The bowls closest to the burial chamber were arranged like the Maya cosmos—the four cardinal compass points plus the center of world.
(Related: "Ancient Maya Royal Tomb Discovered in Guatemala.")
Dancing King and Child Sacrifices
"The chill of the morgue" and "a faint odor of decay" tempered the euphoria of the find when the team finally entered the tomb itself on May 29, Houston said.
Breaking though a side wall of the small tomb, excavators uncovered the remains of six children—a rarity among Maya burials. Nearby was an obsidian blade covered in a red residue that "may be blood," Houston said.
The arrangement suggests the children, some of them infants, may have been ritually sacrificed as the king was laid to rest. (Read about Maya rituals of sacrifice and worship.)
Why the children would have been killed is a mystery, said team member Andrew Scherer, a Brown University anthropologist.
But the youth of the victims hints that their value as sacrifices may have lain in their being, to Maya eyes, on the verge of personhood, Scherer said.
Dig leader Houston added, "[The fact] that at least four appear not to have been able yet fully to speak or walk may put them at that threshold of human existence."
The role of the king in his own burial may be slightly clearer.
The team found bell-like ornaments made of shells and "clappers" made of dog teeth, which were likely placed around the king's waist and legs, Houston said.
The same accessories are seen on performers in a ritual dance depicted in Maya art, suggesting that the king may have been "cast" as a dancer in the ceremony leading to his interment—despite the arthritic joints that give away his apparently advanced age.
(Take a Maya quiz.)
Turtle King Tomb a "Gold Mine"
His teeth embedded with jewels, the buried king, Houston suspects, was the founder of a dynasty at El Zotz, in what's now the Petén region (satellite map) of Guatemala.
According to the partially deciphered hieroglyphics on the tomb walls, his name translates to perhaps Red Turtle or Great Turtle. More information about him may be gleaned from further study of hieroglyphics from the tomb, Houston said.
A small state with no more than a few thousand people, El Zotz lay to the west of Tikal, once among the biggest and most powerful Maya centers (interactive map of the Maya Empire).
The neighboring settlements, though, probably weren't best of friends. El Zotz was likely "supported by the enemies of Tikal in a way to keep a check on Tikal's territorial ambitions," Houston said.
More details on the nature of that relationship—and on El Zotz and Maya life in general—may await decoding in the turtle king's tomb. The excavation team's next steps include residue analysis as well as continued analysis, and reconstruction, of the tomb's textiles and other artifacts.
"This," Houston said, "could be a veritable gold mine of information."
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| GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach | |
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Thanks Renfield, wildbill, Perdogg, and csvset. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. |
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As I recall from reading early accounts, settlers in Jamestown Virginia suffered a lot from malaria and typhoid fever. http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h519.html
Explains the bowls of the fingers: they belonged to previous holders of the Power of Zotz!
You shouldn't blindly accept Leftist poopaganda. It was only 92% at most.
Interesting rare kitty from site:
http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/news/animals-news/african-golden-cat-vin.html
Sounds just like the up and coming (if they have it their way, which they will for a short while at the end) vastly demented liberal culture of today.
You have to wonder what kind of revulsion they witnessed to cause them to want to wipe most all of them out. They should have, morally before The LORD, witnessed Jesus Christ to them but they seemed like they were propelled by seeing a culture that was so utterly depraved and wickedly blood thirsty that they lost control of their senses and wanted nothing more than to rid the earth of them as quickly as they could.
Others may believe that they had largely different motives but my gut reaction tells me that they couldn't mentally cope with what they witnessed about how the people lived, and how they were ritualistically murdered.
Ping...
Ah, cultural exchange!
Malaria was a given almost anywhere on the East Coast ~ it was even "seasonal" ~ and populations had been known to grow and prosper in the face of it whether in India or Africa, or China!. All you needed to do was drain the swamps and clear the area of large animals (so the mosquitos had fewer targets).
Philadelphia had malaria pretty bad right up into the 1800s when they finally built a covered over sewer system.
Now, typhoid ~ there's this crowd with an inherent immunity to typhoid, diptheria, black plague, AIDS and cholera. In any European population their percentage is going to grow as those diseases kill the part that isn't immune.
All of those diseases taken together do not equal the carnage at Jamestown.
NOTE: Latin settlement of the South American and North American mainlands was delayed substantially and the focus turned to settling the offshore islands first. Same with Virginia ~ Bermuda and other British "possessions" offshore were well developed long before the East Coast.
It was not deliberate genocide. The Spanish didn’t understand the disease they carried with them. And it was not in Spain’s interest to see them die off since they wanted to enslave the population. When the Indians died, they were replaced with Africans.
It was European diseases that wiped out the population. It was inevitable.
The Indians did not have the antibody resistance needed to fight very common European diseases. This would have eventually happened whether it was Indians coming to Europe or Africa, or ( as happened) Europeans going to America.
Having lived on Maryland's Eastern Shore for 18 years, I testify that the mosquitoes are as big as humming birds, and a bulldozer is needed to cut through the humidity.
Dig leader Houston is disgusting.
Ever since I was a kid and used to pore through Nat Geo’s “Everyday Life in Ancient Times,” their stories about the Pre-Columbian Mexican civilizations have always creeped me out the most.
Still do. So my thanks are sincere - though muted.
Same here. I have been obsessed with ancient meso-Americans since first discovering them in NatGeo at about age 5.
Our "superior" American culture has sacrificed 50 million human human fetuses -- all on the verge of "personhood" -- since 1973. Most of those living little humans were butchered in the womb by slicing them into small scoopable pieces with surgical blades. This ritual is defended with religious fervor by sexually "liberated" feminists.
If you choose to condemn the Mayans for their brutality you should take into consideration our own culture's crimes against humanity. If you think a little you'll be able to find many examples, starting with slavery. As for the 2012 nonsense, how does it compare with a formerly thriving culture that's committing economic suicide through a popular delusionary belief in mythical human-caused global warming? Only the ignorant believe the world will end based on the Mayan calendar. The Mayans didn't: it's just the beginning of a new 5,126-year cycle.
There's a few things wrong with this statement. Calling it a European invasion is the first. There isn't a monolithic European culture as demonstrated by the current EU difficulties. The invaders represented distinct cultures and didn't see themselves as one and the same or even 'European'.
Furthermore, there is a Western bias in considering all 'Indians' as one population. They didn't see themselves that way at all. Instead, they behaved and warred as distinct peoples and cultures and didn't even share languages. The Americas are and were quite diverse with the affected populations geographically limited. Try calling a Mexican a Guatemalan and see the response. The modern liberal term Hispanic is another such contrivance.
Finally, the population numbers of extant pre-Columbian peoples in the Americas varies wildly depending on which 'expert' you consult. These people were dying from disease, famine and war long before Cristobal's 'discovery'. The danger in focusing only on the post-Columbian experience is that it serves to further the Left's agenda. I do understand your perspective and point, but it deserves a clearer picture and more explanation.
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