Mosaic Jade Mask found at Chochkitam
In a ancient Maya tomb at the site of Chochkitam, Guatemala, Francisco Estrada-Belli, lead archaeologist and his team found funeral offerings including a mosaic jade mask and writing on carved human femur bones.
The tomb was found in 2022 less than 2 meters from looters trenches. The site of Chochkitam had been identified and visited during the Peabody Expedition of 1909 and first explored by Fran Blom, an early director of Tulane’s famed Middle American Research Institute (MARI), in 1924. Francisco started working on site in 2019 while working on sites identified by lidar.
Francisco Estrada-Belli, is a research assistant professor in the Tulane University School of Liberal Arts, National Geographic Explorer and Project Director for the Holmul Archaeological Project.
2024 Welcome
Welcome to 2024.
In the summer of 2023, Because of a technical issue I was not able to renew MerwinatHolmul.com. So now I have moved the site to www.MerwinatHolmul.net.
The First Maya Civilization
The First Maya Civilization. Ritual and Power before the Classic Period
Francisco Estrada-Belli writes how: When the Maya kings of Tikal dedicated their first carved monuments in the third century A.D., inaugurating the Classic period of Maya history that lasted for six centuries and saw the rise of such famous cities as Palenque, Copan and Yaxchilan, Maya civilization was already nearly a millennium old. Its first cities, such as Nakbe and El Mirador, had some of the largest temples ever raised in Prehispanic America, while others such as Cival showed even earlier evidence of complex rituals.
Royal Tomb is found at Nakum
Royal Tomb is found at Nakum containing a woman ruler's skeleton. Archaeologists fom the Jagiellonian University Institute of Archaeology in Krakow, Poland have located a 1,300 tomb containing the burial of a rare female ruler.
The authors describe the excavation and interpretation of an intact seventh-century high status burial at the Maya site of Nakum. Article in Antiquity http://antiquity.ac.uk/ant/085/ant0850890.htm
National Geographic announcement http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/09/pictures/110922-rare-mayan-female-ruler-tomb-found-guatemala/#/mayan-maize-god-skull_40671_600x450.jpg
