Palenque (Mexico)

Archaeologists report discovery of Maya corn god statue in Palenque

with video

(Note from Susi Lötscher:) I have put together the photos of the three articles freely, because they have repeated themselves too much. Photos are taken by INAH. Also the video given in one article I have replaced by one in English. The three articles itselves are also somewhat mixed up.

Mexico News Daily, Juni, 3, 2022

An approximately 1,300-year-old sculpture of the head of the Maya maize god has been uncovered at the Palenque archaeological site in the southern state of Chiapas.

Experts with the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) found the effigy of the young god last year but the discovery wasn’t reported until this week. INAH said in a statement that it was the first time that a stucco head of the important Maya deity had been found at Palenque, which started out as a village around 150 B.C. before becoming a powerful Maya city.

An interdisciplinary team working on a United States government-funded conservation project found the sculpture last July in the Palace, a large, elevated complex of several connected and adjacent buildings and courtyards.

“The team … observed a careful alignment of stones while removing the filler in a corridor that connects rooms of House B of the Palace to those of the adjacent House F. Inside a semi-square receptacle … and beneath a layer of loose dirt the nose and partially open mouth of the divinity emerged,” INAH said.

The length of the stucco head is 45 centimeters while its width is 16 centimeters. It was found lying in an east to west position, “which would symbolize the birth of the corn plant with the first rays of the sun,” INAH said. Experts described the maize god’s facial features as “graceful.”

“The chin is pointed, pronounced and split [and] the lips are thin and project outwards,” said González and two of his colleagues, according to the INAH statement. “… The cheekbones are smooth and rounded and the eyes are long and thin. From a broad, long, flat and rectangular forehead a wide and pronounced nose grows.”

The sculpture, “conceived originally as a severed head,” was found on a broken “tripod plate” made from clay, INAH said. “Due to the ceramic type of the tripod plate that accompanies the head of the young, tonsured maize god … the archaeological context has been dated to the late classic period (A.D. 700-850).”

INAH said that vegetable matter, bones of various animals including turtles, quail and domestic dogs, shells, crab claws, ceramic pieces, miniature anthropomorphic figurines and pieces of obsidian blades and seeds among other items were also deposited in a closed-off compartment where the sculpture – which lay hidden for about 1,300 years – was found.

“The positioning of these elements was … concentric, … covering 75% of the cavity, which was sealed with loose stones,” González said.

“Some animal bones had been cooked and others have … teeth marks,” he said, explaining that indicated that meat was eaten by the inhabitants of Palenque as part of a ritual.

The maize god head was exposed to humidity and is currently undergoing a process of gradual drying, INAH said, adding that it will subsequently be restored by specialists.

1,300-Year-Old Mayan Corn God Head Discovered in Mexico

Hyperallergic, by Sarah Rose Sharp, Juni 2022

The finding was part of an offering placed on a pond, thought to replicate the entrance to the underworld.

Summer is the season for corn worshippers, so it’s the perfect time of year to appreciate a recent archeological discovery from Palenque in Chiapas. The highlands and dense rainforest of this southern Mexican state, which borders Guatemala, are flecked with Mayan archaeological sites, one of which recently produced an approximately 1,300-year-old sculpture representing the head of a Mayan maize god, according to the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH).

A statement by INAH released on May 31 noted that the artifact was found facing east to west, “which would symbolize the birth of the maize plant with the first rays of the sun.” The sculpture was discovered during conservation work on a corridor connecting sections of a palace complex, inside a pond receptacle “emulating the entrance of the deity to the underworld.”

The representation of the Mayan god, more than 1,300 years old, was found during conservation work.

Corn was a crop of huge significance to various peoples of Mesoamerica, and the maize god was subsequently one of the most important deities, especially in the Classic Period, the golden age of the Mayan Empire. According to research by the Dallas Museum of Art, the earliest representations of the maize god appear among the Early Classic Maya and typically depict a young male with stylized maize on the top of the head. During the Late Classic Period, the so-called “Tonsured Maize God” represented “mature and fertile maize, depicted with an elongated human head shaved in sections across the forehead.” The Palenque sculpture fits with these stylistic parameters.

Because the sculpture was found under extremely wet and humid conditions, it required a period of drying out before restoration efforts could be undertaken. The interdisciplinary team that makes up the initiative to restore the find is co-directed by archaeologist Arnoldo González Cruz and restorer Haydeé Orea Magaña from INAH.

“The discovery allows us to begin to know how the ancient Maya of Palenque constantly relived the mythical passage of the birth, death, and resurrection of the maize deity,” said Cruz in the statement released by INAH.

INAH finds the "young god of corn", buried 1,300 years ago

Mexico desconocida: NAH halla al "joven dios del maíz", enterrado hace 1,300 años, translated from Spanish

The finding shows the importance of the young corn god for the Mayas, and the importance of the underworld for this culture.

It took 1,300 years for human eyes to observe again the representation of the young god of corn buried in the archaeological site of Palenque, Chiapas.

The first to admire the sublime head of the deity were a group of archaeologists and restorers from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), who said that the discovery began when a curious alignment of stones in a corridor of House B of El Palacio caught their attention.

The importance of the young maize god in Mayan rituals

Arnoldo González Cruz, the archaeologist who together with the restorer Haydeé Orea Magaña made the discovery, commented that the piece could date from the Late Classic period, that is to say, between 700-850 AD.

"The archaeological context (of the deity found ) is the result of several events: the first consisted of the use of the pond as a water mirror to see the cosmos reflected. It is probable that these rituals, of nocturnal character, started during the rule of K'inich Janaab' Pakal I (615-683 A.D.), and continued during the rule of K'an Bahlam II (684-702 A.D.), K'an Joy Chitam II (702-711 A.D.) and Ahkal Mo' Nahb' III (721-736 A.D.)", exposed the INAH in a press release. unicado.

They note that it is possible that at the end of the governance of Ahkal Mo' Nahb III, they closed the space, but not before depositing a series of elements such as quail bones, white turtle, white fish and domestic dog, shells, crab quelas, fragments of worked bone, ceramic pieces, three fractions of miniature anthropomorphic figurines, 120 pieces of obsidian navajillas, a portion of green stone bead, two shell beads, as well as seeds and small snails.

It will undergo a drying process

But what they found underneath the sculpture was no less interesting: it is a pond with stuccoed walls and floor, to emulate the entrance of the god to the underworld, in an aquatic environment.