A stone statue of a serpent warrior’s head has been unearthed among the many ruins of the long-lasting Maya web site of Chichén Itzá in southern Mexico. Wearing a “snake helmet” and a feathered headdress, the traditional sculpture is more likely to date from the Maya Late Classic interval, which lasted from round 600 to 900 CE.
Archaeologists got here throughout the exceptional relic whereas excavating a construction often known as Maudslay’s Temple 6, named after the British explorer Alfred Maudslay who was among the many first Europeans to go to and doc Chichén Itzá. The temple types a part of the Casa Colorada (Colored House) complicated – in any other case often known as Chichanchob – which is recognizable for its red-painted partitions.
One of essentially the most well-known historical cities in Mesoamerica, Chichén Itzá was a serious drive within the Maya world in the course of the Late Classic and early Terminal Classic durations, housing as much as 35,000 inhabitants in its heyday. Among the various iconic landmarks discovered on the web site is the pyramid-shaped Temple of Kukulcán – or El Castillo – named after the Mayan snake god.
Adorned with carvings of feathered serpents, the temple is a shocking tribute to a fearsome deity who was closely related to warfare and human sacrifice. The discovery of a snake-headed soldier statue close by due to this fact means that the relic could have been linked to Kukulcán, though this has but to be confirmed by archaeologists.
Announcing the discover in an announcement, Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) revealed that “the piece measures 33 centimeters [13 inches] in height, 28 centimeters [11 inches] wide and 22 centimeters [8.7 inches] in depth, and in spite of being fractured, is notable for its good state of preservation.”
“As a result, it’s possible to deduce that the sculpture’s parameters match those used during the earlier period of the Maya city.”
Recently, researchers within the close by state of Campeche found a round construction devoted to Kukulcán within the jungle. Originally thought-about to be a imaginative and prescient serpent that acted as a messenger between the Maya elites and the gods, the deity later took on a extra highly effective position as a cult in his honor sprung up within the Yucatan Peninsula.
However, this faith didn’t actually take maintain till across the time the Maya empire started to crumble, so it’s unlikely that the serpent warrior statue discovered at Chichén Itzá had something to do with the Kukulcán cult.
