Archaeologists Were Exploring Maya Ruins When They Discovered This Mysterious 1,600-Year-Old Tablet

What do you know about the Maya Empire? It is considered the most mysterious empire of the era. They were in most parts of Central America and even in Mexico before the Europeans started settling in. Maya empire was complex, but their knowledge about architecture, art, mathematics, and astronomy was pretty advanced. The Maya empire fell weak when battles started in 800s, but prior to that, they were going strong in the trade and politics with adjacent state. In 2008, La Corona Archaeological Project started a mission to shed some light on this mysterious Maya Empire and its people. The rainforest in northern Guatemala’s Peten region is one of the places where the Maya Empire was located. Though the area was first discovered in 1996, according to the experts, its existence dates back to 1960s. Two environmentalists came across some ruins in the Guatemala jungle and in 2005; experts put an end to the debate by suggesting that La corona and site Q were the same. Marcello A. Canuto and Tomas Barrientos are responsible for digging out several interesting facets of this mysterious empire. In 2012, archaeologists discovered something that resembled stairways and along with that, ten other artifacts were also discovered. Some risers were stolen and abandoned by the looters because they thought that these things would fetch them no price. The experts, when studied the artifacts, found that they belong to the Maya empire. One of the panels contains some specific information regarding the end of the Maya empire in hieroglyphics. The end of the Maya empire is still speculated, so any information is a vital proof of the fall of the Maya civilization. In 2015, Luke Auld-Thomas joined the group of archaeologists to find some more details about the Maya empire. He was lucky to unearth a stela that is a kind of stone monument. It was a face of a king and it was placed in a way where it would seem as if he was staring out of a doorway. It was not the only one, they went on to discover some other fragments from which it was clear that all these were part of a big thing. David Stuart, an epigrapher, started working on decoding the hieroglyphics so that they can make out what the image of the man bearing a serpent bar means. Finally, he concluded that the stela marks the 40th anniversary of the vassal-lord rule. Many questions were answered and the experts were able to reveal many new things about the Maya Empire. Still, there are some unanswered questions for which the excavation will soon take place.