Excavation unearths ornate Mayan metropolis

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Excavation unearths ornate Mayan metropolis

By Associated Press

May 05, 2004 - 07:41:31 am PDT

 

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 previously believed the Maya were only simple

farmers.

 

New studies at the Peten jungle site of Cival have unearthed the

oldest known carved portrait of a Maya king and two massive stone

masks, 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 also 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 at a National Geographic Society news conference.

 

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 City.

 

"We had hints of these kinds of buildings from El Mirador," another

Maya city of the so-called Pre-classic Period, which dates from

roughly 2000 B.C. to A.D. 250, she said.

 

The Maya civilization came into full bloom at cities such as

Palenque and Tikal in the Classic Period, beginning about A.D. 300.

But other Pre-classic sites have been built over, often repeatedly,

rendering interpretation of the findings problematic.

 

Cival, for reasons that are not clear, was abandoned about A.D.

100, "never to be occupied again," Estrada-Belli said, and has lain

relatively untouched ever since. "It is very unusual to have a

completely preserved Pre-classic 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 " `Pre-classic'

is a misnomer," he said. The new evidence shows that "Pre-classic

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 Pre-classic period, rather than

the last part."

 

Cival, which is located about 25 miles east of Tikal, was originally

discovered in 1984 by Ian Graham of Harvard University. Most of the

site was overgrown by jungle, however, and Graham's team thought

that it was a minor outpost.

 

Estrada-Belli has been studying the nearby Classic Period city of

Holmul and was using satellite imaging and GPS positioning to

explore the surrounding area when he re-discovered Cival four years

ago. The new technology showed that its ceremonial center spanned a

half mile, more than twice Graham's initial estimate.

 

Estrada-Belli and his colleagues have been digging there ever since

with support from the National Geographic Society.

 

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'###### pyramid and felt a piece of

carved stucco.

 

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 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 from 300

B.C., showing the accession of a king whose name has not yet been

determined. Such stelae are 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 team also found a major clue to what was probably the ultimate

fate of Cival -- a hurriedly constructed defensive wall built around

A.D. 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 noted,

because "there was no previous evidence of warfare in the Pre-

classic Period.

 

Ultimately, he said, Cival "probably met the same end as many cities

in the Classic period," conquered by a more powerful neighbor.

 

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