![]() ![]() Despite a sparse number of locals, Tamarindito’s plaza initially provided space for around 1,650 people to gather, Eberl says. From 23 to 31 laborers could have built those structures in 25 years, the researchers estimate.īut Foliated Scroll rulers’ royal ambitions, as expressed at the ritual center, far outpaced demographic reality. That ritual area, with the plaza as its centerpiece, was a relatively small-scale project. No signs of a precursor settlement to Tamarindito were found, making the site a good place to study how Maya rulers constructed a power center from scratch, Eberl says.Įarly activity at Tamarindito focused on building a ceremonial center that consisted of a pyramid, a royal palace and a large plaza atop a 70-meter-high hill. ![]() Illegal logging at Tamarindito made it possible to identify most of the site’s structures in ground surveys. Over seven field seasons beginning in 2009, Eberl’s group excavated and surveyed much of the site and documented all surviving royal inscriptions. ![]() The hieroglyphic emblem of those rulers depicted the curly stalk of a water lily native to lowland Guatemala. Hieroglyphics proclaiming the divine power and mythological origins of Foliated Scroll rulers have been studied since Tamarindito’s discovery in 1958. ![]() “In the case of Tamarindito, Maya rulers had to legitimize their authority and build power, likely negotiating with and convincing non-elites” to become subjects. Royal art and writing at Tamarindito and other Classic Maya sites misleadingly suggest that kings wielded absolute power, Eberl contends. Those rulers went on to achieve peak power roughly between the years 550 and 800. At that point, Foliated Scroll rulers founded a smaller, second capital and several other settlements in northern Guatemala. It took about 150 years for enough people to trickle in to Tamarindito to enable the site’s rulers to expand their power, Eberl says. Tamarindito’s kings founded their capital by about the year 400 as a mere hamlet of perhaps a few dozen individuals, consisting of a royal court and a couple of residential clusters for non-elites, the scientists report November 4 in Latin American Antiquity. ![]()
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