Oldest Known Pyramid Tomb in Central America Continues to Fascinate

[Judi Lynn]

Oldest Known Pyramid Tomb in Central America Continues to Fascinate
Mon, Jun 13, 2011

A 2,700-year-old pyramid tomb excavated in the western Chiapas state of Mexico, and the monumental center in which it was discovered, is shedding new light on the possible origins or connections it may have to a well-known ancient Olmec capital to its east on the Mexican Gulf Coast. The discovery presents a tantalizing new piece in the emerging picture of state formation in southern Mexico and of a people and civilization that may have had trade and cultural affiliations with La Venta and possibly other Olmec centers from 1,000 to 400 B.C.

Known as Chiapa de Corzo, the site was excavated in 2010 by archaeologist Bruce Bachand of Brigham Young University's New World Archaeological Foundation, along with Emiliano Gallaga of Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History and Lynneth Lowe of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. The tomb contained two regally adorned individuals, one an adult male and the other an adult female. Given the nature of the burial and finds, they had clearly uncovered a royal tomb, a tomb that predated by 600 years any other such tomb found in Mesoamerica, including that of the familiar ancient Maya sites at Tikal and Kaminaljuyu.

"The main occupants were likely a conjugal pair that governed Chiapa de Corzo and the surounding countryside," says Bachand. "The tomb exhibits Olmec rather than Maya affinities. Jade beads fashioned into duck heads, clamshells, pumpkin-shaped gourds, and bamboo shoots are similar to artifacts excavated seventy years ago at the mammoth Gulf Olmec site of La Venta. Green and gray obsidian disks - eye pieces for wooden or textile masks now long decayed - are also similar to pairs of disks found in a tomb and offering at La Venta".

Similarities notwithstanding, the site also exhibited characteristics unique to its particular culture. Says Bachand, "when objects like these are discovered it is easy to overlook or downplay what is unique or distinct about the context. The absence of large jade earspools on the heads of the deceased (a signature Olmec trait), and the placement of clamshells over their mouths (a practice that continued for centuries in Chiapas), appear to be expressions of local identity and belief. Strontium isotope ratios obtained from human bone will hopefully tell us which region these individuals resided in as youths, providing yet another angle on the many-sided matter of their social identities."

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