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Archaeologists Work in old Mayan city They discovered a 1700 -year -old mysterious altar that could carry its bright decorations and its dark contents, the key to revealing the complex political geography at that time.
Although an altar was found in Tikal, the devastating Maya city that is located in modern Guatemala, archaeologists believe that it has not been decorated by the Mayan. Instead, they say it was the work of trained artists 630 miles in Toyotihuan-a strong city near the modern city of Mexico, which has a strong influence on the region.
The altar still bears the effects of the paint he decorated. Edwin Roman Ramirez
Before this discovery, which was published on Tuesday in the magazine Ancient timesArchaeologists already knew that the two cultures interacted, although the nature of the relationship was the subject of disagreement.
But the decorative altar, with the burial of two buried bodies under it, confirms that “the wealthy leaders of Tiotihuan came to Tikal and created similar copies of the ritual facilities that were present in their original city,” said co -author Stephen Houston, a professor at the University of Brown specializing in the Maya culture.
“It shows that Tiohaitocan left a heavy imprint there,” he added in a statement.
Houston and his co -authors from the United States and Guatemala began excavating the site in 2019, after the region’s surveying operations revealed structures in light of what they believed was a natural hill.
Stephen Houston (left), in the photo in the archaeological drilling with Edwin Roman Ramirez, who co -authored the study. Edwin Roman Ramirez
While they were investigating, they discovered this altar, which still bears the outline of a person wearing a feathers ’head covering on each plate and traces of red, black and bright yellow paints. Such design is similar to other representations of the god known as “the god of the storm”, more common in Totuethuan than the art of Mayan.
Two bodies were buried under the altar – one of which is more likely an adult man and the other is a young child between the ages of 2 and 4, who was buried in a more popular sitting position in Totuethuan from him in Tikal.
The bodies of three other children were discovered around the altar, buried in a similar way to other infants in Totuethuan. The authors did not specify the cause of their death.
The researchers said in their paper that these cultural practices indicate an increase in the influence of Toyothewan on Tikal.
The fact that these buildings were later buried and were not built again.
“The Mayan was buried regularly the buildings and rebuilt them on top,” he said in a statement. “But here, they buried the altar and the surrounding buildings and left them just, although this would have been a real estate centuries after centuries. They dealt with it like a memorial or a radioactive area.”
This last discovery reveals another layer of the complex relationship between the two cultures revealed by recent research.
In the sixties of the last century, the researchers found a stone bearing an inscription describing a struggle between the Mayan and Tiotihuan, and they knew that “about 378 AD, Totuethuan was mainly cut the head of the kingdom.”
“They removed the king and replaced him with my owners, which belongs to dolls.
Shearer said that this altar may have been built at a similar time for the coup, which ultimately pushed the Mayan kingdom to its strongest point, before it decreased about 900 AD.
Houston added that these excavation results show an “old story at the time”, referring to the increasing empires and competition for cultural influence.
He said: “Everyone knows what happened to the Aztec civilization after the arrival of the Spaniards … These forces arrived in the middle of Mexico to the Mayan world because they saw it as an unusual wealth, the special feathers of tropical birds, feathers and chocolate.” “As far as it comes to teotihuacan, it was the land of milk and honey.”
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