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Scientists find monument to powerful Mayan woman |
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Written by Xiuhcoatl
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Dec 06, 2005 at 08:33 PM |
Scientists find monument to powerful Mayan woman
Source: Yahoo! News
Mon Dec 5,11:17 PM ET
CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - Archeologists working in Guatemala have
unearthed a monument with the earliest-known depiction of a woman of
authority in ancient Mayan culture, the Canadian leader of the research
team said on Monday.
The 2-meter high (6-1/2 foot high) limestone monument, called a stela,
has a portrait of a female who could be either a ruler or a mythical
goddess, said Kathryn Reese-Taylor, a University of Calgary
archeologist.
The stela may date from the late 4th Century A.D., making it as much as
200 years older than previously discovered monuments depicting powerful
Mayan women, said Reese-Taylor, whose international team made the find
earlier this year.
"It's unique in that it shows a woman in a really early period in Maya
history, a period when the city states were being founded and dynasties
were being instituted," she said.
Archeologists found the stela -- the likes of which normally describe
events in the lives of kings -- at the site of Naachtun, a Mayan city
90 km (55 miles) north of the more famous site of Tikal.
It was buried inside an ancient building, and some of the inscriptions
had been hacked off, suggesting it had been a casualty in an invasion
of the city, possibly by forces from Tikal at the end of the 5th
Century, she said.
"This was not unusual ... that they hack off or break stela. But one
thing that was left on this stela was the name of the individual, and
that is the name of a woman," Reese-Taylor said.
The name translates into Lady Partition Lord, she said.
Researchers do not suspect Mayan culture was matriarchal, but the newly
unearthed stela shows that women played important roles in the
establishment of the society, she said.
Next, the team will return to the site to make molds of the monument
and begin studying the imagery that accompanies the portrait, which
includes a bird deity with serpentine wings.
"There's a lot of rich iconography that we need to interpret and that
will give us clues of the position that she held -- probably the
political position of a founder of a dynasty. That would be my best
guess right now," Reese-Taylor said.
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Archaeology 