By Breaking Belize News Staff (HP): Archaeologists working at Xunantunich have identified what they believe was a school for young Maya boys in the late seventh and eighth centuries.
The complex, excavated on a ridge above the Mopan River, includes student housing with a large sweat bath, gaming boards, and rooms with benches for sitting or sleeping.
Inside El Castillo, the site’s central pyramid, researchers found two rooms whose walls contain around 400 drawings. These include a headdress wearing sage, calendar dates, hieroglyphs, and multiple monkeys sketched by different hands.
The skill levels vary widely. One monkey is expertly rendered. Others are clearly the work of beginners.
“We have lots of images that look like someone just learning to draw,” said archaeologist Kathryn Brown of the University of Texas at San Antonio. “It’s almost as if somebody was saying, OK, this is how you draw a monkey. Now you try, you try, you try.”
Before this discovery, archaeologists had little evidence of where and how Maya children were educated.
The work was carried out by Brown alongside Jason Yaeger, Lauren Nowakowski and Whitney Lytle.
The post Archaeologists uncover classrooms for young Maya boys at Xunantunich appeared first on Belize News and Opinion on www.breakingbelizenews.com.
By Breaking Belize News Staff (HP): Archaeologists working at Xunantunich have identified what they believe was a school for young Maya boys in the late seventh and eighth centuries. The complex, excavated on a ridge above the Mopan River, includes student housing with a large sweat bath, gaming boards, and rooms with benches for sitting
The post Archaeologists uncover classrooms for young Maya boys at Xunantunich appeared first on Belize News and Opinion on www.breakingbelizenews.com.