Dr Diane’s Excavations
Watch Dr Diane exploring the rainforest looking for an ancient Maya site
Dr Diane has excavated in many areas of the world; in Wales at a Romano-British residential site, several times in Peru locating and recording prehistoric sites, as well as in caves and ballcourts in Puerto Rico.
She then discovered the Maya and well the rest is history!
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Introduction
Much of Dr Diane’s work has centred on the ancient Maya site of San Bartolo, located in the Maya rainforest, Guatemala.
It is famous for its murals (paintings), one of the most important discoveries ever made in Maya archaeology.
Map of San Bartolo
Dr Diane has excavated in various areas of the site, the Pinturas Complex, Saraguates Complex, and within the Ventanas Complex, the equivalent of 365 days in a rainforest and 730 days of lab work!
Below is just a selection of excavations and analyses she was involved in.
Paintings
Dr Diane was part of the team that uncovered the west wall of the mural room in the Pyramid of the Paintings.
The murals are really early in date 100 BC, over 2000 years old! Dr Diane helped in finding out their age from carbon she uncovered on the floor of the room that was sent for radiocarbon dating. The paintings are well preserved and depict parts of the Maya creation myth, showing the maize god, as well as oldest Maya king we know to date.
Dr Diane in front of the maize god on the north wall of the room
The paintings also revealed very early Maya writing, so early that they have yet to be deciphered, although the last word appears similar to a later Maya word – Ajaw meaning ruler/king.
Drawing of the maize god by Heather Hurst, now director of the San Bartolo project.
A Bird Deity
Dr Diane excavated along the outside of the mural room to find out the length of its sides and to get an idea of what it originally looked like. She discovered that the outside had a beautiful, red-painted frieze.
The frieze consisted of a sculpted stucco head of a bird deity, one of the earliest gods in the Maya world. The eye, earspool, wings, claws and beak could be seen.
A Noble House
The location of Group 38 (left) and a close up of the structures (right).
Dr Diane excavated in what we call a patio group (Group 38) where a noble family lived. The group consisted of 5 structures, and 16,000 pottery sherds were recovered and analysed by her!
Structure 38
Structure 38 was the largest of all the buildings and reached a height of 3 m. It was also unofficially called los murcielagos (the bats), because of the bats that liked to snooze in the rafters! The house consisted of 20 rooms of which 16 contained benches that may have been used for sleeping or entertaining friends.
Artefacts
Room 3
Excavating in Room 3, Dr Diane found pieces of the most beautiful, red pottery. They seemed to all be part of the same pot and she was able to put much of the pieces together.
Pieces of the red bowl
The room was dated between AD 600-900, but the bowl was dated between 200 BC-AD 250! It must have been very precious to the people to have been saved and looked after for so long. We often call these heirlooms, something perhaps belonging to your grandparents or great-grandparents that has been kept within the family.
Many other artefacts were found for example a mano de moler, which is a stone tool used for grinding down maize (corn) or chocolate.
Many chert knives were uncovered too.
Burials
Dr Diane also discovered many burials. An example of one also comes from Room 3. A tomb was uncovered that consisted of two layers of stone slabs forming a hexagon. The lower layer contained seven vertical slabs, and the upper layer consisted of two capstones with five smaller stones closing the spaces in between.
Here the remains of an male adult was found.
An Ancient Rubbish bin
Ancient rubbish bins are a treasure trove for artefacts and Dr Diane uncovered one in her group. Many artefacts were found inside such as stone tools, obsidian knives, pots, clay figurines, musical instruments and much more.
Scientific Techniques
Dr Diane carried out several scientific analyses in her work, such as isotope analysis that helped tell her what activities were carried out in the rooms, such as cooking and eating. Strontium analysis on teeth found in burials revealed where they grew up. Finally, phytolith analysis was carried out on several of the pots to find out what types of plants might have been stored inside.
Further Reading
The painted murals at San Bartolo has been submitted by the Guatemalan government to UNESCO to be added to their World Heritage List as a site that has “Outstanding Universal Value”. Read more.
Dr Diane wrote a 600 page book on all her excavations, but it you would like to read just a few pages of her work you can read her articles:
Reuse of the Past – A Case Study from the Ancient Maya. The Historian 121:32-36 Read more.
Social Memory and Identity as Reflected in the Reuse of a Residential Group at the Maya Site of San Bartolo. In Identity Crisis: Archaeological Perspectives on Social Identity. Proceedings of the 42nd Annual Chacmool Archaeology Conference, edited by L. Amundsen-Meyer, N. Engel and S. Pickering, pp. 311-320, Calgary, Alberta. Read more.