VERY UNUSUAL ROYAL TOMB FOUND AT COPAN

Ancient Maya Tomb Found: Upright Skeleton, Unusual Location

Kelly Hearn
for National Geographic News
May 17, 2007
Archaeologists working in Honduras have discovered an entombed human
skeleton of an elite member of the ancient Maya Empire that may help
unravel some longstanding mysteries of the vanished culture.

The remains, seated in an upright position in an unusual tomb and
flanked by shells, pottery, vessels, and jade adornments, suggest a
surprisingly diverse culture and complex political system in the
influential Maya city of Copán around A.D. 650.

Located at the western edge of modern-day Honduras near the border
with Guatemala, Copán, was one of the most important Maya sites,
flourishing between the fifth and ninth centuries A.D. (Honduras map).

But until now, much about the political makeup and cultural range of
the city-famous for its funerary slabs-has been poorly understood.
(Related: "Ancient Maya Royal Tomb Discovered in Guatemala" [May 4,
2006].)

The position of the body, the structure of the tomb, and several
unexpected artifacts suggest the interred individual was a political
or priestly figure, said discoverer Allan Maca, an archaeologist at
Colgate University in New York State.

The entombed individual was found with "a jade pectoral hung from a
necklace of dozens of jade beads of various sizes," Maca said. Because
jade was a precious commodity, he added, the jewels represent "a level
of control over economic resources."

"The incised design on the pectoral likely represents a political
title or social affiliation that links this individual to other major
sites around the city," Maca said.

The remains belong to a 50-year-old man with various illnesses. He had
poor use of his left arm, poor arterial flow through his upper spinal
cord, and a chronic infection of the skull known as mastoiditis,
according to a bioarchaeological analysis by Katherine Miller of
Arizona State University.

Off-Center

Maca discovered the tomb in 2005 in the Copán Archaeological park.

But Maca-whose work was funded by the National Geographic Society's
Committee for Research and Exploration-only announced his findings
last week, in conjunction with officials from the Honduran Institute
of Anthropology and History, after months of excavation. (National
Geographic News is owned by the National Geographic Society.)

"The tomb is characterized by a split vault created by interlocking
lintels [load-bearing horizontal supports]," said Maca, who is also
the director of the Project for the Planning of Ancient Copán.

"The chamber was accessed from above by a stuccoed stone chute that
descends from the surface of the temple," he continued.

Maca said the features allowed the tomb to be "reentered years after
the original interment, for purposes of ancestor veneration."

The tomb's location, some 1,300 feet (400 meters) west of the
Acropolis, Copán's ceremonial core, was unexpected, Maca added.

"The design is without precedent in the Maya area and is the first
elaborate tomb construction to be discovered outside the ceremonial
center of Copán," he said.

The grandiose tombs belonging to members of the Copán dynasty, royal
court, and royal family are typically found in Copán's Acropolis, Maca
explained. Copán archaeologists have focused their research in the
central area for many recent decades as well as much of the 19th
century.

"As we begin to think more broadly about the great extent of the royal
city, and about how to protect it against modern looting and
population growth, we are coming to understand that the dynasty
manifested its power in sectors of the Copán Valley that have never
been explored," Maca said.

Oddities

There are other oddities to the tomb.

The position of the buried individual-seated with legs crossed-was not
common in Copán or in the Maya lowlands during the Classic period,
which lasted from about A.D. 300 to 900.

And several vessels found in the tomb, made in sets specifically for
the burial, bear "a type of false or alternative hieroglyphics unlike
those used by the ancient Maya," he said.

Some of the pottery vessels likely came from the south near present-
day El Salvador, Maca added.

"Thus it is unlikely that these were made in Copán and probable that
they signify some sort of cultural affiliation with that region," he
said.

Also found in the tomb were seashells laid in a pattern that appears
to represent a kind of cosmological map and may be representative of
the waters in Maya creation mythology, Maca said.

The shells must have arrived to the region through commercial
exchanges with the coast, Maca said.

The findings bring into clearer focus a picture of a Classic-period
Copán society that was culturally diverse.

The discovery provides "an unusual archaeological context that helps
expand our knowledge of the sociopolitical and cultural complexity of
the ancient city and of the funerary and ritual landscape of the Copán
Valley during the seventh century A.D.," Maca said.

Dario Euraque, director of the Honduran Institute of Anthropology and
History, said Maca's findings were significant for a number of
reasons.

"Mainly, this is the first tomb to be found outside the principal
monuments where all funeral sites are located," he said.

"We never thought we would find any in the Bosque, which is along the
periphery of Copán."

He agreed that the artifacts and tomb characteristics were not
representative of the Maya culture.

"This goes against theories that all populations in the Copán Valley
were uniquely Mayan," he said. "There appears to have been a cultural
mix."







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