Archaeologists have discovered an ancient stucco mask thought to depict the face of the Mayan ruler ‘Pacal the Great.’
The remarkable 7th century artifact is unlike most such treasures as it represents the king in his old age, with visible wrinkle lines.
Pacal ruled from the time he was just 12 years old, until his death at the age of 80.
Researchers unearthed the mask during excavations at the Palenque archaeological site in the Mexican jungle.
The 20-centimeter (7.8 inch) stucco mask was found by a team with the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) during an investigation of the temple’s ancient drainage system.
Palenque sits in the southern state of Chiapas, on the border of Guatemala.
According to Institute Director Diego Prieto, the mask appears to show the face of K'inich Janaab' Pakal – also known as Pacal the Great.
If it is, in fact, Pacal, the experts say it would be the first of its kind.
The mask includes wrinkle lines around the mouth and cheeks, which would make it ‘the first representation we have of an old Pacal,’ Arnoldo González Cruz from INAH said.
Human remains dating back as far as 7,000 years have been found in a cave in southern Mexico. Experts believe the skeletons belong to the earliest-known ancestors of the country’s ancient Mayan civilization.
Researchers from Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropological History (INAH) discovered three sets of remains during a search of the Puyil cave in the Tacotalpa municipality of Tabasco state in Mexico. One set is thought to be around 7,000 years old, while the other two are estimated to date back 4,000 years.
Archaeologist Alberto Martos said the find was especially interesting as the age of the bones marks a time when humans were transitioning from being hunters to more sedentary creatures.
“There were different groups during this time that used the caves, clearly it wasn't a domestic cave,” Martos said in a statement. “In prehistoric times it was probably used for rituals and cemeteries so as to dispose of remains of people. For the Maya, it was a cave of ancestors.”
“This cave was used by the Maya, they respected the remains that were already there and left their own remains inside."
The remains, which are on display along with other artifacts in Mexico City’s Anthropology Museum, are not the only major Mayan cultural finds in recent times. In February, archaeologists recovered a treasure trove of relics and remains from the world’s largest underwater cave in the Yucatan peninsula. The discovery included fossils of a type of ancient elephant, giant sloths and a shrine to a Mayan god. It’s believed that desperate animals ventured into the caves in search of water at times of severe drought, some of which then became trapped.
One of Mexico's most famous archaeological treasures' funeral finery from Mayan times has arrived in the nation's capital.
They belonged to a woman known as the "Red Queen", who is believed to have been a prominent figure in the Mayan world.
She was found about a quarter of a century ago in an ancient citadel, in a red sarcophagus, in a red room.
Archaeologists and historians have reconstructed her features, burial jewellery, death mask and some of the aspects about her life.
When professional diver Vicente Fito first came across a fairly large skeleton while diving in an underwater sinkhole south of Cancun, Mexico, he thought the bones belonged to a cow. However, something didn't quite add up.
"After several dives, I realized there were some claws between the ribs," Fito told Live Science in an email. It turned out, Fito was staring at the remains of a new species of ancient giant ground sloth. That was in 2009, and now new research has revealed that the giant ground sloth is likely closely related to sloths from the northern part of South America.
The finding furthers the understanding of how sloths fared during the Great American Biotic Interchange, the major exchange of land mammals between North and South America that peaked around 3 million years ago.
(In misidentifying remains from a giant ground sloth, Fito is in illustrious company. When Thomas Jefferson described the claws of a giant ground sloth to the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia in 1797, he mistook them for a lion's.)
The sloth that Fito found, now named Xibalbaonyx oviceps — or underground claw egghead — belongs to the Megalonychidae family of sloths. From this family, only the diminutive two-toed sloth, the adorably lethargic tree-dweller, survives today. X. oviceps, which may have lived nearly 12,000 years ago during the late Pleistocene period, was a true giant, weighing close to 1,100 pounds (500 kilograms), Sarah Stinnesbeck, a doctoral candidate in paleontology at the State Museum for Natural History Karlsruhe in Germany, and co-author of the recent study.
By analyzing the skull, the team discovered that the X. oviceps specimen had a deep jaw and a canine-like tooth that's triangular in cross section, according to Tim Gaudin, a biology professor at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, who was not involved in the current study. These adaptations would have allowed X. oviceps to eat tough plants, which may have included agave, a spiky succulent, according to Stinnesbeck. Coincidentally, Gaudin's team recently described another megalonychid ground sloth from the same region of Mexico that may turn out to be the same genus and species of sloth as X. oviceps.
