Woman Power in Maya World

In Guatemala’s Laguna del Tigre National Park, the dense forest hides many treasures: endangered scarlet macaws flit among the treetops, while rare jaguars hunt on the forest floor. Only recently has the world learned about one of Laguna del Tigre’s greatest treasures, a 2,500-year-old city that once stood at the crossroads of the ancient Maya world. 

One of the most intriguing people who inhabited Waka’ was a woman of uncommon power and status. The discovery and excavation of her tomb in 2004 by team member Jose Ambrosio Diaz drew a lot of attention to the site.

On the floor of the queen’s tomb near her head, researchers found 44 square and rectangular jade plaques they believe were glued onto the wooden part of the ko’haw. The presence of this helmet in her torab has led the researchers to the conclusion that this queen held a position of power not typically afforded women of the time. 

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Lady K'abel - Lady Snake Lord

From the Herald Sun:

Considered one of the greatest queens of classic Mayan civilisation, Lady K'abel ruled with her husband K'inich around 670-690AD. Her title, Kaloomte, translates to "Supreme Warrior" of the Wak kingdom for her royal house - the Snake Lords. Co-director of the expedition.

Washington University in St Louis' Dr David Freidel, said this title gave her greater military authority than her husband.  Excavations in the royal Maya city of El Peru-Waka uncovered the tomb filled with fractured funerary pots, jars and objects earlier this year.

For more news:

From i09: Behold the tomb of Lady K'abel

From International Business Times: "Lady Snake Lord" Tomb Found

From National Geographic: Tomb of Mayan Queen Found

From Heritage Daily: Tomb of Maya Queen K'abel discovered in Guatamala

From the Independent: Burial site of ancient warrior queen found in Guatamala

From Washington Post: Tomb of Maya queen discovered

From The History Blog: Tomb of Maya Queen "Lady Snake Lord" Found

Mayan Women

From UCR Today:

Contrary to popular belief, women played a central role in Maya society before the arrival of Spanish explorers in the early 16th century, a University of California, Riverside graduate student has discovered. That finding is significant for modern Mayan women, whose status in society rapidly diminished under Spanish colonial rule and remains so today, according to Shankari Patel, a Ph.D. candidate in anthropology.

Patel’s groundbreaking research, which included extensive fieldwork in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula and an examination of previously uncatalogued artifacts in the British Museum, has won her the 2011 Dissertation Award from the American Anthropological Association’s American Feminist Association (AFA) and the AAA Minority Dissertation Fellowship. Patel expects to complete her dissertation, “Journey to the East: Pilgrimage, Politics, and Gender at Postclassic Yucatan,” and graduate in June.

Tomb of Mayan Female Ruler

From National Geographic:

A woman ruler's skeleton—her head mysteriously placed between two bowls—is one of two royal burials recently found at the Maya ruins of Nakum in Guatemala.

The roughly 2,000-year-old tomb was found underneath another, 1,300-year-old tomb filled with treasures such as jade gorgets—normally used to protect the throat—beads, and ceremonial knives.

The upper tomb's corpse had been badly destroyed by rodents within the last few centuries, but the body was clearly that of another Maya ruler-perhaps another female, based on the small size of a ring found in that tomb.

The royal burials are the first discovered in Nakum, once a densely packed Maya center. Study co-author Wiesław Koszkul and colleagues have been investigating Nakum's surroundings, known as the Cultural Triangle, for decades. (Explore an interactive map of key Maya sites.)

"We think this structure was something like a mausoleum for the royal lineage for at least 400 years," said Koszkul, of the Jagiellonian University Institute of Archaeology in Krakow, Poland.

The Maya royal-tomb discoveries are described in the September issue of the journal Antiquity.