PROLONGED DROUGHT CAUSED THE COLLAPSE OF THE ANCIENT MAYA EXPERTS SAY

Chichen Itza

Raging wild fires, one hundred year floods, and thousand year droughts. No, I'm not talking about the Maya—not yet—but about current weather patterns that are becoming all too common. A view into the past may well help prepare us for our environmental future.

In the past month I've read three new articles on studies that link the collapse of the ancient Maya to drought—from Nature Communications, Phys-Org, and Nature World News. To be sure, this is not new news. Archeologists across the globe have long debated the reason behind the Maya collapse and have come up with numerous theories. Radical environment change rises to the top of the list, always accompanied by extenuating circumstances linked to lack of water and how societies cope in times of food scarcity because of this. 

The Maya's rise to greatness was compromised by the most severe drought of the past seven thousand years. It devastated the Yucatán Peninsula and grand Classic Era Maya cities collapsed in four phases of abandonment—spaced about 50 years apart—around 760, 810, 860, and 910 A.D.  

NOT LONERS

The ancient Maya were not alone in civilization collapse due to radical environmental changes, but because that collapse occurred within the past thousand years, we may relate to it more. Before the collapse of the ancient Maya, countless great civilizations fell: the Minoan Greeks, the Hittites, Sumerians, Assyrians, Babylon, and ancient Rome for starters. The list goes on and on.

Minoan Greek Art

Early on, in 1946, the noted archeologist and Maya scholar Tatiana Proskouriakoff commented on a climate disaster that could have imperiled the Maya. She put it like this, "Though it is conceivable that the disappearance of the population may have been a gradual process, the catastrophically sudden extinction of the arts can be explained only in the terms of some widespread and unforeseen disaster that afflicted most Maya cities soon after a.d. 800."

The last known inscription on a carved Maya stella was listed as 910 A.D. in the Peten. In prosperous times, stella recorded major events detailing triumphs of kings and defeats of enemies. From 900 A.D. on there was either nothing to report or no backing for it. The kings could not maintain prosperity and when rain didn't come and crop harvests were not large enough to feed the population, disillusionment set in.

Recent testing of skeletal remains at various Maya sites shows evidence of disease and malnutrition right across the board—in nobles and peasants. Slash and burn agriculture caused land exhaustion and deprived the ground of nutrients. As the population grew, the peasants increased intensive farming techniques in an attempt to feed the masses. Their production system became over-burdened. Not enough food to go around.

LACK OF RAIN

And influential Maya archeologist, scholar, and author Michael D. Coe, in The Maya, Eighth Edition, Places and People, his last in the series, The Maya, writes researchers discovered a major drought that corresponded to the lapse between the early and late classic periods—a time in which no new stella (large limestone slabs placed in front of pyramid temples) were erected and in which earlier stella had been defaced. Defacing stella can be compared to spray painting graffiti on buildings today, showing a lack of respect for authority, I wrote in Maya 2012 Revealed: Demystifying the Prophecy.

Maya Carving at Palenque

In accordance with the environmental dilemma, I read an article on Mayapan, a prominent Post-Classic Maya city in the northwest Yucatán Peninsula, by Marilyn Masson. Posted in "Nature Communications," Masson, Principal Investigator for the Proyecto Economic de Mayapan, wrote that prolonged drought likely fueled civil conflict and its eventual collapse. So great was the city that it was considered the ancient capital of the Maya on the Yucatán Peninsula in the 13th century.

MAYAPAN

Mayapan (By En-Yucatán)

A latecomer to the pantheon of great Maya cities, Mayapan emerged as a regional capital on the Peninsula from the 13th to 15th centuries, after the demise of Chichen Itza. With a population of 20,000, it collapsed and was abandoned after a rival political faction, the Xiu, massacred the powerful Cocom family that ruled Mayapan. Historical records date the collapse between 1441 and 1461. But there's new evidence, thanks to Masson, professor and chair at University of Albany's Department of Anthropology, who co-authored the study which was assisted by a team of researchers. They studied historical documents for records of violence and examined human remains from the area and time period, looking for signs of traumatic injury.

Masson and her team found shallow mass graves and evidence of brutal massacre at monuments and structures across the city. "Some were laid out with knives in their pelvis and rib cages, others were chopped up and burned," she said. "Not only did they smash and burn the bodies but they also smashed and burned the effigies of their gods. It's a form of double desecration, basically." 