Gaudin's team used the jaw features — shared by both X. oviceps and the specimen his team analyzed in February — to draw a comparison between X. oviceps and Meizonyx salvadorensis, an extinct giant ground sloth from El Salvador. They also found that this Salvadoran sloth is more closely related to two types of giant ground sloth found in South America than those found in North America. Should Gaudin's team's sloth turn out to be the same as X. oviceps, this would offer deeper insights into how sloths may have dispersed during the Great American Biotic Interchange.
"Knowing that these are southern sloths moving north is really interesting. And sloths, for some reason, appear to do pretty well, at least initially, in that exchange, until humans come along and sort of wipe them out," Gaudin told .
loading...
TRENDS
The new study was published online May 22 in the journal PalZ.
Human skeletal remains found in an underwater cave in Mexico are about 13,000 years old, providing more evidence of early human settlement in the Americas.
Scientists reported in the journal PLOS One that the bones are another piece of a complicated puzzle, as experts have had difficulty pinpointing exactly when humans first migrated to North America and spread out, settling the rest of the continent and South America as well.
This ancient human’s remains were found in a submerged cave system near the archaeological site Tulum, which is on the Yucatán Peninsula in southern Mexico, about two hours south of Cancún in the state Quintana Roo. The scientists dated the bones with the help of a stalagmite in the Chan Hol cave that was growing on top of the skeleton’s pelvis. A stalagmite is a rock that grows vertically on a cave floor, the counterpart to the stalactite that hangs down from the top of the cave. These rock features form because of the way water drips down from the cave ceiling. Rainwater makes its way down into the cave, picking up organic material along the way. While it drips down, the calcite it is carrying solidifies and builds up over time, forming the stalactite. The calcite also builds up on the ground directly below that steady drip, forming the stalagmite.
Using information about how these vertical rocks grow, scientists can calculate how old they are.
According to the study, analysis shows that the stalagmite is more than 11,000 years old. An analysis of the bones themselves suggests they are even older, perhaps 13,000 years old.
The scientists say the ancient human died before the cave floor was wet, and the stalagmite formed later, after soft tissue had rotted away and the bone of the pelvis was already exposed.
“The Chan Hol individual confirms a late Pleistocene settling of Mesoamerica and represents one of the oldest human osteological remains in America,” the authors wrote.
There has been some debate about when humans first arrived in North and South America and what routes they took to migrate throughout the continents after traversing the now-submerged land bridge called the Bering Strait that connected from Siberia to Alaska. While some experts estimate that crossing happened 13,000 years ago, with dispersal through the continents following, others have pegged that crossing to 22,000 years ago.
The dating of the Chan Hol remains are right at the early limit of other recent findings. Earlier this year, scientists reported that the remains of a teenager found at Tulum, whom they nicknamed Naia, were dated to 13,000 years ago and they had found, based on evidence in her pubic bone, that she had given birth shortly before she fell into a pit and died. Her remains were discovered 180 feet down at the bottom of that pit, which is now filled with water and is known as Hoyo Negro — Spanish for Black Hole.
Naia’s nearly complete skeleton also gave her discoverers clues about what her life was like. Her teeth and long bones, like her femur, showed that she had lived through periods of famine, indicating that life was difficult for the people who first settled the Americas.
Although carbon-dating analysis suggests these two specimens from Hoyo Negro and Chan Hol are about 13,000 years old, the authors of this new study in PLOS One caution readers that the past climate in the cave could have contaminated the fossils, making them appear older.
The scientists are calling the age of the stalagmite growing over the pelvis, which they put at about 11,300 years old, plus or minus a few hundred years, the “minimum age for the skeleton.” That would place the remains right at the beginning of the Holocene epoch, which is the current geological era. If it is older, closer to the 13,000-year-old estimate, it would be in the preceding Pleistocene epoch.
“The oldest claims for humans in the Americas is based on tools, artifacts, scraps, and very little is based on osteological remains,” according to a paleo blog post from journal publisher Public Library of Science. “When bones are found, they are often very fragmentary.”
The Chan Hol skeleton was well-preserved, even though the site was looted shortly after its discovery and most of the bones were stolen.
“This skeleton, along with other remains found in the Chan Hol cave system, could represent an early human settlement along the sea,” the post says.
Archaeologists say DNA from ancient bones of domesticated turkeys provides a clue into the mysterious exodus of cliff dwellers from southwestern Colorado 700 years ago.
A paper in the journal PLoS One says the DNA shows the cliff dwellers raised turkeys similar to turkeys raised by ancient people in northern New Mexico.
The paper, co-authored by University of Colorado archaeologist Scott Ortman, says that kind of turkey became more common in New Mexico about the time the Colorado dwellings were emptied.
