Jungle discovery opens new chapter in Maya history
Written by Xiuhcoatl
Dec 06, 2005 at 08:30 PM
Contact: Gregory Harris
403-220-3506
University of Calgary
Jungle discovery opens new chapter in Maya history
University of Calgary-led team discovers earliest known portrait of Maya woman
A University of Calgary archaeologist and her international team of
researchers have discovered the earliest known portrait of a woman that
the Maya carved into stone, demonstrating that women held positions of
authority very early in Maya history – either as queens or patron
deities.
The discovery was made earlier this year in Guatemala at the site of
Naachtun, a Maya city located some 90 kilometres through dense jungle
north of the more famous Maya city of Tikal. The woman's face, carved
on a stone monument called a stela [STEE-la] – and in an artistic style
never before seen – suggests women played significant roles in early
Maya politics.
"I've worked in the Maya area a long time and I've never seen anything
like it," says Dr. Kathryn Reese-Taylor, the director of the U of C-led
Naachtun project. "We have images of queens, who ruled both singly and
with their husbands or sons, depicted on stelae later in Maya history
beginning in the early 6th century AD. But this stela is completely
unique in style and likely dates to the 4th century AD."
The woman could be a figure from Maya history, but researchers are
tantalized by the possibility she might be a mythical figure.
Hieroglyphic inscriptions of the Late Classic period (600-900 AD)
mention female deities, but none have ever been discovered on a stela.
"If this is a patron deity, then it is extremely rare," Reese-Taylor
says. "When hieroglyphic texts do mention women, it is usually in the
context of being either someone's mother or someone's wife."
The stela measures two metres in height, one metre in width, and 50
centimetres in depth. It was buried by the Maya inside an ancient
building after their city was attacked and the inscriptions on the
stela were hacked off by the invading forces. The burial was a
reverential act meant to honour the individual whose image was carved
on the monument. An infant's burial accompanied the stela.
"This represents an extraordinary event in the history of Naachtun and we were really lucky to find it," Reese-Taylor says.
Dr. Julia Guernsey, a professor of Precolumbian Art History at the
University of Texas at Austin, says the gender of the figure portrayed
on the stela is unquestionably significant.
"If this individual was, indeed, a historical woman, it means that her
portrait pre-dates other known stela representations of powerful women
in the Classic Maya Lowlands by over a hundred years. It also means
that we may need to re-evaluate the role and status of women within
Early Classic Maya political dynamics," Guernsey says.
"The other fascinating aspect of the image, in my opinion, is its
formal representation, or style. The fact that the body of the figure
is completely absent and attention is focused on the head and headdress
alone is very interesting and unusual."
The co-directors of the project are Lic. Martin Rangel Guillermo,
Universidad de San Carlos, Guatemala; Dr. Peter L. Mathews, La Trobe
University, Australia; and Dr. Debra Selsor Walker, Florida
International University.
Students from a number of universities participated in the project in
2005: Alejandra Alonso, a Ph.D. student from the University of Calgary,
assisted Lic. Martin Rangel with the excavation of the stela. Ms.
Alonso is also a conservator, so her expertise was invaluable for the
subsequent conservation of the monument. Shawn Morton, a U of C MA
student, is surveying and mapping Naachtun's civic centre, which
extends over two square kilometres.
Silvia Alvarado, a student at the University of San Carlos, directed
excavations in one of the earliest public buildings at the site.
Ernesto Arredondo, a PhD student from La Trobe University, is
investigating the defensive fortifications at Naachtun as a part of his
dissertation research. Chris Morehart, a PhD student from Northwestern
University, is directing the study of the settlement surrounding
Naachtun's civic centre. Fernando Rochaix, PhD student from the
University of Texas at Austin, directed the laboratory analysis and
served as the project photographer during the 2005 season.
Reese-Taylor and her team first began fieldwork in Naachtun in 2002 and
are undertaking the first scientific excavations of the site.
Co-director Martin Rangel actually discovered the stela peeking out
from a looter's trench at the end of the 2004 season and excavated it
in the spring of 2005.
###
Project sponsors include: the Social Sciences and Humanities Research
Council of Canada, the University of Calgary, La Trobe University, the
Mesoamerica Center, the University of Texas at Austin, and Radius Gold,
Inc.
For more information, see: http://www.ucalgary.ca/~naachtun/. Print
quality pictures and two 30-second Quicktime video clips (320 x 240)
are available at: www.ucalgary.ca/news/dec05/naachtun/pics/index.html.
Dr. Reese-Taylor can be reached at 403-220-6369, or by arrangement
through Greg Harris, Media Relations, 403-220-3506, or cell
403-540-7306.
Latest Product
Anti-HR 4437 Movement in Modesto DVD
$4.99 Add to Cart
Mambo is Free Software released under the GNU/GPL License.
Archaeology 