ADVANCED RADIOCARBON DATING TECHNOLOGY

Professor Douglas Bennett, University of California/Santa Barbara anthropolgy department, lead study on Masson's team, had new information to add. He dated the skeletons using accelerator mass spectrometry, an advanced radiocarbon dating technology, and found they dated 50 to 100 years earlier than the city's supposed mid-15th century downfall. 

Archeologists at Work

Plenty of ethno-historical records exist to support the city's violent downfall around 1458, said Masson. But the new evidence, thanks to Bennett's advanced radiocarbon dating tech, puts the evidence of massacre 100 years earlier. Combined with climate data that the Peninsula experienced prolonged drought around that time, the team began to suspect environmental factors may have played a major role in the desertion of the site along with the violent chaos that preceded that desertion.

RAIN AND MAIZE CROPS

The Maya depended heavily on rain-fed maize but lacked any way to store grain longer than a year due to the humid jungle climate. The impacts of rainfall levels on food production are believed to be linked to human migration, population decline, warfare, and shifts in political power, the study states.

"It's not that droughts cause social conflict but they create the conditions whereby violence can occur," Masson said.

WARS ENSUE

Location of Mayapan (By ResearchGate)

The study suggests the Xiu, who launched the fatal attacks on the Cocom of Mayapan, used the droughts and ensuing famines to foment unrest and rebellion that led to the mass deaths and the migration from Mayapan as early as the 1300s.

Said Masson, "I think the lesson is that hardship can become politicized in the worst kind of way. It creates opportunities for ruthlessness and can cause people to turn on one another violently."

It's hard to not compare our present news cycles with these past events.

Following this period of drought and unrest however, Mayapan bounced back briefly thanks to healthy rainfall levels around 1400.  "It was able to bend pretty well and bounce back before the droughts returned in the 1420s, but it was too soon," Masson said. "They didn't have time to recover and the tensions were still there. The city's government just couldn't survive another bout like that. But it almost did."

According to Jared Diamond, author of Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, it's amazing how many cultures do collapse and one of history's disturbing facts is that collapse is caused by the destruction of the natural resources on which these cultures depend. The Anasazi, Easter Islanders, the kingdom of Angkor Wat in Cambodia...and the Maya. Declines of societies, he wrote, swiftly follow their peaks.

ON THE TAIL OF CHICHEN ITZA

Chichen Itza 

Mayapan rose to power in the footsteps of the decline of mighty Chichen Itza and after the great city-states of the south such as Tikal and Calakmul had gone into steep decline. During the late Postclassic Era (1250-1450 A.D.) Mayapan was the cultural and political center of the waning Maya civilization and had great influence upon smaller city states surrounding it. The sprawling complex spreads over four square kilometers and houses four thousand buildings. The ruins include temples, palaces and ceremonial centers, with architectural influence in the style of Chichen Itza. 

Tikal in Guatemala (ByLivescience.com)

Focusing on the present, as food insecurity, social unrest, and drought-driven migration in parts of the modern world continue to be of great concern, Masson said there are lessons to be learned in how other previous empires handled environmental hardships.

FAMINE OF ONE RABBIT

Pre-Spanish conquest, the Aztecs survived the infamous Famine of One Rabbit fueled by a catastrophic drought in 1454. The emperor emptied out the food storehouses from the capital to feed the people and when that ran out, he encouraged them to flee. Many sold themselves into slavery on the Gulf Coast where conditions were better but eventually bought their way out and returned to the capital, and the empire emerged stronger than ever. This strategy enacted by the Aztec imperial regime, said Masson, is likely what allowed for their recovery.

Her conclusion was that inspite of drought, civil conflict, institutional failure, and military conflict, a resilient network of small Maya states persisted that were encountered by Europeans in the early 16th century. (Just in time to be met, ironically, by the Spanish invasion).

HISTORY REPEATS?

In the face of present day climate change, these complexities and challenges faced by great Mexico and Central American civilizations are important as todays's world evaluates the potential success or failure of modern state institutions designed to maintain order and peace in the face of future climate change. Although Mayapan is a tale of only one city, correlations to present day world problems make the study of Mayapan extremely relevant now.

