Thaindian News

May 18 (THAINDIAN NEWS) A 2700 year old pyramid has been found by archaeologists working in southern Mexico which is believed to be the oldest tomb of it’s kind on the continent of North America. The announcement was made by the researchers who discovered the burial chamber on Monday.

“We think this is one of the earliest discoveries of the use of a pyramid as a tomb, not only as a religious site or temple,” archaeologist Emiliano Gallaga told ‘The Associated Press’. The pyramid was located in Chiapas, Mexico and housed the skeletal remains of four humans. It is believed that two of those skeletons were used in a sacrificial ritual.

The tomb was located by the archaeologists inside one of the many pyramids which were located on the dig site. The tomb is said to have been around 22 feet high with a staircase made of mud at the time it was created. The team took approximately 24 hours to dig into the pyramid far enough to find the tomb, which is dated to be around 500 to 700 BC, or almost 3000 years old. This would mean it is around a thousand years older than the former oldest pyramid tomb, which was also found in Chiapas in 1952.

The skeletal remains of the man and woman who were found by the tomb were identified as people who were “at the very top of society,” because they were wearing jewelry made of jade, and their teeth were inlaid with shells and pyrite. The male’s bones were also decorated with red pigment. The other two skeletons, which seemed to be sacrifices, did not contain such luxurious burial ornaments.