Maya Royal Tombs Found With Rare Woman Ruler

Source

Maya Royal Burial

The roughly 2,000-year-old tomb was found underneath another, 1,300-year-old tomb filled with treasures such as jade gorgets - normally used to protect the throat - beads, and ceremonial knives.

The upper tomb's corpse had been badly destroyed by rodents within the last few centuries, but the body was clearly that of another Maya ruler - perhaps another female, based on the small size of a ring found in that tomb.

The royal burials are the first discovered in Nakum, once a densely packed Maya center. Study co-author Wiesław Koszkul and colleagues have been investigating Nakum's surroundings, known as the Cultural Triangle, for decades.

Well this lends credence to the people who believe history was filled with more matriarchal society than believed today.

The fact they are uncovering ruling females will only point us in a new direction as to where history was as this point and will help open up our eyes to the possibility of the same throughout ancient cultures.

Anyway, I found this quite interesting and thought I would share it with all of you.

Any thoughts?

PRed...

Very interesting thread OP.

Of course it isn't unheard of for ancient civilizations to have female rulers. Even Ancient Egypt had them, although they were bad about erasing people from their history or depicting them as men.

Back on topic, it's very odd that the head was placed between two bowels. I wonder what that was for. Also, it appears they are saying the only reason they believe it to be female is because of a small ring in the tomb. They might be jumping to conclusions, but I hope they are right.

S&F

Not evidence of a matriarchal society, particularly since rulers' wives played important parts in religious ceremonies. It does suggest the society was a bit more egalitarian.

Keep the topic updated if there's new info! Female rulers are fairly rare once a society becomes organized at the "city" level... so this is as exciting as finding Hatshepsut.

Originally posted by CN1018
Back on topic, it's very odd that the head was placed between two bowels. I wonder what that was for. Also, it appears they are saying the only reason they believe it to be female is because of a small ring in the tomb. They might be jumping to conclusions, but I hope they are right.
S&F

The slope of the forehead will also tell that, as would the shape of the pelvis. Once they get the whole skeleton out, they should be able to confirm it.

Originally posted by Byrd

Originally posted by CN1018
Back on topic, it's very odd that the head was placed between two bowels. I wonder what that was for. Also, it appears they are saying the only reason they believe it to be female is because of a small ring in the tomb. They might be jumping to conclusions, but I hope they are right.
S&F

The slope of the forehead will also tell that, as would the shape of the pelvis. Once they get the whole skeleton out, they should be able to confirm it.

Howdy Byrd

Plus....the digital ratio, longer canines on males, jaw and eye orbits and the biggest and easiest one to see, the pelvis as you mentioned.

As most people aren't familar with the digit ratio:

The wiki on digital ratio

The digit ratio is sexually dimorphic: in males, the second digit tends to be shorter than the fourth, and in females the second digit tends to be the same size or slightly longer than the fourth.

As to the OP, of course! It would be interesting to revisit a number of the 19th and early 20th century excavations - where the skeletons weren't normally 'sexed', noted that while reading Sir Leonard Wooley's 'Excavations at Ur', as rich burial were considered male unless it had female grave goods. The same error was made in regards to 'Scthyian' burials---which some later turned out to be females buried with weapons and thought to be the source of the AG observations on 'Amazons'.

Greetings.

This is a great find. Everyone is debating whether this is a male of female skeleton.
My very first question is, how do we know this is a Mayan burial, or tomb. Because of the jade, or because of the location of the artifacts??? I really do not like jumping to conclusion when dealing with ancient sites.
The older you go back in to the Mayan culture you find similar trends that we find in Kemet or Modern day Egypt. I am hinting at the lack of preservation of the body. I am not dismissing the potential. It may be a Mayan site. I am just suggesting we look outside of the box, that has been placed outside of the box.

Women ruler huh?
Wow,. just imagine how men were sacrificed to the gods
because she was having a couple of bad days each month..

Very interesting! Thanks!
S&F.

I found it interesting that this burial was found under another, 1300yr old, so there's difference of about 700 years! I know that many cultures built over the ruins of previous settlements but still it's a piece of information that raises my eyebrow, in a manner of speak.

Originally posted by AKINOFTHEFIRSSTARS
My very first question is, how do we know this is a Mayan burial, or tomb. Because of the jade, or because of the location of the artifacts???

Because of the location (Mayan territory) and because of the artifacts, yes. They only showed a portion of what was found... there's a lot more there.

I really do not like jumping to conclusion when dealing with ancient sites.

Remember, the people issuing the original finding are archaeologists who specialize in Mayan and Central American materials (they're called "Mayanists") and they can often tell you which period in Mayan history the artifact comes from simply by looking at it (they had different preferred styles at different times.

The older you go back in to the Mayan culture you find similar trends that we find in Kemet or Modern day Egypt. I am hinting at the lack of preservation of the body. I am not dismissing the potential. It may be a Mayan site. I am just suggesting we look outside of the box, that has been placed outside of the box.

Not sure what it is that you're suggesting here. Very few cultures practiced any sort of preservation of the body, and the Egyptian techniques (which date back to 2600 BC) are unique. Mayan civilization isn't very similar to the Egyptian one.

When we approach these subjects we innately assume that are aware of everything to be able to put it in to a place.

As far as the location is concerned, we are so confident that other people did not occupy the region when we have evidence that suggest the contrary. This particular region has been occupied by over 6 different major civilizations. Time will help us sort out a few, Which will still leave about 4. The central and southern american cultures were connected. It has even been shown, most of the early thriving civilizations spoke two languages the local language and the language most of the people spoke from south american to central america. In fact most of the local language how a common thread.

I remember when the 'mayanist' did not even accept local legends about previous civilizations, they clumped them all together, based 'findings' and the 'filtering' process that enables opinion to override testimony coupled with facts and evidence. This still exist today. We call them Olmec as in old mexico, Mayan, Aztec, and Zapotec to name a few, this is not what they called themselves and the 'mayanist' others have a tendency to tell the story how 'they think' it went. I'm not fascinated with the Hollywood twist, the glamour and what not. We still have a problem with categorizing and being able to separate these different people. It is apparent throughout history.
Culture most of the time is represented by a continuation of myth, practices, art and so on. What I'm saying in so many words you can't simply look at something and tell where its from when you have little knowledge about previous times. The Olmec and other civilizations were 'Mayan' until the archs. grew the space within there opinion to accept new information. It was called Mayan because "it looked Mayan".

We will never be able to receive new information if we aren't willing to let go of our old theories.

The Kemetic mummification process is unique, but there have been cultures that have a similar process and lets just look at this subject while we set our old ideas to the side.

For example. The japanese-katakana script is very different from Latin. They do not resemble each other and within them, we find 2 completely different ways the written language and ideas can be expressed.
In Ancient Kemet, we find hieroglyphs, mummy's, similar megaliths, and a high respect for the heavens above. We find the same in the 'Mayan' culture and others,and yet we conclude that this is a mere coincidence brought forth by hunter-gatherers. At least the 'mayanist' believe so.
As researchers we need to get into the mindset of the people in order to understand them. I was blessed, and I was able to meet someone that spoke Nahuat'l and believe me the story is very different than what we hear.
My humble conclusion, great find but there is more than meets the eye.