Climate change and its effects are real.

Maya 2012 Revealed: Demystifying the Prophecy

                                             by Jeanine Kitchel on Amazon

If you enjoyed this post, check out Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya, on Amazon. My website is www.jeaninekitchel.com. Books one and two in my Mexico cartel trilogy, Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival, and Tulum Takedown, are also on Amazon. And my journalistic overview of the Maya 2012 calendar phenomenon, Maya 2012 Revealed: Demystifying the Prophecy, is on Amazon.

ANCIENT MAYA QUEEN LADY SIX SKY CONQUERS THE YUCATÁN PENINSULA

Stela found at Naranjo of Lady Six Sky (or K'awiil Ajaw)

PART 4 

Warrior queens were not uncommon in the waning days of the Late Classic Period of the Maya, roughly 600 to 900 AD, though their domains tended to be concentrated in southern Mexico and Guatemala.

              

Map showing Dos Pilas, Naranjo, Calakmul and Tikal by Todd Decker

LADY SIX SKY

The warrior queen Lady Six Sky, also known as Lady Ik Wak Chan Ajaw or K'awiil Ajaw, entered the world in the seventh century, 667 AD to be exact, in Dos Pilas in the Peten, Guatemala, but during the course of her life, traveled far from there. And what a winding road she took while serving as de facto ruler of the city Naranjo, once if not twice, as she waged war against numerous competitors.

Drawing of Lady Six Sky from Stela 24 by artist/scholar Linda Schele

Born into a centuries-old ruling dynasty of Dos Pilas, at a young age she was selected over her older brother to be sent to the failing capital of Naranjo. At that time, first born sons stayed in the kingdom while second sons would normally be dispatched to handle tricky political or military business, so this situation was unique. Instead, the king used her as a political pawn as part of an arranged marriage between the Maya cities of Dos Pilas, where she was from, and Naranjo, to bring it into the Calakmul-Dos Pilas alliance and to help regenerate its obliterated dynasty.

Rendering of Dos Pilas from Alcheron, the Free Encyclopedia

Her father authorized the young princess to clean up the city which was in a shambles as indicated by hieroglyphics and stela dated at that period. (Stela are large limestone slabs placed in front of pyramids to commemorate births, deaths, victories). Stelas Number 24 and 29 from Naranjo depict Lady Six Sky trampling captives in a manner well-known to warrior kings, evidence that she'd taken her father's marching orders seriously.

A child of Lady B'ulu' and Calakmul ruler B'alaj Chan K'awill, her courageous deeds helped assure that her dynasty retained power. Though she was always loyal to her home, she became known as one of Naranjo's rulers during the Late Classic Period. Monuments note she was also a spiritual leader. Even though she performed many rituals she was never given the title Holy Lady Six Sky. She was also a day keeper of the Maya calendar, counting moon phases and one such ceremony commemorating the Long Count calendar was memorialized on Stela 29 at Naranjo. In it, the caption indicates she is impersonating a goddess, and is dressed in spiritually charged regalia. In the portrait she underscored both her strategic prowess and divine right to rule.

Stela 29 text, drawing Linda Schele

Archeologist Kathryn Reese-Taylor (University of Calgary) found the epigraph or inscription from the work of renowned Maya scholar Linda Schele which revealed that at the height of the rainy season in 683, a Maya princess from Dos Pilas (now in what is west Central Guatemala) arrived in shattered Naranjo, just west of the Belize-Guatemalan border.

Enemy kings had long fought over the region's lucrative river trade, which had prompted her father to dispatch his daughter to marry the king, indicating a declaration of peace. When the ruler died shortly after they married, he left Lady Six Sky in charge.

She didn't blink, stepping deftly into the role of leader. Over five years, she launched eight military campaigns, torching the cities of her enemies.

Her successful battlefield record helped archeologist Reese-Taylor understand the trajectory of women warriors through Maya history. And as evidenced by Parts 1-3 of Maya Musings' warrior queen posts, Lady Six Sky wasn't the only Maya princess who scooped up the reigns of power.

Rendering of Maya Warrior Queen from Discover magazine

Beginning in 2004, another Maya archeologist and author of Ancient Maya Women, Traci Ardren (University of Miami), also sifted through evidence from royal tombs and inscriptions searching for traces of female rulers. Two dozen tombs of women queens have been discovered so far.

