Kaminaljuyu

Two major mounds excavated by Kidder, Jennings, and Shook contained tombs probably representing rulers from the Esperanza period.

In Mound A the tomb is associated with a pit burial. All that remains in the pit burial of its original fill are worn igneous rocks, quantities of coarse sherds and human skull parts that had been cut through by the digging of the tomb. The tomb contains the remains of eight people. One corpse received special treatment, as evinced by the considerable amount of jewelry and the offerings left with it. The bodies were borne into the tomb on fabric mats or animal hides of which only traces remain. Among the objects found as offerings in the tomb were jade beads around the necks of two of the corpses, wafer-like disc shells forming a choker on one skeleton, jade earplug flares, an unusually large amount of shells, a fine obsidian blade, a tortoise shell, metates, and various fine pottery pieces including a whistling jar and a carved tripod vessel. Several coarse brownware vessels heaped against the wall of the tomb probably originally contained food prepared for the after-life journey of the dead.