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The stone shows two people playing a Mesoamerican ball gameImage: Lorenzo Hernandez/REUTERS The piece displays Mayan hieroglyphic writing surrounding two players standing next to a ball. The Pok Ta Pok ball game was a traditional practice of Mesoamerican peoples. An apparent stone scoreboard has been discovered at the Chichen Itza archaeological site in southeastern Mexico, archaeologists have said. The piece measures just over 32 centimeters (12.6 inches) in diameter and weighs 40 kilograms (around 90 pounds). It dates from between A.D. 800 and 900. It displays Mayan hieroglyphic writing surrounding two players standing next to a ball, according to Mexico's...

10 Strange Archaeological Finds Straight Out Of A Horror Story Scattered under the ground beneath our feet are the remains of history. There are little pieces of the lives of people who lived before us that give us little glimpses into who they were—the things they held dear, the homes they lived in, and the bones of their decaying bodies. But life thousands of years ago wasn’t always gentle and easy. Sometimes, when these remains are uncovered, the stories they reveal are brutal and violent—and sometimes, they’re pulled straight out of a horror story. 10 A Pit Of Amputated Arms10b-amputated-arm-bones-from-pit...

Aztec human sacrifices were far more widespread and grisly that previously thought, archaeologists have revealed. In 2015 archaeologists from Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) found a gruesome 'trophy rack' near the site of the Templo Mayor, one of the main temples in the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan, which later became Mexico City. Now, they say the find was just the tip of the iceberg, and that the 'skull tower' was just a small part of a massive display of skulls known as Huey Tzompantli that was the size of a basketball court.

New research published today in the journal Science Advances overturns more than a century of thought about the source of turquoise used by ancient civilizations in Mesoamerica, the vast region that extends from Central Mexico to Central America. For more than 150 years, scholars have argued that the Aztec and Mixtec civilizations, which revered the precious, blue-green mineral, acquired it through import from the American Southwest. However, extensive geochemical analyses reveal that the true geologic source of Aztec and Mixtec turquoise lies within Mesoamerica. Geochemist Alyson Thibodeau, assistant professor of earth sciences at Dickinson College, and a team of researchers...

I’m a political junkie. Every day I read The Washington Post and The New York Times, among other media giants, with great interest and appreciation. Here in conservative rural America, Trump is ascendant. I was loafing in a booth at the coffee shop Saturday morning, and my friend Mark said something like, “Hey Bob, if you want to understand why rural conservatives like Trump, watch the speech he gave at the Values Voters Summit.” Doing my best to understand how my conservative friends might read Trump’s speech, I read. I contrasted Trump’s messaging with how rural conservatives often view Democratic...

The candidate for political office stood in a plaza, naked, bracing himself against the punches and kicks. The crowd roared, pulsing around him like a beating heart. People for whom he had risked his life in war after war hurled blows and insults from all directions. The candidate breathed deeply. Trained as a warrior, he knew he had to stay calm to reach the next phase of his candidacy. This ordeal, documented by a Spanish priest in the 1500s, was merely the beginning of the long process of joining the government of the Mesoamerican city of Tlaxcallan, built around 1250...

Sacrificial burial deepens mystery at Teotihuacan, but confirms the city’s militarism Partially uncovered figurine, carved in jade, found in connection with three unbound, seated bodies and other objects at the top of the pyramid’s fifth stage (the offering was presumably made in the construction of the sixth stage), circa 350 AD. This object is notable in that it is carved from jade that originated in Guatemala, and appears to be Mayan in style. Other jade objects on top of the figurine are beads and earspools. A spectacular new discovery from an ongoing excavation at the Teotihuacan’s Pyramid of the Moon...

Time Line of Decipherment When the Spanish conquered the Maya empire in the 16th century, they forced their new subjects to convert to Christianity and speak and write in Spanish. But long before the Maya used the Roman alphabet, they had created their own rich and elegant script, featuring more than 800 hieroglyphs. Sadly, the glyphs' meanings were lost in the decades following the Conquest. Ever since, scholars have struggled to decode these symbols, pronounce the words they form, and understand the stories they tell. In this time line, follow the centuries-long decipherment, which has only recently reached the point...

Anthropologists from Wheaton College (Illinois) and The Field Museum have discovered how the ancient Maya produced an unusual and widely studied blue pigment that was used in offerings, pottery, murals and other contexts across Mesoamerica from about A.D. 300 to 1500. First identified in 1931, this blue pigment (known as Maya Blue) has puzzled archaeologists, chemists and material scientists for years because of its unusual chemical stability, composition and persistent color in one of the world’s harshest climates. The anthropologists solved another old mystery, namely the presence of a 14-foot layer of blue precipitate found at the bottom of the...

Editor’s note: This article consists of eExcerpts from Bruce W. Warren’s research in New Evidences of Christ in Ancient America, (Book of Mormon Research Foundation, 1999, pp, 139,140). The confirming pictures and field trip report of this tradition location are by V. Garth Norman. If the claims of the Hebrew prophets of Mesoamerica are true — that their resurrected Christ actually did visit his “sheep” in their land — we can expect to find numerous evidences of this supernal event almost everywhere we turn. As it turns out, such is most definitely the case. Though the evidence is at times...

Mexican anthropologists have discovered some 5,000-year-old cave paintings predating the Maya civilisation on Yucatan peninsula, Spanish news agency EFE reported. According to Carlos Augusto of the Faculty of Anthropological Sciences at the Autonomous University of the Yucatan, they found some 60 paintings of man-like figures at the Kab cavern situated near the famous Chichen Itza archaeological site. There are also drawings of animal figures, birds or canines, Augusto said. Anthropologists attribute them to the pre-Maya epoch, between 5,000 and 7,000 years ago. Augusto also noted that there are also Mayan 'Ajau' symbols and pottery in the cave from the classical...

Ancient beer pots point to origins of chocolate 22:00 12 November 2007 NewScientist.com news service Jeff Hecht Earlier long-necked pots would have been used for beer making. Chemical evidence in a pot such as this is seen as proof that beer brewing involved fermenting cacao (Illustration: PNAS/National Academy of Sciences) Chocolate was first produced by the ancients as a by-product of beer, suggests a new archaeological study. And evidence from drinking vessels left by the Mesoamericans who developed chocolate suggests that the source of chocolate, cacao, was first used 500 years earlier than thought. Mesoamericans – who flourished in central...

Ancient Mexican city raises questions about Mesoamerica's Mother Culture Web Posted: 10/11/2007 05:17 PM CDT Tracy L. Barnett Express-News Travel Editor TAMUIN, Mexico — Deep in the Huastec jungle the enormous carved stone monolith stands, suspended over the pool of water where a team of archaeologists discovered it. A powerful woman stands at the center of the carving, flanked by two smaller decapitated women. A stream of liquid flows from the headless women toward the woman in the center. Altug S. Icilensu/Special to the Express-NewsThe leader salutes the musicians before beginning the Malinche, a traditional Huastec dance. The women on...

Ancient Canoe Found by Wichita State University Professor on Belize Research Dig WICHITA, Kan., Oct. 10 (AScribe Newswire) -- An ancient canoe -- more than likely the oldest canoe ever uncovered in Mesoamerica -- was discovered this summer in a cliff-top cave in Belize by an excavation team being led by Wichita State University archaeologist Keith Prufer. Prufer estimates that the canoe very likely dates to 200 to 800 AD, based on previous findings in the area. Carbon testing is currently being wrapped up to confirm that the canoe is indeed the oldest found in Mesoamerica, the geographical region from...