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Archaeologists have discovered a tomb of an ancient Mayan king in Guatemala, filled with materials that have been preserved for approximately 1,600 years.
Brown University's Stephen Houston and his colleagues uncovered the tomb, which dates from about 350 to 400 A.D. The tomb is packed with of carvings, ceramics, textiles, and the bones of six children, who may have been sacrificed at the time of the king's death.
It lies beneath the El Diablo pyramid in the city of El Zotz.
"When we sunk a pit into the small chamber of the temple, we hit almost immediately a series of 'caches' - blood-red bowls containing human fingers and teeth, all wrapped in some kind of organic substance that left an impression in the plaster. We then dug through layer after layer of flat stones, alternating with mud, which probably is what kept the tomb so intact and airtight," said Stephen Houston.
They lowered a bare light bulb into the hole, and suddenly Houston saw "an explosion of colour in all directions - reds, greens, yellows."
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