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4w ago

New Finds at Aguada Fénix Show 3,000-Year-Old Maya Monument Was a Built Cosmogram

A cruciform cache with color-coded offerings provides the clearest evidence yet that ritual order shaped the site's design.

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The team excavated jade axes and ornaments that were likely left later, in return trips to the site, after builders made offerings to the cruciform cache and filled it in.

Overview

  • The Science Advances study reports a cross-shaped pit at the site's center containing pigments placed by cardinal direction and a cache of carved jade artifacts.
  • Radiocarbon dating places the cache between 900 and 845 B.C., refining the Early–Middle Preclassic chronology for the complex.
  • The main axis aligns with sunrises on October 17 and February 24, a 130-day interval that corresponds to half of the 260-day Mesoamerican ritual calendar.
  • LiDAR mapping reveals a landscape network of raised causeways, sunken corridors, canals and a dam extending several miles, with the main platform alone requiring an estimated 10.8 million person-days of labor.
  • Researchers report no clear evidence of elite rule or palaces at the site and interpret the monument as a collective project likely coordinated by knowledgeable ritual specialists.