Two College of Houston archaeologists have made scientific historical past with the invention of a Mayan king’s tomb in Belize.
A UH crew led by husband and spouse scientists Arlen F. Chase and Diane Z. Chase made the invention at Caracol — the most important Mayan archeological website in Belize, located about 25 miles south of Xunantunich and the city of San Ignacio. Along with Belize’s Institute of Archeology, in addition to help from the Geraldine and Emory Ford Basis and the KHR Household Fund, they uncovered the tomb of Caracol’s founder, King Te Ok’ab Chaak. Their work used airborne mild detection and ranging know-how to uncover beforehand hidden roadways and constructions which have been reclaimed by the jungle.
The tomb was discovered on the base of a royal household shrine. The king, who ascended the throne in AD 331, lived to a sophisticated sufficient age that he now not had tooth. His tomb held a set of 11 pottery vessels, carved bone tubes, jadeite jewellery, a mosaic jadeite masks, Pacific spondylus shells, and varied different perishable objects. Pottery vessels discovered within the chamber depict a Maya ruler wielding a spear as he receives choices from supplicants represented as deities; the determine of Ek Chuah, the Maya god of merchants, surrounded by choices; and certain captives, a motif additionally seen in two associated burials. Moreover, two vessels had lids adorned with modeled handles formed like coatimundi (pisote) heads. The coatimundi, often called tz’uutz’ in Maya, was later adopted by subsequent rulers of Caracol as a part of their names.
In the course of the Classical Interval, Caracol was one of many predominant hubs of the Mayan Lowlands and a coated an space larger than that of present-day Belize Metropolis. Populations survived within the space for a minimum of a thousand years earlier than town was deserted someday round 900 CE. The royal dynasty established by Te Ok’ab Chaak continued at Caracol for over 460 years.
The discover can also be important as a result of this was roughly when the Mexican metropolis of Teotihuacan made contact with Caracol, resulting in a protracted relationship of commerce and cultural alternate. Cremation websites present in Caracol comprise objects that may have come from Teotihuacan, exhibiting the connection between the 2 distant cities.
“Each central Mexico and the Maya space have been clearly conscious of one another’s ritual practices, as mirrored within the Caracol cremation,” mentioned Arlen F. Chase, professor and chair of Comparative Cultural Research on the College of Houston. “The connections between the 2 areas have been undertaken by the very best ranges of society, suggesting that preliminary kings at varied Maya cities — comparable to Te Ok’ab Chaak at Caracol — have been engaged in formal diplomatic relationships with Teotihuacan.”
The Chases will current their findings at a convention on Maya–Teotihuacan interplay hosted by the Maya Working Group on the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico in August 2025.
