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Archaeologists in Guatemala discover Mayan king's tomb |
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Written by DeadGirl
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Thursday, 27 July 2006 |
Peten, July 27: Looters who tunneled for decades looking for treasure deep underneath Guatemala's Mayan pyramids were outsmarted by archaeologists who earlier month discovered two major royal tombs.
Guatemalan Minister for Culture Manuel Salazar, one of the first to arrive on the scene after the discovery was made, prayed and played the flute at the entrance of one of the tombs. The body of a king adorned jewels was uncovered at the site in Laguna del Tigre National Park and is thought to have been buried more than 1,500 years ago.
Described by one archaeologist as the "excavation and discovery of a lifetime", the team worked in a cramped tunnel at the beginning of May underneath a 60-foot high pyramid deep in the Guatemalan jungle. The archaeologists suspect they have found the first ruler of the site, an ancient Maya citadel some 74 kilometers from the famous metropolis of Tikal.
The tomb was discovered when Guatemalan archaeologist Hector Escobedo fell through a floor into a 5 metre-long hollow chamber - uncovering the tomb thought to hold the dynastic founder of a line of over two dozen kings at El Peru Waka.
Manuel Salazar, Cultural Minister of Guatemala, said the find was a treasure for the people of the country.
"It is an impressive and monumental discovery of our Mayan ancestors," he said.
The archaeological work at the site is being managed by the Waka Peru Project, directed jointly by Hector Escobedo and U.S. archaeologist David Friedel from Texas' Southern Methodist University. Working in 90-plus-degree heat and protective clothing against venomous snakes, Escobedo described the discovery as a once in a lifetime.
"It was an exhilarating moment and the excavation of a lifetime, a discovery of a lifetime," he said.
From the finds, archaeologists believe El Peru-Waka was established around 150 AD as a command and control centre along major Mayan trade routes that could have stretched from Tikal all the way up through Mexico.
Another team of archaeologists working inside a building up the hill from the first pyramid found what could be a second royal tomb, probably built around 400 years after the first.
That tomb has yet to be totally excavated by judging by the elaborate offerings inside, including a dozen miniature figurines of ball players, elegant women, dwarfs and seated lords found on steps inside the pyramid, archaeologists expect to find more royal remains.
Guatemalan archaeologist Varina Matute said all the remains found point to a royal burial site.
"The discovery was of a person from these parts, the principal person. He was a king because his dress was different and a lot more elaborate than the others. He has an impressive headdress with the image of a jaguar," she said.
The teams believe the two sites would have been connected by an elevated road, linking a complex of some 800 buildings. Now all the pyramids are covered in a layer thick rainforest teeming with spider monkeys and tropical birds.
Even though the ancient 16-square-kilometer city is deep inside Guatemala's largest protected wilderness area and only accessible on bumpy, narrow dirt road, the pyramids have been ransacked by looters since oil prospectors first found the place in the 1960s.
Escobedo worked for three years to stabilize the building where he found the tomb after looters opened two elevator-shaft size tunnels in the structure, leaving it close to collapse.
Lack of resources to protect the park, home to one of the largest rainforests above the Amazon, has turned the reserve into a no-mans land rife with land invaders, illegal loggers and drug traffickers.
The day before the tomb was discovered, looters snuck into the camp at night and cleared out the tunnel in a desperate last ditch effort to find the booty.
They failed where the archaeologists succeeded, uncovering one of the culturally richest finds in Guatemalan Mayan history.
http://www.zeenews.com/znnew/articles.asp?aid=311738&sid=FTP |
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