Derrick Villa verde 564-75-8677 Hist 102 11/24/02 Field Trip Report I went to the Bowers museum in Santa Ana and went to the arts of native America section and found many Mayan artifacts. The one I chose was the limestone tomb of Lord Pacal. Tomb of Lord Pacal gives more insight to this civilization it reflects the Mayan people and gives us a lot of information on their society. The Mayans lived in what is now Mexico and Central America from 2000 B. C. E.
to 900 C. E. The Mayan cities were centers for religion and had thousands of people and had many temples at the center. The Mayan people were constantly at war and performing human sacrifices to their demanding gods. Mayan rituals were permeated by the sense of living at once in the world of here and now and in a spiritual realm connected with other worlds and gods.
Their kings were shamans, bridges between the two worlds. And all the Mayan kings had mass burial grounds and tombs. The artifact I chose was the tomb of Lord Pacal (615 – 683 A. D. ), was a ruler of the Mayan city of Palenque in Chiapas.
Lord Pacal was buried in an elaborately decorated limestone sarcophagus placed within the pyramid known as the temple of the Inscriptions. The detailed carved lid shows Lord Pacal falling and descending into the gaping jaws of Xibalba, the Mayan underworld. He is also sitting atop the head of the so called quadripartite monster, which symbolized the sun. And above Pacal is the world tree atop which is perched the celestial bird, representing the upper world. The branches of the world tree are rendered in the form of serpents. This tomb of Lord Pacal shows how religious the Mayans were and how much they believed in their gods and their different worlds that they believed they were to go to.
It also shows how they believed in sacrificing people for the gods so that the kings could go to the underworld. And whoever made the tomb made it very elaborate because if they didn’t they thought their king would not go to the underworld and bad things would happen. This tomb shows that the inside the where the tomb was found was full of riches and elaborate things. In conclusion all the information has shown how this artifact has given some insight to the Mayan time period by what has been en carved on the tomb and the burials and beliefs the Mayans believed in. What was on the tomb shows and gives some info on what the Mayans believed in and showed how religious and spiritual they were.