How an archaeologist clears up a mass murder at Maya times

Little time? At the end of the text there is a summary.

8 o'clock in the morning is for Nicolaus Seefeld a good date for a telephone conversation. Because at 9 o'clock he examines bones. His workplace has for some time been a bright space in Campeche, the capital of the eponymous state in southeastern Mexico. On the walls hang excavation plans and drawings. The temperatures are in the old colonial city in December always around 30 degrees, Seefeld works in shorts.

The German is an anthropologist, he works a mass grave from the Mayan city Uxul (pronounced Uschul) on. He needs space for that. He had to look for a few days to rent a suitable house with enough space for his project. His goal is to find out more about the enigmatic fate of the 7th-century dead he discovered in 2013 in the Yucatan jungle.

The remnants of about 20 people have the Mayan researchers in many colorful plastic containers brought here. So that they lie exactly the way he found them then, Seefeld has recorded squares on the floor in which he places them. In doing so, he orients himself to maps, drawings and photos that antiquarian researchers make during an excavation. Thus, the experts can reconstruct a locality even years later.

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Mayan archeology in GuatemalaOn the trail of the robber tombs

Seefeld had discovered the dead during an excavation in the ancient Mayan city of Uxul. The town lies deep in the jungle of Mexico, between the two major Mayan cities of El Mirador in the south and Calakmul in the northeast. It is not far to the border to Guatemala - to the nearest hospital, however, it is about ten hours drive on largely bumpy slopes.

Uxul was discovered by researchers as early as the 1930s, but due to its seclusion, the place was forgotten. Only shortly after the turn of the millennium Slovenian archaeologists found the overgrown buildings again. Since then, Maya specialists around Nikolai Grube of the University of Bonn are digging out pyramids and palaces, Seefeld was one of them.

N. Seefeld

Placement of the bones to reconstruct the site

The mass grave was more of a coincidence: originally he wanted to explore the water supply system of the city state. How did the Maya manage to meet their daily needs? That was one of the questions Seefeld dealt with in his work.

But then he discovered a channel not far from smaller platforms where the common folk lived in wooden hats. He led to an artificial cave - it was used as a water reservoir. Not only. When Seefeld took a closer look at the room, which was about four by eight meters wide, he experienced a surprise. He discovered skulls and long bones of several people - a mass grave.

A dignified burial had not been granted to humans. The archaeologist has found clear signs that show: In Uxul once a horrible massacre must have happened. "People were not just killed, but wiped out," says Seefeld. The dead were dismembered before they were discarded, legs, arms or feet lay around individually. Then the bones were covered with a layer of clay. What exactly happened here?

In order to understand the sequence of events, Seefeld tries to assign the bones to individual individuals. Not an easy task. Because the heads were separated from the torso, which indicate typical traces of the cervical vertebrae. Cut marks on the breastbones suggest that the ribcage has been opened. Also on the inside of the ribs are some. Maybe organs were removed.

N. Seefeld

Nicolaus Seefeld and the anthropologist Ricardo Ruiz in the restoration of a skull

Then the skulls were exposed to massive violence, which show traces of impact. They were literally hacked. Lower jaws protruded individually from the scree mass. "It was a bit like being on a crime scene," he says.

To put the skulls together again is tedious puzzle work. In part, a single head is fragmented into up to a hundred fragments. For the reconstruction of such a head, the researcher needs up to five days, even with the help of colleagues.

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8 pictures

Numerous cut marks on the bones also prove: Here, someone worked like a butcher. At the femurs, for example, the same notches always occur exactly where the muscle attachment runs. Apparently someone wanted to get the meat off the bone. "These must have been people who had good anatomical knowledge of the human body," says Seefeld. Without such knowledge, it would be rather difficult and cumbersome to separate an arm from a body. On more than 40 percent of these long bones such typical cut marks are recognizable. Even at the spine, the researcher discovered cutting notches, the human skin was peeled off.

In the meantime, however, Seefeld has noticed a detail that he initially overlooked: orange-brown to whitish discoloration on many of the bones. Apparently they were heavily heated. Although some of the bones are charred, most of the time he found only slight discoloration. The limbs were probably not in open fire.

Seefeld studied forensic literature, he compared his find with burn victims and accident corpses. In the meantime, he thinks: The heat was indirect at best, probably no more than 200 degrees Celsius. "It almost seems like the bones were in a kind of oven," he says. Perhaps the heat was also created in the cave itself. In the center he discovered a large ash pile.

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15 pictures

Did the Mayans use the heat to make it easier to loosen the meat from the bones? Seefeld does not know that yet. He considers, if necessary, to clarify this question experimentally and to make experiments with animal bones.

Seefeld hopes to be able to answer some of the most urgent questions on the case at some point: were the dead prisoners from another region or did they come from Uxul? And why did they have to die like that?

He already has some clues: Presumably, these were people with a very high social status. This is indicated by jade inserts in the teeth, which the Maya regarded as jewelry for the upper classes.

The limbs and bodies had also not been thrown away carelessly or even accidentally, as it seemed at first glance. First, the long bones were deposited. The skulls, as well as the severed lower jaw were laid down in the form of a semicircle around them. Maybe an indication of a ritual.

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Luke Auld-Thomas and Marcello A. Canuto / PACUNAM

Ritual violence is well documented in the Maya in inscriptions or graphic representations. Vases, mugs, and murals, for example, show prisoners being humiliated or killed in a rather brutal manner. On the well-known colorful murals of Bonampak bleeding prisoners sit huddled on the steps of a palace. In another depiction, a human being bundled up in bundles is rolled down a steep pyramid.

But archaeological evidence of molting, beheading or sacrifice is relatively rare. Well-known are the numerous bone finds from the cenote of Chichén Itzá in the north of Yucatán - a collapsed limestone cave, in the water stands. There, researchers found dozens of skeletons and limbs provided with cut marks - here, people have been thrown into it over hundreds of years.

Nicolaus Seefeld

Excavation team in front of the entrance of the artificial cave in Uxul

Researchers made a find similar to that of Seefeld a few years ago in the Mayan city of Cancun in Guatemala. There, nearly 50 women, children and men had been placed in a cistern. The archaeologists at that time thought that humans once came from the ruling dynasty and were eliminated by conquerors.

Even if it is too early for a conclusive statement: Such a crime can not be ruled out for the mass grave of Uxul at least. At about the time of the act, Uxul lost its independence, inscriptions show. The Kaan Dynasty from Calakmul, one of the most powerful ruling families of the Maya, had apparently conquered Uxul and appointed a new ruler there.

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10 pictures

Seefeld also suspects that the dead could probably come from Uxul due to a gruesome detail:

He discovered the skeleton of an infant in the mass grave. The head is still present, the cervical vertebra unhurt, it shows no signs of external violence. That a baby from far away to Uxul was brought here to die with the group, he considers unlikely.

The work on the tiny bones is not only scientifically demanding, it also appeals to Seefeld emotionally. "The excavation gradually made it clearer and clearer what a tragedy this was," he says.

Clarity about the origin of the dead should bring an isotope analysis at the end - Seefeld plans it for the coming year. By means of deposits in bones and teeth, statements can be made about the place and the climatic conditions under which someone lived. It will show where the people really come from.

In summary , in the jungles of Mexico some archaeologists found a mass grave of the Maya. The German researcher Nicolaus Seefeld is currently working on the find from Uxul. Apparently, the approximately 20 men and women fell victim to a ritual in which the bodies were cut and heated. Perhaps it is the evidence of a violent upheaval.