Large Mayan jade pendant with carved inscriptions discovered

In a rare find, scientists have discovered a large piece of carved jade that once belonged to an ancient Maya king, inscribed with a historical text decribing its first owner.

The jewel - a jade pendant worn on a king's chest during key religious ceremonies - was first unearthed in 2015, in Nim Li Punit in southern Belize.

The T-shaped pendant is remarkable for being the second largest Maya jade found in Belize to date, said Geoffrey Braswell, a professor at University of California, San Diego in the US.

"It was like finding the Hope Diamond in Peoria instead of New York," said Braswell, who led the dig.
 

"We would expect something like it in one of the big cities of the Maya world. Instead, here it was, far from the centre," he said.

The pendant measures 7.4 inches wide, 4.1 inches high and just 0.3 inches thick.

Sawing it into this thin, flat form with string, fat and jade dust would have been a technical feat for the Mayans, researchers said.

The pendant is the only one known to be inscribed with a historical text. Carved into the pendant's back are 30 hieroglyphs about its first owner.

The pendant was "not torn out of history by looters," said Braswell.

"To find it on a legal expedition, in context, gives us information about the site and the jewel that we couldn't have otherwise had or maybe even imagined," he said.

Nim Li Punit is a small site in the Toledo District of Belize. It sits on a ridge in the Maya Mountains, near the contemporary village of Indian Creek.

On the southeastern edge of the ancient Maya zone - more than 400 kilometres south of Chichen Itza in Mexico, where similar but smaller breast pieces have been found - Nim Li Punit is estimated to have been inhabited between AD 150 and 850.

The site's name means "big hat." It was dubbed that, after its rediscovery in 1976, for the elaborate headdress sported by one of its stone figures.

Researchers along with a crew of local people, were excavating a palace built around the year 400 when they found a collapsed, but intact, tomb.

Inside the tomb, which dates to about AD 800, were 25 pottery vessels, a large stone that had been flaked into the shape of a deity and the precious jade pectoral. Except for a couple of teeth, there were no human remains.