Peten, July 27: Looters who tunneled for decades looking for
treasure deep underneath Guatemala's Mayan pyramids were
outsmarted by archaeologists who earlier month discovered
two major royal tombs.
Guatemalan Minister for Culture Manuel Salazar, one of
the first to arrive on the scene after the discovery was
made, prayed and played the flute at the entrance of one of
the tombs. The body of a king adorned jewels was uncovered
at the site in Laguna del Tigre National Park and is
thought to have been buried more than 1,500 years ago.
Described by one archaeologist as the "excavation and
discovery of a lifetime", the team worked in a cramped
tunnel at the beginning of May underneath a 60-foot high
pyramid deep in the Guatemalan jungle. The archaeologists
suspect they have found the first ruler of the site, an
ancient Maya citadel some 74 kilometers from the famous
metropolis of Tikal.
The tomb was discovered when Guatemalan archaeologist
Hector Escobedo fell through a floor into a 5 metre-long
hollow chamber - uncovering the tomb thought to hold the
dynastic founder of a line of over two dozen kings at El
Peru Waka.
Manuel Salazar, Cultural Minister of Guatemala, said
the find was a treasure for the people of the country.
"It is an impressive and monumental discovery of our
Mayan ancestors," he said.
The archaeological work at the site is being managed by
the Waka Peru Project, directed jointly by Hector Escobedo
and U.S. archaeologist David Friedel from Texas' Southern
Methodist University. Working in 90-plus-degree heat and
protective clothing against venomous snakes, Escobedo
described the discovery as a once in a lifetime.
"It was an exhilarating moment and the excavation of a
lifetime, a discovery of a lifetime," he said.
From the finds, archaeologists believe El Peru-Waka was
established around 150 AD as a command and control centre
along major Mayan trade routes that could have stretched
from Tikal all the way up through Mexico.
Another team of archaeologists working inside a
building up the hill from the first pyramid found what
could be a second royal tomb, probably built around 400
years after the first.
That tomb has yet to be totally excavated by judging by
the elaborate offerings inside, including a dozen miniature
figurines of ball players, elegant women, dwarfs and seated
lords found on steps inside the pyramid, archaeologists
expect to find more royal remains.
Guatemalan archaeologist Varina Matute said all the
remains found point to a royal burial site.
"The discovery was of a person from these parts, the
principal person. He was a king because his dress was
different and a lot more elaborate than the others. He has
an impressive headdress with the image of a jaguar," she
said.
The teams believe the two sites would have been
connected by an elevated road, linking a complex of some
800 buildings. Now all the pyramids are covered in a layer
thick rainforest teeming with spider monkeys and tropical
birds.
Even though the ancient 16-square-kilometer city is
deep inside Guatemala's largest protected wilderness area
and only accessible on bumpy, narrow dirt road, the
pyramids have been ransacked by looters since oil
prospectors first found the place in the 1960s.
Escobedo worked for three years to stabilize the
building where he found the tomb after looters opened two
elevator-shaft size tunnels in the structure, leaving it
close to collapse.
Lack of resources to protect the park, home to one of
the largest rainforests above the Amazon, has turned the
reserve into a no-mans land rife with land invaders,
illegal loggers and drug traffickers.
The day before the tomb was discovered, looters snuck
into the camp at night and cleared out the tunnel in a
desperate last ditch effort to find the booty.
They failed where the archaeologists succeeded,
uncovering one of the culturally richest finds in
Guatemalan Mayan history.
Bureau Report