Andrew L. Demarest
Posted on 11/17/2005 3:08:23 AM PST by Pharmboy
Andrew L. Demarest
The remains of a Maya king, Kan Maax, who was killed about A.D. 800 in Cancuén with dozens of his royal associates and
courtiers. Despite the puzzling slaughter, the bodies were treated with respect.
Archaeologists and forensic experts in Guatemala have made a grisly discovery among the ruins of an ancient Maya city, Cancuén.
In explorations during the summer, they found as many as 50 skeletons in a sacred pool and other places, victims of murder and dismemberment in a war that destroyed the city and, it seems, served as a beginning of the collapse of the classic period of the Maya civilization. snip...
As the scale of the massacre became apparent, the archaeologists called on Guatemalan forensic investigators for their experience with mass burials of modern war. The team, established in 1996 to excavate the mass graves from Guatemala's civil war, has also analyzed sites in Bosnia, Kosovo and Rwanda.
Arthur A. Demarest, an archaeologist at Vanderbilt University who directed the excavations, described the discovery snip...
In a gruesome departure from what had been normal Maya warfare, he said, the conquerors - not yet identified - did not spare the city to rule it as a vassal state.
Around A.D. 800, they methodically destroyed the palace and monuments and rounded up the king and queen of Cancuén and members of the court, men, women and children. They killed them en masse, mostly by lance thrusts and ax blows to the neck or head. Most of their mutilated bodies were dumped into the palace pool or buried in shallow graves.
"After this tragic and violent event, unlike any yet discovered at a classic Maya site," Dr. Demarest said, "the city of Cancuén was completely abandoned, as were many other cities downstream" on the Pasión River.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Ping...
Bush did it. For the oil.
Paging Dirk Pitt. Paging Mr. Dirk Pitt.
Well one thing is probably a given. The perps weren't evil white boys. Here all this time I thought the nativehyphen(south/central)Americans were living in a peaceful state of grace with their God(s) or lack thereof until the evil white man came to kill all of them.
Well one thing is probably a given. The perps weren't evil white boys. Here all this time I thought the nativehyphen(south/central)Americans were living in a peaceful state of grace with their God(s) or lack thereof until the evil white man came to kill all of them.
Sorry for the double post. These new fangled clicker things are tricky.
"Bush did it."
Dammit, you beat me to it.
OJ is still looking for the killers.
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How interesting. Someone wanted this entire city abandoned, and its rulers and their line eradicated, ina departure from usual conquest. I wonder why?
Power.
You mean... There was war before the Republicans were in office?
...That's not what the MSM told me - it can't be true.
Musta been Bushazuma handling this.
Thanks for the ping. Interesting!
Might also have been a revolt by the non-nobles after an event that shook their faith in the divinity of the king and his family.
They might still have buried them with some remaining vestige of respect--or out of fear of some sort of divine retribution cause by their lese majeste acts.
As a writer, I love to speculate on this stuff as it would make a great novel.
Please add me SunkenCiv. I love archaeological topics.
LibertyLass
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