Ardren has "brought together studies from throughout the ancient Maya world to show that women were not sidebars in Maya society but significant actors in their own right," stated Reese-Taylor in a Discover magazine article detailing her recent Maya excavations.

Reese-Taylor is now building on Ardren's work and continues to search for clues about powerful queens who were also fierce warriors. (Women Warriors, Part 1, October 1).

 

Sacred White Road near Cobá, from News.Miami.edu

In her quest to conquer more Maya cities to better her clan, Lady Six Sky may have been affiliated with the Maya sac-be, a 62-mile sacred white road, that stretched from Cobá to Yaxuná, two cities in southern Mexico she sparred with during her conquering phase, according to Journal of Archeological Science.

"There's still no concrete evidence pointing to who built the elevated 26-foot wide road or how long it took to construct it," archeologist Travis Stanton (University of Riverside) told Live Science.

                                                                                                                                                                    

LiDAR scan of Sacred White Road, by Traci Ardren

But some scholars believe, as does Ardren, Lady Six Sky may have either constructed the road or used it—already built—for moving troops from Cobá to Yaxuná as she continued her warring phase. In 2021, an archeological team plans to complete a dig at the site of a settlement identified by new LiDAR (light detection and ranging technology) imaging scans. Scholars believe the white road that derived its name from sascab, a Maya limestone plaster, would have been visible even at night. The mixture for the road would eventually prove to be a recipe similar to that of Roman concrete.

Whatever the material, this road connected thousands of people and hundreds of villages across what was once harsh, jungly terrain. Whoever controlled it took ownership of the central Yucatán Peninsula.

Previous researchers found evidence that a queen of Cobá set out on

numerous wars of territorial expansion. If it was Lady Six Sky, whose 

Badly eroded stela at Cobá, photo Richard Crim 

image appears on a monument at Cobá, and she was said queen, she held that power. If eventually the stela is verified as Lady Six Sky, this sign of dominance and respect will secure her place as a ruler of great renown in the Maya world.

Lady Six Sky was first recognized in the 1960s by the famous Russian archeologist, Tatiana Proskouriakoff, pioneer of Maya inscriptions, who dubbed her Lady of Tikal. At the time, however, three Maya cities used the same emblem glyph, so it's not a sure sign she actually had affiliations with Tikal. And first and foremost, Lady Six Sky's loyalty was to Dos Pilas, where her death was recorded in 741 AD.

There are so many Maya mysteries yet to be uncovered, but thanks to ongoing excavations, one recurrent theme is dominant: Women, too, ruled the Maya world.

If you enjoyed this post, check out my memoir Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya. It's available on Amazon with tales of expat life and living within 100 miles of four major pyramid sites. Also, check out my website at www.jeaninekitchel.com. Books one and two in my Mexico cartel trilogy, Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival, and Tulum Takedown, are available on Amazon where my overview of the 2012 Maya calendar phenomenon, Maya 2012 Revealed—Demystifying the Prophecy, can also be found. 

MAYA QUEEN'S DISCOVERY UNEARTHS GAME OF THRONES' STYLE PALACE INTRIGUE

 

Glyph of Lady Ikoom from Stela at El Perú-Waka

PART 3

Did palace intrigue exist a thousand years ago in the kingdoms of Maya kings and queens? Apparently so. As in the adage, "Revenge is a dish best served cold," some vindications were even cross-generational. A Calakmul king in Yucatán's southern lowlands retrieved an important stela (large limestone slab placed in front of pyramid sites) that had been discarded for nearly a hundred years. It was to be included in a burial chamber for his beloved queen and wife, Lady K'abel, and re-established the family connection of his wife and another famous woman ruler, Lady Ikoom, also from powerful Calakmul, famously known as the Snake kingdom, but generations earlier.

The discovery of Stela 44 at the Guatemalan El Perú-Waka' archeological site in 2013 unleashed a discussion about the ruling Maya kingdoms of Tikal, Calakmul, and El Perú-Waka' from the seventh century. Prior to the discovery of this large limestone slab, very little was known about the titans of these ruling factions at that time.

