New Zapotec Pyramid Found With Vivid Murals, Stacked Tombs

[n2doc]

"No Humans Here"
Photograph courtesy Héctor Montaño, INAH

One of three stacked tombs newly discovered within a pyramid, this vividly painted chamber is unique among ancient Zapotec funerary architecture, Mexican archaeologists announced in late July.

Dating from about A.D. 650 to 850, the funerary complex was part of an elite neighborhood of the Zapotec, an agrarian culture that once thrived throughout what's now the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca (map).

"Painted motifs in funerary contexts are quite usual in this culture," excavation director Nelly Robles García said. "But at other sites they show important people: priests, warriors, and rulers—most likely the deceased."

No humans appear here. Instead, the designs seem to refer to the sacred ritual ball game played by many pre-Hispanic peoples in Mesoamerica. A bit like soccer combined with basketball, the game involved hitting a hard rubber ball around a court, and sometimes ended in sacrificial death for the losers.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/08/pictures/120809-pyramid-zapotec-murals-science-mexico-tombs/

[Broderick]

1. Beautiful stuff

for a burial vault or cemetery of sorts.

[BlueToTheBone]

2. Thanks n2doc. That was a wonderful excursion

into prehistory. I loved the pic of the child folded back into the womb of the earth.

What vivid colors in the tombs too.

[flamingdem]

3. I thought that the winners were the ones

sacrificed. At least this culture wasn't so perverse!

[av8rdave]

4. I had a Mayan guide when I visited the ruins at Chizen Itza

He said sacrifices didn't always occur. When they did, it could be the winners or the losers, depending on what the religious order determined was the significance of the game.

[a la izquierda]

7. You had a good guide..

A lot of times, they make shit up for the tourists

[Shankapotomus]

9. Is this a good guide?

I wonder how true all he is saying is....but it would be really cool if it was...

[av8rdave]

10. He was fascinating

Had several stories passed down through many, many generations of his family.

He spent a good part of the afternoon with us.

[Coyotl]

12. Don't believe anything that people today tell you about the past.

There just is no way they can imagine how far we have devolved

[starroute]

13. My understanding is that the outcomes of the games were taken as omens

Kind of like people believing that the Superbowl predicts what the stock market will do in the coming year or the outcome of the next president election -- except that they were a lot more serious about it.

[av8rdave]

14. That was pretty much what the guide told me

He did say that the "omens" had to be interpreted by the powers that be as to their meaning and significance, which is why which team was sacrificed (if there was to be one at all) varied.

[a la izquierda]

6. Perverse?

That's, ah, an interesting observation.
In some cases, being sacrificed was an honor.

[Scuba]

5. Sounds like my cousin. He wants to be buried in a green and gold coffin wearing a Packers jersey.

Apparently sport has been an opiate for the masses for a long time.

[a la izquierda]

8. Thanks for posting

The Zapotecs and their Mixtec neighbora often get rhe shorter end of the archaeological stick in favor of the more popular Aztecs and Mayas.

[RainDog]

11. k&r n/t