Maya Sun God Masks

Top 10 Discoveries of 2012 January/February 2013

El Zotz, Guatemala
(Courtesy Stephen Houston, Brown University; Courtesy Edwin Román)
SHARE:

Archaeologists have unearthed a spectacular series of stucco masks at the Maya city of El Zotz. Dating to between A.D. 350 and 400, the five-foot-tall masks decorated a temple atop El Diablo pyramid, which commemorates the founder of the city’s royal dynasty. The masks were painted bright red and depict several deities, including the sun god. They show different phases of the sun as it makes its way across the sky. Between the gods are representations of Venus and other planets. “It’s a celestial symphony,” says Brown University archaeologist Stephen Houston, who co-led the excavation with Edwin Roman of the University of Texas. “The sun is closely associated with Maya kingship, and these images celebrate that link.”

MORE FROM Top 10 Discoveries of 2012

  • Top 10 Discoveries of 2012 January/February 2013

    Oldest Egyptian Funerary Boat

    Abu Rawash, Egypt

    Read Article
    funerary-boat.jpg
    (Courtesy Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities)
  • Top 10 Discoveries of 2012 January/February 2013

    Neanderthal Medicine Chest

    Piloña, Asturias, Spain

    Read Article
    Neanderthal-plaque
    (Courtesy CSIC Comunicación)
  • Features January/February 2013

    Neolithic Europe’s Remote Heart

    One thousand years of spirituality, innovation, and social development emerge from a ceremonial center on the Scottish archipelago of Orkney

    Read Article
    Adam Stanford/Aerial Cam
  • Features January/February 2013

    The Water Temple of Inca-Caranqui

    Hydraulic engineering was the key to winning the hearts and minds of a conquered people

    Read Article
    Caranqui-opener
    (Courtesy Tamara L. Bray)
  • Letter from France January/February 2013

    Structural Integrity

    Nearly 20 years of investigation at two rock shelters in southwestern France reveal the well-organized domestic spaces of Europe's earliest modern humans

    Read Article
  • Artifacts January/February 2013

    Pacific Islands Trident

    A mid-nineteenth-century trident illustrates a changing marine ecosystem in the South Pacific

    Read Article
    (Catalog Number 99071 © The Field Museum, [CL000_99071_Overall], Photographer Christopher J. Philipp)