Ancient Maya burned their dead rulers to mark a new dynasty
In the foundations of a Maya temple, researchers found the charred bones of royal individuals – possibly evidence of a fiery ritual to mark the end of one dynasty and the beginning of another
By James Dinneen
18 April 2024
An ornament found with the burned remains of royal people at a Maya temple
Dr Christina T. Halperin
Around 1200 years ago in a Maya city, the bones of several royal people were burned and unceremoniously discarded within the foundations of a new temple. These recently discovered remains may have marked a fiery political transition at a time of upheaval in the Maya world.
“When we first started excavating, we had no idea what this was,” says Christina Halperin at the University of Montreal. She and her colleagues made the discovery in 2022 at the archaeological site of Ucanal, located in present-day Guatemala.
The researchers found the deposit mixed in with rocks beneath a pyramid temple structure. The deposit contained the bones of at least four people, along with thousands of ornamental fragments and beads. The bones of two individuals and many of the ornaments showed evidence of burning at high temperature.
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It was clear this wasn’t a normal set of remains, says Halperin. But it was the nosepiece and obsidian eye discs of a burial mask that made clear they were royal individuals. She says sifting these clues from the ash “took forever”.
Despite their apparent highborn origins, the royals’ burned remains were not carefully buried but were instead “dumped there”, says Halperin. Radiocarbon dating of the bones and ash also indicated at least one individual had died up to a century before the remains were burned between AD 773 and 881. This suggests the bones were exhumed from a previous burial and then burned.
