2,400-year-old puppets with 'dramatic facial expression' discovered atop pyramid in El Salvador

By Kristel Tjandra
published 2 days ago

These striking puppets suggest that Indigenous people in what is now El Salvador had rituals that were more connected to the rest of Central American culture than previously thought.



a series of five ceramic figurines in different sizes

Archaeologists uncovered five ceramic figurines at the San Isidro archaeological site in El Salvador. Scale in centimeters. (Image credit: J. Przedwojewska-Szymańska/PASI; Antiquity Publications Ltd)


Archaeologists have discovered rare, 2,400-year-old puppets in El Salvador that may have been used in public rituals to perform well-known events that were "mythical or real." The finding suggests that the people of El Salvador were more integrated into the wider Central American culture than previously thought, a new study finds.

Archaeologists found the five ceramic figurines, depicting four females and one male, on top of a large pyramidal structure in 2022. The unexpected find, reported in the journal Antiquity on Wednesday (March 5), initially appeared to be part of lavish burial offerings. But because the archaeologists found no human remains onsite, the puppets' location at the tallest pyramid at the site instead hints that they were used for public rituals, the archaeologists said.

"One of the most striking features of the puppets is their dramatic facial expression, which changes depending on the angle that we look at them from," study lead author Jan Szymański, an archaeologist at the University of Warsaw, said in a statement. At eye-level, the puppets appear angry; from above, they appear to be grinning; from below, they look scared. "This is a conscious design, perhaps meant to enhance the gamut of ritual performances the puppets could have been used in," Szymański said.

Three of the five puppets are each nearly 1 foot (30 centimeters) tall, while the others are shorter at 0.6 feet (18 cm) and 0.3 feet (10 cm) in height. The three larger figurines are depicted naked and don't have hair or jewelry, but the two smaller ones are fashioned with "locks of hair on their foreheads and earspools in the lobes," the researchers wrote in the study.

More:
https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/2-400-year-old-puppets-with-dramatic-facial-expression-discovered-atop-pyramid-in-el-salvador