WORLD SCIENCE

"Long before it's in the papers"
December 19, 2005

Mural provides “window” onto Maya origins

Dec. 13, 2005
Courtesy National Geographic Society
and World Science staff

Archaeologists at an ancient Maya ceremonial site in Guatemala have uncovered the final wall of what they call the civilization’s oldest well-preserved mural. 

A detail from a sacred Maya mural at San Bartolo — the earliest known Maya painting, depicting the birth of the cosmos and the divine right of a king. (Photo by Kenneth Garrett © National Geographic)

The finding “has opened a window into the very origins of Maya civilization,” said Project Director William Saturno, of the University of New Hampshire. 

“As we excavate the site further and piece together more images and glyphs [symbols] from the mural fragments we have discovered, new surprises could be revealed.” 

He added that the discovery “is among the most important finds in Maya archaeology in the last few decades.”

The Maya are a Native American people inhabiting southeast Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize, whose ancient civilization reached its height around 300–900 AD.

The large painting, from about 100 B.C., shows the mythology surrounding the origin of kings and a highly developed hieroglyphic script, the researchers said.

Before the excavation of the vividly painted mural, there was scant evidence of the existence of early Maya kings or of their use of elaborate art and writing to establish their right to rule, the researchers added. The mural provides information on those subjects.

The site, known as San Bartolo, contains a pyramid complex and several buried rooms. To the west of the pyramid where the mural room was discovered, archaeologists found the oldest documented Maya royal burial, from around 150 B.C. These latest finds at the site will be reported in the January 2006 issue of National Geographic magazine.

Saturno said the mural room’s recently excavated west wall is a masterpiece of ancient Maya art that reveals the story of creation, the mythology of kingship and the divine right of a king. The 30-foot by 3-foot west wall mural shows two coronation scenes—one mythological, the other the coronation of a real king. 

Archaeologists have determined the mural is about 200 years older than originally thought, according to Saturno. 

As previously reported, Saturno said he found the mural room in 2001 through luck. Looking for shade, he had ducked into a trench that looters had cut into the unexcavated pyramid, and when he shone his flashlight on the walls, he saw the mural. He and his team are now in the midst of a five-year project to uncover the mural and reveal its story. 

“In Western terms, it’s like knowing only modern art and then stumbling on a Michelangelo or a Leonardo,” Saturno, 36, said. “With its fine painting and its elaborate mural showing the mythic basis of kingship, the chamber has upended much of what we thought we knew about the early Maya. The mural shows that early Maya painting had achieved a high level of sophistication and grace well before the great works of the Classic Maya in the seventh century.”

The mural is wonderfully preserved, he added, parts of it looking like they were painted yesterday.

The first part of the west wall mural shows the establishment of order to the world, the researchers said. Four deities, variations of the same figure—the son of the maize god—provide a blood sacrifice and an offering in four cardinal directions as they set up the physical world. The deities move through the Maya universe. 

The first god stands in the water and offers a fish, establishing the watery underworld, Saturno explained. The second stands on the ground and sacrifices a deer, establishing the land. The third floats in the air, offering a turkey, thereby establishing the sky; and the fourth stands in a field of flowers, offering fragrant blossoms, the food of gods, and establishing paradise in the east, where the sun is reborn daily.

The next section of the mural shows the maize god establishing the world center and crowning himself king upon a wooden scaffold, the researchers said. 

The final section traces his birth, death and resurrection, bringing sustenance to the world, they added. The last scene shows a historic coronation of a Maya king, named and titled, receiving his headdress from an attendant. By acceding to the throne in the company of gods, the archaeologists explained, the mural likely shows the king is claiming the divine right to rule from the gods themselves.

Project iconographer Karl Taube of the University of California, Riverside, said the San Bartolo murals provide an unparalleled view of the early development of Maya mythology and art. 

“All too often such carvings are broken or heavily eroded,” he said. “In contrast, the murals at San Bartolo are in brilliant polychrome and extend for many meters along the chamber walls. Elaborate red spirals indicate wind, breath and aroma and can be seen exhaling from the mouths of serpents and other beings, and at the edge of bird wings to denote movement. The maize god appears no less than seven times in the currently exposed portion of the mural, giving us an unprecedented understanding of his attributes and mythology at this early date.”

Although painted almost 1,500 years after the San Bartolo murals, a Maya book known as the Dresden Codex features a very similar sequence of directional trees and sacrifices, according to the researchers.

Because the surviving symbols within the mural room date to centuries before most other Maya texts, from what is known as the Classic period, they remain hard to read. David Stuart of the University of Texas at Austin, who is working on deciphering them, said they are probably captions for the figures they accompany. One legible example from the west wall, he said, shows one of the sacrificing young gods named by his accompanying caption as “star man.” 

“It’s enigmatic, but emphasizes his cosmological role within the larger creation myth represented,” Stuart said.

About a mile from the mural room, archaeologists said they excavated beneath a small pyramid and found a vaulted tomb, likely the burial place of one of the early Maya kings. The tomb contained a burial complex, they added, housing ceremonial objects and vessels.

During the past year, archaeologists working nearby the mural room have found remains of two other rooms, one that faced the mural room and one on top of the pyramid, as well as thousands of mural fragments, more than 9,000 from a small excavation near the top room alone. In these fragments, the painting is finer and the figures smaller and more intricate, archaeologists said. Saturno and his team say they hope to be able to piece the fragments together to get a sense of what these murals show.

WORLD SCIENCE

WORLD SCIENCE