A magnificent stone panel just unearthed from a royal ball court in the late-Maya capital of Cancuen shows that the Pasion River kingdom was thriving even as other Maya capitals were disintegrating in the last stages of the ancient civilization.
The slab, which shows Cancuen’s King Taj Chan Ahk extending his power by installing a subordinate king in the nearby city of Machaquila, "is one of the greatest masterpieces of Maya art ever discovered in Guatemala," according to epigrapher Federico Fahsen. "The images of the rulers and the historical text are deeply and finely carved in high relief and miraculously preserved."
The discovery of the panel and a third altar from the ball court was announced Friday by Guatemala’s Minister of Culture, Manuel Salazar Tezahuic, himself a Kaqchikel Maya.
The discoveries by a team led by Vanderbilt University archeologist Arthur Demarest with support from the National Geographic Society are the latest in the excavation of the largest and most elaborate Maya royal palace yet discovered. Its kings ruled most of the Maya cities along the Pasion River in the Peten rainforest and scholars hope the excavations will reveal new information about what led to the collapse of the powerful civilization.
The palace has more than 200 masonry rooms and 11 interior plazas, according to Tomas Barrientos of the Universidad del Valle in Guatemala City. Its high walls were covered with elaborate larger-than-life stucco figures portraying deities and deified kings of the dynasty. Many of the sculptures have fallen off the walls and been covered by rubble, which protected them from further damage.
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