
Burned Maya royals' remains discovered in Guatemalan temple-pyramid
The discovery, at the ancient site of Ucanal, is believed to reflect a political regime change in the 8th or 9th century
Archaeologists working in Guatemala have discovered the burnt remains of Maya royalty in a temple-pyramid at Ucanal, a site 280km north-east of Guatemala City. Removed from a royal tomb, the bodies appear to have been ritually burnt as a display of political regime change.
The Art Newspaper
April 18, 2024
© Photographs by C. Halperin & C. Bello-Hernandez
“The finding of the burnt royal human remains was a total surprise,” says archaeologist Christina Halperin of the Université de Montréal in Canada, lead author of the research published in the journal Antiquity. “Although it would not be surprising to find a royal tomb within a temple pyramid, we were not expecting to find a thick deposit of fine soot, carbon, burnt bone, and thousands upon thousands of burnt, fire-cracked, and spalled ornaments.”
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