DNA from ancient turkey bones has been used to trace the Pueblo migration from Mesa Verde to New Mexico in the 13th century.UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO
He says that supports the hypothesis that the cliff dwellers migrated to New Mexico during a late 1200s drought.
The researchers believe Native Americans there today are the cliff dwellers' descendants.
Some archaeologists have questioned that explanation and Ortman acknowledges the turkey DNA alone isn't conclusive.
Mexican scientists have discovered the fossilised remains of a previously unknown species of giant sloth that lived 10,000 years ago and died at the bottom of a sinkhole.
The Pleistocene-era remains were found in 2010, but were so deep inside the water-filled sinkhole that researchers were only gradually able to piece together what they were, the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) said.
Scientists have so far hauled up the skull, jawbone, and a mixed bag of vertebrae, ribs, claws and other bones, but the rest of the skeleton remains some 50 metres under water, the INAH said.
Researchers are planning to bring up the rest by next year to continue studying the find — including to estimate how big the animal was.
The skeleton is nearly complete, leading scientists to believe the sloth “fell into the sinkhole when it was dry or had only a little water at the bottom,” the researchers said.
They have named the new species Xibalbaonyx oviceps. An initial analysis suggests the sloth lived between 10,647 and 10,305 years ago, an era when giant creatures of all kinds roamed the earth.
A sacrificial wolf elaborately adorned with some of the finest Aztec gold ever found and buried more than five centuries ago has come to light in the heart of downtown Mexico City, once home to the Aztec empire's holiest shrines.
The quality and number of golden ornaments is highly unusual and includes 22 complete pieces - such as symbol-laden pendants, a nose ring and a chest plate - all made from thin sheets of the precious metal, lead archaeologist Leonardo Lopez told Reuters.
Held in a stone box, the cache was discovered in April near the capital city's bustling main square, the Zocalo, behind the colonial-era Roman Catholic cathedral and off the steps of what was once the most important Aztec ceremonial temple, now known as the Templo Mayor.
"These are, without a doubt, the largest and most refined pieces of gold discovered so far," said Lopez, referring to the 205 offerings discovered over nearly four decades of excavations around the site, 16 of which have contained some gold.
Not long after the roughly eight-month-old wolf was killed, it was likely dressed with golden ornaments as well as a belt of shells from the Atlantic Ocean, then carefully placed in a stone box by Aztec priests above a layer of flint knives, according to Lopez.
Around the web
The west-facing wolf represented Huitzilopochtli, the Aztec war god and solar deity. Wolves were believed to help guide fallen warriors across a dangerous river in the netherworld.
The Templo Mayor would have been as high as a 15-story building before it was razed along with the rest of the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan after the 1521 Spanish conquest of Mexico.
Measuring about 12-1/2 cubic feet, the trove was also filled with other layers of once-living offerings from the air, land and sea, all infused with spiritual meaning for the Aztecs.
"What they're doing is they're communicating with those levels of the environment that they live in because they know that they've been given the gift of life," said David Carrasco, a Harvard University historian of religion and Aztec scholar.
Excavations began in the densely-packed area after the demolition of two buildings that once covered the site.
The box was damaged in 1900 when a sewage line was laid down next to it, Lopez said, and city workers must have had no inkling of what lay inside if they even noticed it at the time.
"If they had seen the golden objects, they would have ransacked it right away," he said.
The Aztecs, who called themselves "Mexica," prized gold, though nearly their entire supply was looted by the Spanish and melted into bars for easier transport to Europe. Objects made of jade and feathers of the quetzal were considered even more valuable.
Quetzal birds are native to Central America and the male grows a long, brilliant green tail feather that was especially valuable to the Aztecs.
The golden wolf was buried during the 1486-1502 reign of King Ahuitzotl, the most feared and powerful ruler of the Mexica, who extended the empire as far south as present-day Guatemala. The reign of Ahuitzotl was particularly brutal, which may also explain the fate of the young wolf.
Lopez said tests on its ribs will be needed to confirm his theory that the animal's heart was torn out as part of the sacrifice, just as captured warriors were ritually killed on blood-soaked platforms of Aztec temples.
But this was no ordinary violence, noted Carrasco.
"These people didn't just kill these things. They didn't just kill people and throw them away," he said. "They took elaborate, symbolic care for them because they knew that the presence that they represented, the presence of god, had to be nurtured."
A secret passageway discovered near the Pyramid of the Moon in the ancient city of Teotihuacan may have been a way for the people there to emulate the underworld, archaeologists said.