Maya World Map by Keith Eppich

INTRODUCING LADY IKOOM

Lady Ikoom, also known as White Spirit, was predecessor to one of the greatest queens of Maya civilization, seventh century Holy Snake Lord Lady K'abel, who was also the Kaloomté, or military commander, of El Perú-Waka'. (See Lady K'abel Supreme War Lord post, October 15, https://jeaninekitchel.blogspot.com).

Archeologists wager around 700 AD, Stela 44 was brought to the main city temple by command of Lady K'abel's husband, King K'inich Bahlam II, to be buried as an offering in the funeral rituals for his queen.

The right side of Stela 44 (Francisco Casteñada)

POLICITCAL PAWNS

Princesses first, both Lady Ikoom and Lady K'abel were used as political pawns in marriages to powerful rulers of the Snake Dynasty of Calakmul. Though Lady K'abel's name has been bandied about for fifteen years, until discovery of Stela 44, Lady Ikoom was unknown, as was her husband, Waka' King Chak Took Ich'aak.

Dr. David Freidel in El Perú-Waka' (Sci-News.com)

According to Dr. David Freidel, professor of anthropology in Arts and Sciences at Washington University, St. Louis, co-director at the El Perú-Waka' site in Guatemala with Lic. Juan Carlos Pérez, the discovery of this stela offers a wealth of new information about a "dark period" in Maya history sometimes known as The Hiatus. Stela 44 introduced the names of two previously unknown Maya rulers and the political issues that shaped their legacies.

NEW CHAPTER FOR EL PERÚ-WAKA'

Freidel's epigrapher, Stanley Guenter, who deciphered the hieroglyphic text, believes Stela 44 was originally dedicated roughly 1450 years ago, around 564 AD, by the Waka' dynasty king, Wa'oom Uch'ab Tzi-kin, or He Who Stands Up the Offering of the Eagle.

Scholars believe the stela was left out in the elements when political ideologies shifted and Ikoom and her husband's clan fell out of favor. But it's likely, said Freidel, that the king prized this stela because as scion of the Snake Dynasty, Lady Ikoom would have had a familial connection both to him and his wife. Fragments of another stela, Stela 43, found in the temple walls in 2013, also mention Lady Ikoom. In this stela, Ikoom is given pride of place on the front of that monument celebrating an event in 574 AD.

WAR AND POLITICAL INTRIGUE

The stela tells a riveting story of war and political intrigue. The front shows a king cradling a sacred bundle in his arms. Two other stela at this site share this same pose and were probably raised by King Chak Took Ich'aak, whose name was used earlier by two Tikal kings. It's likely that this king of Waka' was named after them and that his dynasty was as a Tikal vassal at the time he came to the throne, said Freidel.

Tikal, Guatemala (Shutterstock)

WHITE SPIRIT

The text describes the accession of Chak Took Ich'aak's son which was witnessed by Lady Ikoom, who was most likely his mother. Her title, White Spirit, suggests she was a holy person and was linked to the powerful Snake Kingdom monarchy of El Perú-Waka', a vassal state of Calakmul, making it likely that Lady Ikoom was a Snake princess, according to Freidel's epigrapher Guenter. 

Stanley Guenter cleans Maya glyphs at a Maya site

The inscription reveals the death of Chak Took Ich'aak's father, which ushered in a period of political turmoil as different groups grasped for supremacy. Chak Took Ich'aak's son ultimately took the throne.

Years later, by the king retrieving Stela 44 and bringing it to his wife's burial site, this action put things back in order to re-establish the leadership and imperial dynasty of his clan.

CHANGING ALLIANCES

Scholars, including Freidel, assume, "At some time in his reign, King Chak Took Ich'aak changed sides and became a Snake dynasty vassal."

But when he died and his son became heir to the throne, he did so under a foreign king, which Freidel's epigrapher, Guenter, argued— after deciphering the hieroglyphics—was the king of Tikal, not Waka. In other words, King Chak Took Ich'aak's son came under the power of Tikal. Somehow Queen Ikoom survived this existential change of political favor.

The Maya political landscape underwent a huge turnabout beginning 556 AD with the Snake Dynasty on the rise and Tikal in decline. "A dramatic tide shift occurred," continues Freidel, "when that same Tikal king, Wak Chan K'awii, was defeated and sacrificed by the Snake King in 562 AD."

