Friday, May 05, 2006

Cool Archeology News

Archeologists discover Maya tomb, defy looters - Yahoo! News: "EL PERU WAKA, Guatemala (Reuters) - Archeologists outsmarted tomb raiders to unearth a major Maya Indian royal burial site in the Guatemalan jungle, discovering jade jewelry and a jaguar pelt from more than 1,500 years ago.

The tomb, found by archeologist Hector Escobedo last week, contains a king of the El Peru Waka city, now in ruins and covered in thick rainforest teeming with spider monkeys.

He may have been the dynastic founder of the city, on major Mayan trade routes that could have stretched from the city of Tikal in Guatemala up through Mexico.

'If this is indeed the founder, then it is a discovery of a lifetime,' said David Freidel of Southern Methodist University in Texas, who co-directs the project with Escobedo."

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