Scans of what appears to be a hidden underground tunnel show that the cavity extends from the center of the Plaza of the Moon to the Pyramid of the Moon, reported archaeologists from Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) and the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
The finding confirms that the ancient people of Teotihuacan dug tunnels under their monuments, possibly to emulate the underworld — a place where life, plants and food were thought to be created, said archaeologist Verónica Ortega, director of the Integral Conservation Project of the Plaza de la Luna.
A secret passageway discovered near the Pyramid of the Moon in the ancient city of Teotihuacan may have been a way for the people there to emulate the underworld, archaeologists said. Scans of what appears to be a hidden underground tunnel show that the cavity extends from the center of the Plaza of the Moon to the Pyramid of the Moon, reported archaeologists from Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) and the National Autonomous University of Mexico. The finding confirms that the ancient people of Teotihuacan dug tunnels under their monuments, possibly to emulate the underworld — a place where life, plants and food were thought to be created, said archaeologist Verónica Ortega, director of the Integral Conservation Project of the Plaza de la Luna.
The Pyramid of the Moon was built in seven different stages, from 100 B.C. to A.D. 450, the researchers said. It began as a small platform and eventually grew into a 150-foot-tall (46 meters) pyramid that held tombs filled with human and animal sacrifices, Live Science previously reported.
Researchers found the tunnel in early June by using an electrical tomography scan, the INAH reported. To implement the scan, the researchers injected electric current into the subsoil and measured the resistance of the different materials found there. Then, they used the resulting data to create preliminary 2D and 3D models.
The Pyramid of the Moon was built in seven different stages, from 100 B.C. to A.D. 450, the researchers said. It began as a small platform and eventually grew into a 150-foot-tall (46 meters) pyramid that held tombs filled with human and animal sacrifices, Live Science previously reported. Researchers found the tunnel in early June by using an electrical tomography scan, the INAH reported. To implement the scan, the researchers injected electric current into the subsoil and measured the resistance of the different materials found there. Then, they used the resulting data to create preliminary 2D and 3D models.
These models indicated that the straight tunnel is about 30 feet (10 m) below ground, the researchers said.
The tunnel likely served as a place for rituals — possibly to carry out ceremonies for the different agricultural cycles — and will help experts understand more about the culture's symbolic discourse, the researchers said.
These models indicated that the straight tunnel is about 30 feet (10 m) below ground, the researchers said. The tunnel likely served as a place for rituals — possibly to carry out ceremonies for the different agricultural cycles — and will help experts understand more about the culture's symbolic discourse, the researchers said.
Treasure hunt
The newfound tunnel isn't the only one in Teotihuacan: The Pyramid of the Sun and the Temple of the Feathered Serpent also have underground conduits, the researchers said. It's possible that the region's ancient leaders used the symbolism surrounding these tunnels as a way to unite the more than 100,000 local and foreign people who lived there, Ortega said.
Researchers said they hope to explore the newfound tunnel soon and determine when it was built.
When the tunnel under the Pyramid of the Sun was discovered in the 1970s, archaeologists were disappointed to learn that it had been looted, likely by the Mexica (the indigenous people in the Valley of Mexico) in the early 16th century, the researchers said. It's possible that the newfound tunnel could provide information about the Teotihuacan people that was taken from the cavity under the Pyramid of the sun, the researchers said.
Furthermore, the study of the newfound tunnel could reveal whether there are more tunnels around the pyramid, as archaeologists detected some alterations in the subsoil last year, particularly in large pits and channels that were likely used for rituals.
"These elements indicate that before the construction of the pyramid, there was a sacralization [performing sacred rites throughout it] of the space, since green megalithic stones have been found in front of the building," Ortega said. " [These stones] were very valuable for Teotihuacan… although at the moment it is unknown if they have any relation with the possible tunnel."
Treasure hunt The newfound tunnel isn't the only one in Teotihuacan: The Pyramid of the Sun and the Temple of the Feathered Serpent also have underground conduits, the researchers said. It's possible that the region's ancient leaders used the symbolism surrounding these tunnels as a way to unite the more than 100,000 local and foreign people who lived there, Ortega said. Researchers said they hope to explore the newfound tunnel soon and determine when it was built. When the tunnel under the Pyramid of the Sun was discovered in the 1970s, archaeologists were disappointed to learn that it had been looted, likely by the Mexica (the indigenous people in the Valley of Mexico) in the early 16th century, the researchers said. It's possible that the newfound tunnel could provide information about the Teotihuacan people that was taken from the cavity under the Pyramid of the sun, the researchers said. Furthermore, the study of the newfound tunnel could reveal whether there are more tunnels around the pyramid, as archaeologists detected some alterations in the subsoil last year, particularly in large pits and channels that were likely used for rituals. "These elements indicate that before the construction of the pyramid, there was a sacralization [performing sacred rites throughout it] of the space, since green megalithic stones have been found in front of the building," Ortega said. " [These stones] were very valuable for Teotihuacan… although at the moment it is unknown if they have any relation with the possible tunnel."
