1,500-Year-Old Maya Altar Reveals Amazing Secrets of the 'Snake Kings'

By Laura Geggel, Senior Writer | September 23, 2018 08:30am ET

Archaeologists have discovered a nearly 1,500-year-old carved stone altar in the ancient Maya city of La Corona, deep in the jungles of northern Guatemala.

The finding, announced Sept. 12 at the National Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology in Guatemala City, is the oldest monument on record at the La Corona site from the Classic Maya period, which lasted from A.D. 250 to 900, the archaeologists said.

An analysis of the carvings on the altar revealed how the powerful Kaanul dynasty started its 200-year rule over much of the Maya lowlands, the archaeologists said. [In Photos: Ancient Maya Carvings Exposed in Guatemala]

"The discovery of this altar allows us to identify an entirely new king of La Corona who apparently had close political ties with the capital of the Kaanul kingdom, Dzibanche, and with the nearby city of El Peru-Waka," Marcello Canuto, director of the Middle American Research Institute at Tulane University and co-director of the La Corona Regional Archaeological Project (PRALC), said in a statement.

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