Calakmul, home to Snake Dynasty

Two years after that major reversal, the new king and his mother raised Stela 44 at the pyramid site, giving the story outlined here. Game of Thrones indeed. Only difference, this one happened in the land of the Maya, not Westeros of George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones' fame.

Stay tuned for Part 4 of Maya Warrior Queens. If you enjoyed this blog, check out my memoir Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya. It's available on Amazon with tales about ex-pat life and living within 100 miles of four major pyramid sites. Subscribe to my bi-monthly blog posts above, or check out my website at www.jeaninekitchel.com. Books one and two in my Mexico cartel trilogy, Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival,  and Tulum Takedown are available also on Amazon.

MAYA WOMEN OF POWER — HOLY SNAKE LORD LADY K'ABEL, SUPREME WARLORD, PART 2

 

Rendition of Stela 44 Honoring Lady K'abel at Her Burial Site

Until fifteen years ago, Maya warrior queens were not the stuff of conversation much less legend in archeological circles. The idea was too far-fetched. The Maya hieroglyphic code had only been broken a few decades earlier in the 1970s at the famous Palenque Round Table talks in southern Mexico. Dozens of the world's finest archeologists and scholars gathered at the great site to put their heads together and try to break the problematic code. Besides that, hundreds of Maya sites had yet to be excavated. And no one had a clue as to how many sites were still undiscovered.

But in 2004, everything changed. Archelogist Kathryn Reese-Taylor, University of Calgary, headed a dig at a relatively unknown site, Naachtun. Sitting between powerful Tikal and Calakmul in the Yucatán lowlands of southern Mexico and northern Guatemala, Reese-Taylor and her team spent three months excavating the area. Their search proved fruitful and uncovered Lady Yohl Ik'nal, the Maya's first recorded female ruler, in 623 AD. (See Maya Warrior Queens Part 1, October 1 blog).

Maya queens rose to power after a seismic geo-political shift occurred in the mid seventh century. Power was moving into the area of the central lowlands and its vast forests in the middle of the Yucatán Peninsula.

Stela 34, Lady K'abel found in El Perú-Waka' 

ENTER LADY K'ABEL

In 2012 archeologists discovered the royal tomb of Lady K'abel, queen of the abandoned city El Perú-Waka', located in northern Guatemala between powerhouses Calakmul and Tikal. Known as the Centipede Kingdom, it played second fiddle to Calakmul, Snake Kingdom, that sat to the northeast. In a political power play, Lady K'abel, daughter of the ruler of Calakmul, was married to Tikal's ruler Kinich Balam II to serve as governor of El Perú-Waka' on her father's behalf. Archeologist Olivia Farr-Navarro (College of Wooster), a leader on the team, said they excavated the royal burial site located beneath a stairway platform located at the foot of the main Maya pyramid temple on site.

Archeologist Olivia Farr-Navarro at El Perú-Waka'site during excavation

STELA SHEDS LIGHT ON LADY K'ABEL

Until this discovery, scholars had known Lady K'abel as the Kaloomte', a Maya high king or queen who is military leader, the highest power in the kingdom. But Lady K'abel was hardly anonymous to those who studied the Maya. She had previously been identified by a stela (large limestone slab placed in front of a pyramid with hieroglyphic writing) that is on display at the Cleveland Art Museum, known as Stela 34 of El Perú. In it she is shown as a queen in warrior dress.

Investigation of this platform started before 2006 when Farr-Navrro studied under archeologist and author David Freidel, Washington University in St. Louis, and co-director of the site with Guatemala's Juan Carlos Pérez. El Perú-Waka' was being excavated by Freidel's team and planned to not simply uncover tombs but to focus on studying "ritually-charged" features such as shrines, altars, and dedicatory offerings.

CENTER OF RITUALS AND SACRIFICES

The city had long been a center of ritualistic activity and sacrifice, and signs implied it retained that significant presence long into the post-collapse era of the Maya after 900 AD when kings no longer ruled.

"The platform is the central focus point of the plaza in front of the largest temple at the site," said Farr-Navarro about El Perú-Waka'.  It was in a position of power.

