It would be an understatement to say that archaeologist Geoffrey Braswell of the University of California, San Diego was surprised to find a huge jade amulet of a Mayan chieftain at the site of the Nim-Lee-Punit historic site. According to him, he was shocked and delighted by the find (there were other artifacts with the talisman), which, as it turned out, has an amazing history.
Let us explain that the archaeological site of the Mayan civilization Nim-Li-Punit (which means "big hat" and refers us to the headdress depicted on one of the steles) is located in the small state of Belize (Central America). As noted by Braswell, most of the preserved valuable artifacts were found in places where large Mayan cities were located. But the place of the new find - decently remote from the center of the ancient state - certainly does not belong to them.
The dimensions of the mascot, which, by the way, is made of solid stone, are impressive: 19 centimeters long and 10.5 centimeters wide with a thickness of about 8 millimeters. This is the second largest known Mayan jade (a stone sacred to this civilization), archaeologists clarify, drawing attention to how difficult it is to create such a delicate talisman from a stone without modern tools and equipment.
It is also noteworthy that this is the only talisman known today with a real historical text of that time. On the back of the stone, there are 30 hieroglyphs carved about its first owner. “He is literally speaking to us. The story he tells is short but important,”Braswell says about the amulet.
On the front side of the artifact there is a peculiar letter T (which corresponds to the hieroglyph "IK" - "wind and breath"). Together with the T-shaped shape of the stone itself, its belonging leaves no doubt: the leader wore a talisman to appease the Windmaker Huracan. His name means "one-legged" (hence the connection with the hieroglyph, similar to the letter T). The grace of this god, according to Mayan beliefs, brought monsoon rains. These, in turn, contributed to the growth of crops, so the wind for the Mayan civilization was of vital importance.
It is known that the Mayan leaders "to improve the weather" performed rituals in accordance with their sacred calendar. They burned and scattered incense to summon the wind and with it life-giving rains. It was during such a ritual that the found amulet was first used - according to the inscriptions, it happened in 672 AD.
Together with the amulet, archaeologists found 25 pottery vessels, as well as several human teeth. All this was found during the excavations of the palace, built, according to experts, around 400 AD. The burials themselves date back to 800 AD.
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In the palace, the researchers found a tomb. Artifacts were kept in it all these years. Next to the jade amulet (which rested in a specially made T-shaped platform) was also a pot in the form of a scaly face with a large beak. Presumably, this is how the Maya imagined the god of the wind.
It remains a mystery why the sacred amulet, which was considered magical and bringing power, was not buried with its owner. One of Braswell's guesses: the tomb was a kind of dedication to the god of the wind, because at that time the state was already on the verge of crisis due to a sharp drop in population. Climate change brought about a drought that led to the collapse of agriculture and the collapse of ancient civilization. In such conditions, any offerings to the god of the wind were logical - the only one who could correct the situation, scientists explain.
But the most intriguing feature of the find remains, perhaps, those 30 hieroglyphs that are still deciphered by experts on pre-Columbian civilizations.
The preliminary history of the stone looks like this. The amulet was created for the chieftain Janaab 'Ohl K'inich, whose mother was from a place called Cahal Pech - today it is a remote territory of western Belize. The leader's father died before he was 20 years old, and came from the region where Guatemala is today.
In addition, the text on the talisman describes the rite of accession (647 AD) and connects the leader with the powerful and huge city of Caracol. This, according to Braswell, echoes of political history, but the text does not explain how the leader was connected with the place of Nim-Li-Punit, where the amulet was found. Kahal Pech is almost a hundred kilometers away, and the journey from there to Nim Li Punit through the mountains and rainforest would have taken several days.
According to one version, the talisman was stolen and taken to the province, but Braswell does not think so. In his opinion, a more plausible hypothesis is that the ruling clan arrived in Nim-Li-Punit to found a new dynasty in these places. It is curious that only after the jade amulet was in this region together with the leader, images of the "royal family" and hieroglyphs associated with it began to appear on steles and stone slabs.
Perhaps Janaab Ohi Kinich decided to move to Nim-Li-Punit, or maybe his arrival was supposed to strengthen the power in the province and unite the peoples. In any case, the jade inscription indicates connections that were previously unknown to scientists, Braswell concludes.
We add that the jade amulet and other artifacts were found by American archaeologists in 2015, and it took a lot of time to study the finds. As a result, the authors submitted a scientific article in the journal Ancient Mesoamerica. The finds are now housed in the Central Bank of Belize, along with other national treasures.
Yulia Vorobyova
