Maya dig unearths ancient murder mystery

[Anonymous]

Maya dig unearths ancient murder mystery
By Thomas H. Maugh II

Los Angeles Times

Sunday, November 20, 2005 – Page updated at 12:00 AM

Archaeologists excavating the ruined Guatemalan city of Cancuen have found the remains of what they believe is one of the pivotal events in the collapse of the Maya civilization — the desperate defense of the once-great trading center and the ritual execution of at least 45 members of its royal court.

An enemy as yet unknown not only wiped out the royal dynasty about A.D. 800 but also systematically eliminated religious and cultural artifacts as well — in effect, killing the city and leaving it abandoned to the elements, researchers announced Wednesday.

After this event, cities in the western Maya lowlands in Guatemala were abandoned, most within 20 to 30 years, the researchers said. The displaced populations moved to the East and North, where they eventually depleted local resources and faded away.

“This was a critical historical moment, like the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in World War I,” said archaeologist Arthur A. Demarest of Vanderbilt University, whose team discovered the charnel house during the summer. “It set off the domino of Classic Maya collapse.”

Added archaeologist David Freidel of Southern Methodist University: “This is an effort not to try to subordinate the royal court to an overlord, but to absolutely wipe it out. It’s a remarkable and very poignant example of the kind of violence that marks the collapse of the Maya civilization.”

It might have been a nobles’ revolt, a peasants’ revolt or an outside attack, added Freidel, who was not involved in the discovery. “We just don’t know.”

But the city’s occupants clearly were aware of the impending disaster.

Demarest and his team found a system of hastily constructed and unfinished stone and wooden palisade walls that showed a desperate attempt to defend Cancuen from attack.

Spearheads scattered throughout the city, abandoned construction sites and skeletons with markings of spear and ax wounds bear witness to the intensity of the battle and the finality of the defeat.

“Clearly, these defenses failed,” Demarest said.

The Maya dominated Central America for more than 1,500 years, from well before the birth of Christ to late in the first millennium. They established a complex network of kingdoms dominated by “holy lords,” building large cities with palaces and pyramids throughout the region and reaching a peak in the Classic period from A.D. 300 to 900.

Then, they disappeared.

The mysterious nature of that collapse has captivated at least two generations of scholars, provoking theories including environmental despoliation, drought and vicious warfare. Even the time frame is the subject of debate, with some arguing for a sudden collapse within a few short years and others arguing for a prolonged disintegration over 2 ½ centuries.

The new discovery “supports Demarest’s view that the Classic Maya civilization collapsed by endemic warfare,” said archaeologist Heather McKillop of Louisiana State University. “The massacre is one of those rare events in archaeology where an event is frozen in time.”

The site of Cancuen, which is at the headwaters of the Pasion River, has been known for more than a century, but it was generally regarded as an insignificant outpost until five years ago, when Demarest’s team discovered a three-story, 170-room palace sprawling over an area the size of six football fields.

The palace was surrounded by workshops for jade, obsidian, pyrite and other precious goods.

Excavations over the last five years showed that it was an unusually wealthy city because of its ability to supply other cities throughout the empire with goods necessary for maintaining control over the common people.

The city’s kings maintained their influential position over four centuries through a series of treaties, intermarriages and diplomatic missions without engaging in warfare.

“They were not the greatest or most powerful dynasty, but they were the cleverest,” Demarest said.

The dynasty reached its peak during the 50-year reign of Taj Chan Ahk. His son, Kan Maax, reigned for only about five years before the attack that ended the city’s existence.

Demarest’s team was just finishing its dig for the summer when Guatemalan archaeologists Sylvia Alvarado and Tomas Barrientos, tracing a system of water channels through the city, stumbled on a 90-square-yard cistern, filled with mud, directly in front of the palace.

When they began digging in it, Demarest said, they found “bones, bones, bones and more bones … more bones than I have ever seen.”

Bones tend to degrade quickly in the jungle, but the mud of the cistern helped preserve these.

“This is the strangest … find I have ever made,” he said.

With their season nearly finished and the rainy season approaching, Demarest called on the Forensic Anthropological Foundation of Guatemala for assistance. Formed in 1996 after the signing of the Guatemalan Peace Accords, the FAFG excavated the mass graves of thousands of Guatemalan villagers killed in civil-war genocide. They have also been sent to Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda and Afghanistan to investigate other massacres for war-crimes trials.

“This was a war-crimes scene,” said Demarest, whose excavation was paid for by the National Geographic Society and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Under the direction of Guatemalan archaeologists Fredy Peccerelli and Jose Suasnevar — both former students of Demarest — the team found the remains of 31 people in the cistern. The bodies were those of men, women and children, including two pregnant women.

Subsequent excavations revealed the bodies of Kan Maax and his queen in a nearby shallow grave and a dozen other nobles in a grave north of the palace. Their identities were established by their jewelry, headdresses and other artifacts.

Some of the nobles may have been wounded or killed in the defense of the city, but most were executed by spear thrusts to the throat, “a quick way to kill someone,” Demarest said.

After the victims were dead, their bodies were ritually dismembered and thrown into the cistern or graves, along with the clothes they were wearing, ceremonial headdresses, jewelry and other artifacts.

“These were incredibly precious things” like jades, jaguar-fang necklaces and Pacific Coast shells, Demarest said, and their presence with the bodies is a sign that the people were killed “with great respect.”

The invaders also went through the city and chipped the faces off monuments, ritually killing the monuments themselves, he added. “They were not only terminating the dynasty, they were terminating the entire site.”

