Archaeology

Rare statue of Maya lighting god found in Mexico

Published

7 months ago

April 29, 2023

Archaeologists from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) have uncovered a rare statue of Kʼawiil, the Maya lightning god.

Kʼawiil is associated with lightning, serpents, fertility, and maize, and is often represented having a zoomorphic head with large eyes, a long, upturned snout, and an attenuated serpent foot which represents a lightning bolt.

From descriptions of the Maya New Year rituals, written by Diego de Landa Calderón, a Spanish Franciscan bishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Yucatán, and depictions of these rituals in the Dresden Codex, it can be inferred that Kʼawiil was called Bolon Dzacab during the 16th century.

Although depictions of Kʼawiil can be found in Maya reliefs and the Dresden and Maya codices of Mexico, only three statues of Kʼawiil have been previously discovered, all of which come from the city of Tikal in Guatemala.

The latest statue was discovered during the construction of the Maya Train project, in section 7 on the route from Bacalar, in Quintana Roo, to Escárcega, in Campeche. The Maya Train is a 1,525-kilometre intercity railway that will traverse the Yucatán Peninsula, with construction scheduled to be completed in 2024.

The statue is part of an urn, whose body shows the face of a possible solar deity, with the head of K’awiil represented on the lid.

Prieto Hernández, Director General at INAH, said: “This finding is very important because there are very few representations of the god K’awill; Up to now, we only know of three in Tikal, Guatemala, and this is one of the first to appear in Mexican territory.”

Excavations in section 7 also revealed structures, including platforms and vaulted buildings, which the archaeologists plan to preserve and document.

INAH

Header Image Credit : INAH Campeche Centre

Archaeology

Clusters of ancient qanats discovered in Diyala

Published

8 hours ago

December 2, 2023

An archaeological survey has identified three clusters of ancient qanats in the Diyala Province of Iraq.

A qanat, also known as a kārīz, is a system for transporting water from an aquifer or water well over long distances in hot dry climates without losing water to evaporation.

Qanats use a sequence of vertical shafts resembling wells, linked by a gently inclined tunnel that serves as a conduit for channelling water. Qanats efficiently transport substantial volumes of underground water to the surface without requiring pumps.

The water naturally flows downhill by gravity, with the endpoint positioned at a lower level than the origin. When the qanat is still below ground, the water is drawn to the surface via water wells or animal driven Persian wells.

Image Credit : State Board of Antiquities & Heritage

Some Qanats are divided into an underground network of smaller canals known as kariz, functioning similarly to qanats by staying beneath the surface to prevent contamination and evaporation. In certain instances, water from a qanat is stored in a reservoir, usually with nighttime flow reserved for daytime usage.

The technology for qanat’s first emerged in ancient Iran around 3,000-years-ago and slowly spread westward and eastward.

A recent survey within the Diyala Province has discovered three clusters of qanats stretching between the areas of Jalulaa and Kortaba. Initial studies dates the clusters to around AD 1000, a period known as the “Iranian Intermezzo”, when parts of the region were governed by a number of minor Iranian emirates.

The first cluster consists of 25 wells on a linear alignment connected to an adjacent 10 metre deep water channel. The second cluster also has 25 wells and is connected to a 13 km long hand dug channel, while the third cluster consists of 9 wells connected to water canals dug on both sides.

Header Image Credit : State Board of Antiquities & Heritage

Archaeology

16,800-year-old Palaeolithic dwelling found in La Garma cave

Published

1 day ago

December 1, 2023

Archaeologists have discovered a 16,800-year-old Palaeolithic dwelling in the La Garma cave complex, located in the municipality of Ribamontán al Monte in Spain’s Cantabria province.

The La Garma cave complex is a parietal art-bearing paleoanthropological cave system on the southern side of the La Garma Hill.

The cave complex is noted for one of the best preserved floors from the Palaeolithic period, containing more than 4,000 fossils and more than 500 graphical units.

A project led by Pablo Arias and Roberto Ontañón from the University of Cantabria has recently announced the discovery of a Palaeolithic dwelling within the cave system, described as “one of the best preserved Palaeolithic dwellings in the world.”

The dwelling is an oval space and is delimited by an alignment of stone blocks and stalagmites that supported a fixed structure of sticks and skins leaning against the cave wall. The total area of the space is around 5 square metres that centred on a camp fire.

Archaeologists also found vestiges of various daily activities associated with Magdalenian hunters and gatherers at the dwelling, including evidence of stone manufacturing, bone and antler instruments, and the working of fur.

In total, over 4,614 objects have been documented, such as dear, horse and bison bones, 600 pieces of flint, needles and a protoharpoon, shells of marine mollusks, as well as numerous pendants worn by the cave dwelling inhabitants.

Additionally, the researchers also found a number of decorated bones, including a remarkable pierced aurochs phalanx engraved with a depiction of both the animal itself and a human face—a distinctive artefact unique to the European Palaeolithic era.

Due to the national importance of the discovery, the team used innovative non-intrusive techniques in their study of the dwelling. This includes continuous tomography of the soils, 3D cartography, the molecular and genetic analysis of soils and Palaeolithic objects, mass spectrometry, and hyperspectral imaging.

Header Image Credit : University of Cantabria