Carved conch with woman's face emerging

As they dug at the foot of the staircase, long overshadowed by the platform, they found the entombed bones of a woman, surrounded by jade, fine pottery, and other signs of royalty. Most remarkable was a small alabaster jar carved to resemble a conch with a woman's face emerging from the shell as a stopper. The hieroglyphs for Lady K'abel's name were on the bottom.

WHITE SOUL FLOWER JAR DISCOVERED

The vessel, says Farr-Navarro, was most likely the "white soul flower" jar of Lady K'abel. Painted with red cinnabar, in ancient Maya mythology the flower jar essentially contained the soul of Lady K'abel. Though items can be moved around as a sign of veneration in burials, the white soul flower jar is an inalienable item that "could not be removed from her person," Farr-Navarro claims.

Clocking in to agree with Farr-Navarro's premise is archeologist Traci Ardren, from University of Miami, FL, and author of Ancient Maya Women. Though not part of the excavation, Ardren stated, "I'm completely convinced this was her tomb. The alabaster jar is really strong evidence."

The tomb site had been under study for almost a decade. Freidel and colleagues found artifacts suggesting a high-ranking female personage had been buried there, and Lady K'abel was the number one candidate. But it took the alabaster jar, small enough to fit in a queen's hand, to clinch the case. Carved to look like a shell, with head and arm of an aged woman emerging from the opening, four Maya hieroglyphs carved into the jar referred to the owner: Lady Snake Lord and Lady Waterlily Hand, two titles associated with Lady K'abel. Other artifacts found in the tomb suggest the person buried there was held in great reverence—red cinnabar pigment was used by the Maya in royal burial chambers and again, the white soul flower vessel, thought to hold one's soul, is specified in several Maya religious texts.

THE MAYA REVERED POWERFUL WOMEN

This find underscored the powerful role women played in the Maya world. At least eight women attained the Kaloomte' title held by Lady K'abel, Ardren said. Queens ruled at various times across the Maya world with standardized symbols for their titles. Though they may have been uncommon, they were not rare. And veneration of a powerful woman's tomb centuries after her death would not be so unusual. 

Alabaster jar on site with inscriptions of Lady K'abel

"She was married off for the greater good of the alliance between two cities. She left everyone and everything she'd known to travel to another city at a time of warfare."

A plate found on the left side of Lady K'abel's skeleton resembles a shield that would befit a warrior queen, Farr-Navarro explained. "Although it wasn't likely she'd fought in the rain forest battles that marked her reign, she was certainly not a shrinking violet."

Professor Freidel summed up the prime positioning of Lady Ka'bel's tomb: "In retrospect, it makes sense that the people of Waka' buried her in this particularly prominent place in their city. Archeologists now understand the likely reason why the temple wa so revered: K'abel was buried there."

LADY K'ABEL CONSIDERED GREATEST RULER OF LATE CLASSIC PERIOD

"Lady K'abel was considered the greatest ruler of the Late Classic period, and ruled with her husband, King K'inich Bahlam II for at least 20 years, from 672-692 AD," said Freidel. "She was the military governor of the Waka' kingdom for her family, the imperial house of the Snake King, and she carried the title Kaloomte' which translated to Supreme Warrior, higher even in authority than her husband, the king.

Figurine at El Perú site thought to be Lady K'abel

"She was not only a queen, but a supreme warlord, the most powerful person in the kingdom during her lifetime. That would put her in the same class as other ruling women of the ancient world, ranging from the biblical Queen of Sheba to Cleopatra."

After Lady K'abel's reign, Tikal's ruler continued their war against Waka' and Calakmul. By the middle of the eighth century, Tikal bested their rivals in the Maya superpower struggle. But by the middle of the ninth century, the Classic Maya civilization was on the way to its mysterious collapse.

In spite of that, even long afterwards, the lady's tomb remained a place of ritual, reverence, and pilgrimage for the Maya, apparently serving as a monument to a take-charge woman warrior who had gained her people's love and respect.

Part 3 in Maya Warrior Queens will include two more women rulers. If you enjoyed this blog, check out my memoir Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya. It's available on Amazon with tales about ex-pat life and living within 100 miles of four major pyramid sites. Subscribe to my bi-monthly blog posts above, or check out my website at www.jeaninekitchel.com. Books one and two in my Mexico cartel trilogy, Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival,  and Tulum Takedown are available also on Amazon.