Posted on 06/10/2005 6:27:20 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Murder victims suggest female strength in ancient culture.
Archaeologists have entered a long-sealed crypt in Guatemala to find an ancient murder scene. The tomb, in the ancient city of Waká, contains the remains of two women, one pregnant, arranged in a ritual tableau.
Researchers say the young, wealthy women were probably slaughtered as part of a power struggle between Mayan cities. And that, they say, sheds new light on the role of women in the Mayan culture 1,600 years ago.
"This tomb tells us that women were extremely powerful," says Dorie Reents-Budet, a Maya specialist who works for the Smithsonian Institution from North Carolina. "When there were political disagreements, women were killed."
Waká, also known as El Perú, lies by the San Pedro River about 60 kilometres west of the more famous site of Tikal. Once thought to be a minor player in the Maya world, Waká has recently emerged as a key pawn in the bitter rivalry between the cities of Calakmul, to the north, and Tikal.
Women probably played an important role in those battles, says David Freidel, an archaeologist at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, who co-directs the excavations at Waká. When one Maya group conquered another, it may not have been enough to simply invade and take over. It may also have been standard practice to slay women of the elite class.
"The usurpation of power may have required the ritual and public extinction of the immediate family line," says Freidel, who runs the Waká project with archaeologist Héctor Escobedo of the University of San Carlos in Guatemala City.
Excavations at other Maya tombs had hinted at the bloodiness of such takeovers, but the findings at Waká are some of the best documented and most detailed yet.
Death of warriors
Waká reached its height between AD 400 and 800; the newfound tomb dates to the beginning of that reign, between about AD 350 and 400. It is at least two centuries older than a queen's tomb found at Waká last year.
Graduate student Michelle Rich uncovered the tomb in late April as she excavated one of three pyramids atop Waká's highest hill. Guatemala's minister of culture announced the discovery last week.
Inside the tomb, both women had been carefully arranged. The pregnant one was laid face down with the other woman on top, face up. Both had shells and ear decorations arranged by their skulls. Stingray spines had been placed near their groins, a possible sign that they were regarded on the same level as warriors, says Freidel. Their deaths would have made a powerful political statement, he says.
The tomb also contained a handful of elaborately painted ceramic vessels. "This is the good stuff," says Reents-Budet, comparing the pots to the Mayan equivalent of delftware.
The artefacts and bones have been moved to the project's laboratory in Guatemala City, where they can be studied further.
Yes, the Aztecs considered themselves superior to other tribes. Is race a necessary condition for mass murder?
The communists in the old Soviet Union killed millions mostly of the same race as them. That is millions more than the National Socialists in Germany killed. Does that mean the fascists commmitted a greater crime than the communists? Than seems to be the reasoning among left-wingers. Some forms of mass murder seem to be acceptable to them, or at least should be ignored and not talked about.
Generally speaking, in a killing, you have a killer and a killee. I would argue that the killee is not the one in power.
I'm embarassed for the author of this article. Her reaching to find power for women in anything is pathetic.
Hysteric.] (Med.) A nervous affection, occurring almost exclusively in women, in which the emotional and reflex excitability is exaggerated, and the will power correspondingly diminished, so that the patient loses control over the emotions, becomes the victim of imaginary sensations, and often falls into paroxism or fits. [1913 Webster]Note:
The chief symptoms are convulsive, tossing movements of the limbs and head, uncontrollable crying and laughing, and a choking sensation as if a ball were lodged in the throat. The affection presents the most varied symptoms, often simulating those of the gravest diseases, but generally curable by mental treatment alone. Hysteric
No comment by the researchers on the brutal slaying of 2 women, 1 of them pregnant no less.
Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on, off, or alter the "Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list --
Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
The GGG Digest -- Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)
"I woulda thought that the killers were the more powerful..."
Not when it is likely a indoctrinated feminist graduate student "interpreting" the scene. Frankly, I doubt they have the slightest clue to what was going on. They think they know something, of course, but I'll wager they know even less correct information about past events than most academics know about today's events.
i wonder what some future archaeologist will make of our mess?
a drive by shooting in l.a.?
some guy getting a life sentence for helping his girlfriend abort, but she gets off.
