By MARK STEVENSON, Associated Press Writer Mark Stevenson, Associated Press Writer – Mon May 17, 9:33 pm ET
MEXICO CITY – Archaeologists in southern Mexico announced Monday they have discovered a 2,700-year-old tomb of a dignitary inside a pyramid that may be the oldest such burial documented in Mesoamerica.
The tomb held a man aged around 50, who was buried with jade collars, pyrite and obsidian artifacts and ceramic vessels. Archaeologist Emiliano Gallaga said the tomb dates to between 500 and 700 B.C.
Based on the layers in which it was found and the tomb's unusual wooden construction, "we think this is one of the earliest discoveries of the use of a pyramid as a tomb, not only as a religious site or temple," Gallaga said.
Pre-Hispanic cultures built pyramids mainly as representations of the levels leading from the underworld to the sky; the highest point usually held a temple.
The tomb was found at a site built by Zoque Indians in Chiapa de Corzo, in southern Chiapas state. It may be almost 1,000 years older than the better-known pyramid tomb of the Mayan ruler Pakal at the Palenque archaeological site, also in Chiapas.
The man — probably a high priest or ruler of Chiapa de Corzo, a prominent settlement at the time — was buried in a stone chamber. Marks in the wall indicate wooden roof supports were used to create the tomb, but the wood long ago collapsed under the weight of the pyramid built above.
Archeologists began digging into the pyramid mound in April to study the internal structure — pyramids were often built in layers, one atop another — when they happened on a wall whose finished stones appeared to face inward. In digging last week, they uncovered the 4- by 3-meter tomb chamber about 6 or 7 meters beneath what had been the pyramid's peak.
The body of a 1-year-old child was laid carefully over the man's body inside the tomb, while that of a 20-year-old male was tossed into the chamber with less care, perhaps sacrificed at the time of the burial.
The older man was buried with jade and amber collars and bracelets and pearl ornaments. His face was covered with what may have been a funeral mask with obsidian eyes.
Nearby, the tomb of a woman, also about 50, contained similar ornaments.
The ornaments — some imported from as far away as Guatemala and central Mexico — and some of the 15 ceramic vessels found in the tomb show influences from the Olmec culture, long considered the "mother culture" of the region.
The find raised the possibility that Olmec pyramids might contain similar tombs of dignitaries, especially at well-known sites like La Venta.
Olmec pyramids, while well-known, have not been excavated, in part because the high water table and humidity of their Gulf coast sites are not as conducive to preserving buried human remains.
"The Olmec sites have not been explored with the depth they deserve," said Lynneth Lowe, an archaeologist at Mexico's National Autonomous University who participated in the dig. "It is possible that thus type of tomb exists at La Venta."
Despite the Chiapa de Corzo tomb's location, experts said it is not clear the later Maya culture learned or inherited the practice of pyramid burials from the Zoques, or Olmecs.
"While I have no doubt it relates to Olmec, there is no tie to Maya at this time per se," said archaeologist Lisa Lucero of the University of Illinois, who was not involved in the Chiapa de Corzo project. "There are scholars who would like to see Olmec-Maya connections so they can show direct ties from Olmec to Maya, but this would be difficult to show with evidence at hand."
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They assume the man was the dignitary - interesting.
4 comments:
...if one thinks of the mayan as the 2nd coming of quetzalcoatl,
that they come from the gulf of ormuz, when they arrive panuco,
rio verde/chalchiutlicue and build
little skirt pyramids along its banks, go inland and are defeated by the rain olmec calpixque/ majordomos, then go south leaving
their northern remnant in the
cuexteca/huaxteca by the rio verde,
it becomes evident they were rivals,the olmeca and the mayan.
the olmec rowing helmet appears
in cyprus c.3.5k-2.5k bc. the mayan
first date(so far)is found in belize about 2.2k bc. the chiapan
del corzo pyramid=2.7k bc, about
the time of the first egyptian
pyramid, 2648 bc, the saqqara.
this may argue connexion between
the olmec and the egyptian, while
the mayan comes from the province
of perseus on the iranian coast,
perseus being the father of hecate/
ehecatl(N/day2souls), the weaving goddess, venus, and mother of
quetzalcoatl, whose first expedition to mesoamerica is the
oldest mayan date, 3309bc, the naui
ollin/4movement, the beginning of the 5th age.
the rowing olmecs seem to have
spilled out of the gates of herakles and used senegal as their
port for the new world, while the mayan may have done the same,
leaving from the levant and then
through the mediterranean. it doesn't seem the mayan were sailors, per se, the olmecs surely,
e.g., ol-mecatl(N)=roll with a
rope=mecatl(N)=me(r)cado=market.