The tower of skulls beneath Mexico City has revealed a shocking secret
A TOWER of human skulls found beneath Mexico City has stunned archeologists, potentially forcing us to rethink everything we thought we knew about the Aztecs.
A pillar of more than 650 preserved skulls, as well as thousands of fragments, was found set in limestone close to Templo Mayor, one of the main temples in the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan.
It is believed the grim tower formed part of the Huey Tzompantli, a huge display of skulls designed to terrify invaders during the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire in the 16th century.
Aztec warriors would display the severed heads of slain Spanish onquistadores - a common enough practice amongst Mesoamerican cultures before the conquest.
But among the skulls of men, archeologists discovered the walls were also filled with the heads of women and children.
The tower is believed to form part of the Huey Tzompantli skull display
Rodrigo Bolanos, a biological anthropologist investigating the find, told Reuters: "We were expecting just men, obviously young men, as warriors would be, and the thing about the women and children is that you'd think they wouldn't be going to war.
"Something is happening that we have no record of, and this is really new, a first in the Huey Tzompantli."
The discovery has forced archeologists into a rethink over how the Aztecs lived
Raul Barrera, one of the archaeologists working at the site alongside the huge Metropolitan Cathedral built over the Templo Mayor, said the skulls would have been set in the tower after they had stood on public display on the tzompantli.
Roughly six meters in diameter, the tower stood on the corner of the chapel of Huitzilopochtli, Aztec god of the sun, war and human sacrifice.
Its base has yet to be unearthed.
Among the skulls of male soldiers, the heads of women and children were also discovered
THere are said to be hundreds of thousands of skulls built into the horrific struture
There was no doubt that the tower was one of the skull edifices mentioned by Andres de Tapia, a Spanish soldier who accompanied Cortes in the 1521 conquest of Mexico, Barrera said.
In his account of the campaign, de Tapia said he counted tens of thousands of skulls at what became known as the Huey Tzompantli. Barrera said 676 skulls had so far been found, and that the number would rise as excavations went on.
The Aztecs and other Mesoamerican peoples performed ritualistic human sacrifices as offerings to the sun.
One of the most significant archaeological sites in the world will take center stage at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF) this fall with the de Young Museum’s “Teotihuacan: City of Water, City of Fire.”
“In this groundbreaking exhibition, an abundance of recent archaeological discoveries will offer visitors to the de Young insight into the life of the ancient city and reveal the astounding size and significance of the Teotihuacan murals in our own collection,” said FAMSF director and CEO Max Hollein in a statement. The mural fragments in the museum collection will be reunited with others excavated from the same compound.
Billed as the US’s first significant exhibition on Teotihuacan in over 20 years—the last was 1993’s “Teotihuacan: Art from the City of the Gods,” also at the de Young—it will feature over 200 artifacts and artworks from the site, with loans from major collections in Mexico as well as recently excavated objects. Many of the works included have never been shown in the US before. There will be ceramics, monumental sculptures, and ritual objects.
Founded in the first century BC, Teotihuacan was the most important city in ancient Mesoamerica, reaching its height in the year 400, when it was home to some 100,000 people. It is located some 25 miles outside what is today Mexico City, near a set of natural springs in the Valley of Mexico. Spread across close to eight square miles, the city was home to massive pyramids, the three largest of which were the Feathered Serpent Pyramid, the Moon Pyramid, and the Sun Pyramid.
The exhibition is curated by Matthew H. Robb, who was named chief curator of the Fowler Museum at UCLA last year. Previously, he was the de Young’s curator of the arts of the Americas. An expert in Teotihuacan, Robb has studied extensively the de Young’s murals from the ancient city and compiled a database of stone masks discovered there. His 2007 thesis on Teotihuacan, written for his Ph.D. at Yale University in Connecticut, was awarded the Frances Blanshard Fellowship Fund Prize for an Outstanding Dissertation in the History of Art.
“This exhibition will present a visual history of Teotihuacan in 200 remarkable objects, and it will also explore topical themes of urbanism,” said Robb in a statement. “It is an opportunity to anchor these objects on the map of the site to understand how art held communities together in a large, complex, cosmopolitan city—valuable lessons for all of us to learn.”
Largely abandoned following a devastating sixth-century fire, Teotihuacan is today a UNESCO World Heritage Site, visited by 1.9 million tourists each year.
Mural fragment (feathered feline), (500–550). Image courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
