Add your Article
- Chemistry and Materials
- The metal detector in your mouth
- Meteorites may have sparked life on Earth
- Screaming for Ice Cream
- E Learning Jamaica
- 2014 GSAT Results for Jamaican Kids
- Results of GSAT are in schools this week
- E Learning in Jamaica WIN PRIZES and try our Fun Animated Games
- Food and Nutrition
- Moving Good Fats from Fish to Mice
- A Taste for Cheese
- Allergies: From Bee Stings to Peanuts
- GSAT Exam Preparation Jamaica
- Ministry of Education Announces 82 GSAT Scholarships for 2010
- Tarrant High overcoming the odds
- GSAT stars reap scholarship glory
- GSAT Exams Jamaica Scholarships
- GSAT stars reap scholarship glory
- GSAT Practice Papers | GSAT Mathematics | Maths
- Results of GSAT are in schools this week
- Physics
- Strange Universe: The Stuff of Darkness
- Spin, Splat, and Scramble
- Thinner Air, Less Splatter
- Space and Astronomy
- Mercury's magnetic twisters
- Zooming In on the Wild Sun
- Rover Makes Splash on Mars
Stone Tablet May Solve Maya Mystery
Published: 07/02/2010
For decades, "Site Q" has been a mystery city. Archaeologists suspected that this Maya settlement existed more than 1,400 years ago, but there was little evidence to link it with certainty to any known ruins. Now, scientists say that they've found the evidence that they've been looking for. At an archaeological site in Guatemala, Yale University researcher Marcello Canuto and his team dug up a stone panel covered in symbolic characters called hieroglyphs. Canuto and his colleagues say that the writings finger the place, called La Corona, as Site Q. The possibility that Site Q existed arose about 40 years ago, when there was a sudden influx of carved artifacts being bought and sold as antiques. The objects were supposedly from the Maya city of Calakmul, in what is now southern Mexico. Analyses of the objects, however, showed that their style differed from traditional Calakmul artifacts. Instead, researchers proposed that the objects were stolen from a city, unknown to archaeologists, in the lowlands of Guatemala. They called it Site Q. The newly discovered stone panel is covered with more than 140 hieroglyphs that span a period from A.D. 658 to A.D. 677. The markings describe two kings who have been linked to Site Q, and they match the style of hieroglyphs previously found on a stolen panel that mentioned the same kings. The symbols tell the story of one king's journey to Calakmul. It seems that he was looking for help after a more powerful Maya king threatened to conquer Site Q. The markings also mention a ceremony that was held when the king reestablished his kingship. Apparently, he won that battle. Researchers are now searching for more artifacts to confirm this discovery. They also want to see whether all stolen Site Q artifacts came only from La Corona and not from nearby Maya sites as well.—E. Sohn
Stone Tablet May Solve Maya Mystery