Thank you for your commentary. It's nice to read someone with an educated mind posting something factual and, even better, intelligent once in a while. Wish it were more common.
This might wreck your day, but women control all the _______ssy and all the money.
Whatever.
The point is that a ritual murder is an indication that the victims were considered powerful enough to kill in a special way, which is very interesting, regardless of the sex of the victims, but especially intriguing, given the particulars.
If you don't think so, and all you can do is mouth cliches, well, that's all you can do. God didn't give everybody a first class brain.
I shouldn't have said that. You're just playing around, and I shouldn't have been nasty. Sorry.
5,000 Years Ago, Women Held Power In Burnt City, Iran
Iranian WS | 12-23-2004
Posted on 12/24/2004 11:47:31 AM PST by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1308060/posts
Ancient Earrings Discovered At Burnt City Disprove Ornament Theory
Tehran Times | 3-9-2005
Posted on 03/09/2005 5:46:51 PM PST by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1359628/posts
Human Sacrifice Was Common In Burnt City (Iran)
Payvand | 12-27-2004
Posted on 12/28/2004 3:15:07 PM PST by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1309803/posts
Like you I find the conclusions drawn by these authorities a little counter to common sense. I can't see how these women could be considered powerful. It sounds to me like all they really got was a nice funeral. The women themselves could have been considered prize property and their deaths more had a more symbolic effect than as an expression of these women's power alone. The artifacts that point to them as having warrior status could also mean they were killed an prisoners of war and were honored for that fact.
"she said that this was okay because they were of the same race and therefore not racist...What a wasted education of time and money and a mind."
You sure there was a mind there to waste?
"The point is that a ritual murder is an indication that the victims were considered powerful enough to kill in a special way"
Do we know that? How do we know that the people who buried them were the same people that killed them?
Good point.This was all barbaric bs and people can interpret it any way.Sure kill off the blood lines of those who built and held knowledge but less of warfare.Many these party girls of now would have been apalled at the lack of grooming yet appreciate the multiple attention.Then,Zing!
This is the first thing that leapt to my mind:
ROSS
Your castle is surprised; your wife and babes
Savagely slaughter'd: to relate the manner,
Were, on the quarry of these murder'd deer,
To add the death of you.
MALCOLM
Merciful heaven!
What, man! ne'er pull your hat upon your brows;
Give sorrow words: the grief that does not speak
Whispers the o'er-fraught heart and bids it break.
MACDUFF
My children too?
ROSS
Wife, children, servants, all
That could be found.
MACDUFF
And I must be from thence!
My wife kill'd too?
ROSS
I have said.
MALCOLM
Be comforted:
Let's make us medicines of our great revenge,
To cure this deadly grief.
MACDUFF
He has no children. All my pretty ones?
Did you say all? O hell-kite! All?
What, all my pretty chickens and their dam
At one fell swoop?
MALCOLM
Dispute it like a man.
MACDUFF
I shall do so;
But I must also feel it as a man:
I cannot but remember such things were,
That were most precious to me. Did heaven look on,
And would not take their part? Sinful Macduff,
They were all struck for thee! naught that I am,
Not for their own demerits, but for mine,
Fell slaughter on their souls. Heaven rest them now!
MALCOLM
Be this the whetstone of your sword: let grief
Convert to anger; blunt not the heart, enrage it.
MACDUFF
O, I could play the woman with mine eyes
And braggart with my tongue! But, gentle heavens,
Cut short all intermission; front to front
Bring thou this fiend of Scotland and myself;
Within my sword's length set him; if he 'scape,
Heaven forgive him too!
MALCOLM
This tune goes manly.
Come, go we to the king; our power is ready;
Our lack is nothing but our leave; Macbeth
Is ripe for shaking, and the powers above
Put on their instruments. Receive what cheer you may:
The night is long that never finds the day.
Or perhaps that already happened in their way,their time.
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