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Texas husband-wife team finds 'priceless' royal tomb filled with 1,700-year-old treasures

Texas husband-wife team finds 'priceless' royal tomb filled with 1,700-year-old treasures

Fox News6 days ago
A Texas archaeologist couple recently unearthed the ancient tomb of a legendary king in Central America — a feat that's been over 40 years in the making.
Arlen Chase and Diane Chase, both professors at the University of Houston, uncovered the 4th-century tomb at the Caracol archaeological site in Belize. The university shared the discovery on July 10. (See the video at the top of this article.)
Caracol was a major Mayan city established in the 300s A.D. The tomb belonged to Te' K'ab Chaak, the earliest ruler of the city and the founder of its royal dynasty – and it's the first confirmed royal tomb found at the site.
"Now in ruins, this metropolis was a major political player in Maya history, dominating the southern part of the Yucatan Peninsula from 560 through 680 AD before its abandonment by 900 AD," the University of Houston said in its press release.
Teʼ Kʼab Chaak's tomb was filled with treasures, including 11 pottery vessels and carved bone tubes. Excavators also found a mosaic death mask made of jadeite, along with jewelry made from the same type of gemstone.
The Chases are the foremost scholars on Caracol, and this latest excavation is just one of many they've conducted.
Their son, Adrian, is also an archaeologist and discovered Caracol's decentralized water system.
"The true value of the materials is in what they can tell us about the ancient culture."
Judging from the ruler's remains, the Chases also found that Te' K'ab Chaak was 5'7 in height and died at an advanced age. He also had no remaining teeth.
Speaking to Fox News Digital, Arlen Chase called the recently unearthed artifacts "priceless."
"Professional archaeologists will not put a dollar value on the items they dig up … That being said, the true value of the materials is in what they can tell us about the ancient culture," the expert described.
"In this case, most of the individual artifacts are unique, but together they not only tell a story about the individual who once owned them but also enable us to provide a date for the burial."
Arlen Chase said the artifacts date to 350 A.D. and "include a full range of vessel types for this time period," including two from the Highlands of Guatemala and shells from the Pacific Ocean.
Both these types of treasures, he noted, were the "result of long-distance trade."
Arlen Chase also confirmed that archaeologists identified the burial "based on the size of his chamber, the presence of jadeite mosaic death mask and earflares, and everything being covered in cinnabar."
Diane Chase told Fox News Digital that the ceramic vessels in particular really showed off Teʼ Kʼab Chaak's status and wealth.
"The two Pacific spondylus shells near his head, the jadeite earflares, the carved jadeite tubular beads, and the mosaic jadeite death mask also show his ability to obtain long-distance prestige items," she noted.
A car trip between Teotihuacan and Caracol today would take over 23 hours. Ancient people would have had to walk at least 153 days to complete the journey, making the burial offerings particularly special.
Above all, Diane Chase noted that finding a ruler's burial is "extremely unusual, and important."
She said, "This is the first one we have discovered within the ancient city of Caracol."
She added, "Even more important, he is the first ruler of the Caracol dynasty with some 30 other rulers following him (according to the hieroglyphic[s]) before the city was abandoned."
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A 100,000-year-old burial site in Israel is changing what we know about early humans
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A 100,000-year-old burial site in Israel is changing what we know about early humans

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The Paleolithic era, also known as the Stone Age because of the onset of stone tools, lasted from as early as 3.3 million years ago until around 10,000 years ago. Tinshemet Cave is from the Middle Paleolithic era, roughly between 250,000 to 30,000 years ago. Some of the Tinshemet researchers' core findings were published in March in Nature Human Behavior. A key discovery were the remains of five early humans, including two full skeletons and three isolated skulls with other bones and teeth. Also of note were more than 500 differently sized fragments of red and orange ochre, a pigment created by heating iron-rich stones to a certain temperature — evidence that early humans had the means to create decorative objects. 'Here we see a really complex set of behaviors, not related to just food and surviving,' Zaidner said. Using hand chisels and delicate, pen-sized pneumatic drills that resemble dental tools, archaeologists will need many more years to excavate the site. The field work, which started in 2016, is usually done over the summer months. This year, a dozen archaeology undergraduate and graduate students fanned out across the site, painstakingly documenting and removing each fragment of tool, object or bone. At the entrance to the cave, the skull of one of the early humans is slowly emerging from the rock sediment; it will be years before it is fully excavated. Tinshemet is exceptionally important to archaeologists because the local climate preserved the bones, tools, and ornaments in good condition, unlike many other parts of the world where these items were lost to time, said Christian Tryon, a professor at the University of Connecticut and a research associate at the Human Origins Program at the Smithsonian Institution, who was not involved in the study. The skeletons and objects were so well preserved because of ash from frequent fires, likely for rituals. This large amount of ash mixed with rainfall and Israel's acidic limestone, creating optimal conditions for perseveration. One skeleton was in such good condition archaeologists could see how the fingers were interwoven, hands clasped beneath the head. Tryon said the Tinshemet findings are bolstering earlier discoveries from two similar burial sites dating back to the same period in northern Israel — Skhul Cave and Qafzeh Cave. Skhul Cave was excavated almost 100 years ago, and Qafzeh Cave mostly around 50 years ago, when archaeological practices were more haphazard. 'There were so many uncertainties with those sites, but this is confirming it's a pattern we know, and they're really nailing down the dates,' Tryon said. Tinshemet has helped archaeologists conclude that burial practices started to become more widespread during this time, representing a shift in how early humans treated their dead. Some archaeologists believe intentional burials started earlier. In South Africa, the Homo naledi species – an ancient cousin of Homo sapiens – may have been intentionally placing their dead in caves as early as 200,000 years ago. But many archaeologists said the findings are controversial and there is not enough evidence to support the claim of intentional burials. In ancient times, Israel was a bridge between Neanderthals from Europe and Homo sapiens from Africa. Archaeologists have identified other subgroups of early humans in the area, and believe the groups interacted and may have interbred. Experts have been studying the two full skeletons brought from Tinshemet for years, but it's still unclear if they were Neanderthals, Homo sapiens, a hybrid population or another group altogether. The mix of subgroups created opportunities for different groups of early humans to exchange knowledge or express identity, said Zaidner. It's around this time that archaeologists first see examples of early jewelry or body painting, which could be ways early humans started outwardly belonging to a certain group, drawing boundaries between 'us' and 'them,' he said. Israel Hershkovitz, a physical anthropologist at Tel Aviv University and the co-director of the Tinshemet site, said the concept of cemeteries in prehistoric life is important because it symbolizes 'a kind of a territory.' He said that same kind of claim over land where ancestors are buried still echoes in the region. 'It's a kind of claim you make to the neighbors, saying 'this is my territory, this part of the land belongs to my father and my forefather' and so on and so on.'

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