they had definitely discovered the
properties of the rope plant and
the goddess metis as the rain olmecs were drunk when the mayans
arrived at the foot of popo to do
battle.
the operative word for maguey/
metl harvest=cima(N)=encima(sp)=
on top/over(the plant leaves/pencas
have to be trod to castrate the
plant for juice/nequatl=nectar/
pulque=poliuhqui=who pollutes),
and cima(N)=shows up as,
sima(OE)simi(ONorse)simo)OSaxon=
rope, so the sea age and the rope
age is in the linguistic memory
of these peoples, as well as in
greek myth, which has metis as
goddess of wisdom and mother of
a darker goddess of wisdom, athena,
of the corinthian/quiotl maguey
helmet and the spear=mitl(N)=missile.
what the chiapan de corzo/
zoque=zocatl(N)=wrinkle/socket/
zocalo(a word associated with
pyramid in mexico tenochtitlan)=
soctona(N)=zoctona(N)=sunsocket=
pyramid discovery does, among other
details to be revealed, is to push
the sea age back to 4k bc, the
millenium naui(ollin)4, whose
earliest date so far=3309bc=first
quetzalcoatl expedition.
...and speaking of the quetzalcoatl
expedition of 3309bc, one looks into haklyut's voyages for what that was all about. he mentions
chaunis temo(y)an, a pale copper
mine the indians used inland from roanoke. chaunis temo(y)an is the
correct order of the phrase,
temoanchan, which mesoamerican scholars have traditionally tried
to translate as, we are looking for
our house/home=chan(N), which has never made a lot sense to them,
but is the only phrase history has
from the expedition. temoayan(N)=
the dropping off/cliff place,
descriptive of the locale of the
coppermine inland.
with the puzzling phrase now
straightened out, one can imagine
the scenario of the expedition:
they were looking for the pale coppermine, knew about it before
hand, which expands the sea age
further back than 3309bc, were
either blown into the gulf by a hatteras storm or navigation error
and ended up in the gulf of mexico,
were received by the natives and possibly found another source for copper=tepuztli(N)=boiled rock.
Hola Carlos,
Would not the sea age be much older than 3309 BCE? Some archaeologists have suggested that the first peoples to South America arrived from Japan/Jomon culture via the sea, perhaps around the same time as the first peoples were crossing the Bering Strait on the ice (about 13,000 BCE?) Other archaeologists have suggested that settlers from Europe could have travelled along the ice border from England/France to North America about 12,000 years ago. But supposedly no trace of them exists today in Native American peoples. I think that is because they are not looking hard enough, or perhaps our science has not yet caught up with what really happened.
...yes, of course. how did the abo's get to australia for example?
or the polynesian wave across the
pacific which left the maori=
ma ollin(N)=hand rollers(clubs) tahiti=otaite(old form)=otlatl(N)=thick cane used for staffs, easter island statues,
hawaii=auia(N)=have(E).
the tlaloc nomad deer age, 40k
bc, gives us the tepee/yurt=yu(r)t=
yuhti(N)=from the beginning(justice)=yuh'di(Hebrew=tepeua=
tepee)and the woodworking later to
be used in assembling solid water craft, especially when the nomads
reach northern europe, frisia, and
the iberian ports, probably after
the nomad age has settled, c. 8k bc, the finns begins fishing their coasts, the nivki on the amur do
the same on the east asian coast,
e.g., chipeua(N)=begin on top(how to dress a log into a boat canoe)=
chip a ship, or, kayak=acalli iacolli(N)=shoulder/acolli acalli/
waterhouse(boat), boat=boot=b/potli
(N)=punt/both/foot. and the picture
of a sail boat, dated c. 3k bc,
egypt, a harbinger of sail=ce ollin(N)to come, but tech was lacking
for large sail yet, and rowers like
the olmec caste were used, began
on a large scale in the mediterranean which ended in the
roman and phoenician triremes=
tri-/3 oar(shelves)/remo(sp).
the specific sea age that interests me is not the coastal
smacking, but the panoa(N)= crossings=spanish of the great oceans connecting the hemispheres,
and that seems to have taken place in the 4k=naui/nauatlaca
millenium with the basques, who
are the nauatlaca, are evangelisized from the east by
quetzalcoatl prior to 3309 bc,
and have a strong enough elite
to form expeditions for specific
purposes, e.g., copper, migration,
rather than coastal objectives.
in short cultural embassys of
global purpose, the dawning of
the interconnected planet we have
today.
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