Copyright © 2005 The Seattle Times Company

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002634953_maya20.html

[Author]

Posts

[Anonymous]

Maya dig unearths ancient murder mystery
By Thomas H. Maugh II

Los Angeles Times

Sunday, November 20, 2005 – Page updated at 12:00 AM

Archaeologists excavating the ruined Guatemalan city of Cancuen have found the remains of what they believe is one of the pivotal events in the collapse of the Maya civilization — the desperate defense of the once-great trading center and the ritual execution of at least 45 members of its royal court.

An enemy as yet unknown not only wiped out the royal dynasty about A.D. 800 but also systematically eliminated religious and cultural artifacts as well — in effect, killing the city and leaving it abandoned to the elements, researchers announced Wednesday.

After this event, cities in the western Maya lowlands in Guatemala were abandoned, most within 20 to 30 years, the researchers said. The displaced populations moved to the East and North, where they eventually depleted local resources and faded away.

“This was a critical historical moment, like the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in World War I,” said archaeologist Arthur A. Demarest of Vanderbilt University, whose team discovered the charnel house during the summer. “It set off the domino of Classic Maya collapse.”

Added archaeologist David Freidel of Southern Methodist University: “This is an effort not to try to subordinate the royal court to an overlord, but to absolutely wipe it out. It’s a remarkable and very poignant example of the kind of violence that marks the collapse of the Maya civilization.”

It might have been a nobles’ revolt, a peasants’ revolt or an outside attack, added Freidel, who was not involved in the discovery. “We just don’t know.”

But the city’s occupants clearly were aware of the impending disaster.

Demarest and his team found a system of hastily constructed and unfinished stone and wooden palisade walls that showed a desperate attempt to defend Cancuen from attack.

Spearheads scattered throughout the city, abandoned construction sites and skeletons with markings of spear and ax wounds bear witness to the intensity of the battle and the finality of the defeat.

“Clearly, these defenses failed,” Demarest said.

The Maya dominated Central America for more than 1,500 years, from well before the birth of Christ to late in the first millennium. They established a complex network of kingdoms dominated by “holy lords,” building large cities with palaces and pyramids throughout the region and reaching a peak in the Classic period from A.D. 300 to 900.

Then, they disappeared.

The mysterious nature of that collapse has captivated at least two generations of scholars, provoking theories including environmental despoliation, drought and vicious warfare. Even the time frame is the subject of debate, with some arguing for a sudden collapse within a few short years and others arguing for a prolonged disintegration over 2 ½ centuries.

The new discovery “supports Demarest’s view that the Classic Maya civilization collapsed by endemic warfare,” said archaeologist Heather McKillop of Louisiana State University. “The massacre is one of those rare events in archaeology where an event is frozen in time.”

The site of Cancuen, which is at the headwaters of the Pasion River, has been known for more than a century, but it was generally regarded as an insignificant outpost until five years ago, when Demarest’s team discovered a three-story, 170-room palace sprawling over an area the size of six football fields.

The palace was surrounded by workshops for jade, obsidian, pyrite and other precious goods.

Excavations over the last five years showed that it was an unusually wealthy city because of its ability to supply other cities throughout the empire with goods necessary for maintaining control over the common people.

The city’s kings maintained their influential position over four centuries through a series of treaties, intermarriages and diplomatic missions without engaging in warfare.

“They were not the greatest or most powerful dynasty, but they were the cleverest,” Demarest said.

The dynasty reached its peak during the 50-year reign of Taj Chan Ahk. His son, Kan Maax, reigned for only about five years before the attack that ended the city’s existence.

Demarest’s team was just finishing its dig for the summer when Guatemalan archaeologists Sylvia Alvarado and Tomas Barrientos, tracing a system of water channels through the city, stumbled on a 90-square-yard cistern, filled with mud, directly in front of the palace.

When they began digging in it, Demarest said, they found “bones, bones, bones and more bones … more bones than I have ever seen.”

Bones tend to degrade quickly in the jungle, but the mud of the cistern helped preserve these.

“This is the strangest … find I have ever made,” he said.

With their season nearly finished and the rainy season approaching, Demarest called on the Forensic Anthropological Foundation of Guatemala for assistance. Formed in 1996 after the signing of the Guatemalan Peace Accords, the FAFG excavated the mass graves of thousands of Guatemalan villagers killed in civil-war genocide. They have also been sent to Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda and Afghanistan to investigate other massacres for war-crimes trials.

“This was a war-crimes scene,” said Demarest, whose excavation was paid for by the National Geographic Society and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Under the direction of Guatemalan archaeologists Fredy Peccerelli and Jose Suasnevar — both former students of Demarest — the team found the remains of 31 people in the cistern. The bodies were those of men, women and children, including two pregnant women.

Subsequent excavations revealed the bodies of Kan Maax and his queen in a nearby shallow grave and a dozen other nobles in a grave north of the palace. Their identities were established by their jewelry, headdresses and other artifacts.

Some of the nobles may have been wounded or killed in the defense of the city, but most were executed by spear thrusts to the throat, “a quick way to kill someone,” Demarest said.

After the victims were dead, their bodies were ritually dismembered and thrown into the cistern or graves, along with the clothes they were wearing, ceremonial headdresses, jewelry and other artifacts.

“These were incredibly precious things” like jades, jaguar-fang necklaces and Pacific Coast shells, Demarest said, and their presence with the bodies is a sign that the people were killed “with great respect.”

The invaders also went through the city and chipped the faces off monuments, ritually killing the monuments themselves, he added. “They were not only terminating the dynasty, they were terminating the entire site.”

Copyright © 2005 The Seattle Times Company

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002634953_maya20.html

[Author]

Posts