Commoners may have played an unappreciated part in the rise of an ancient Maya royal dynasty.
Self-described “divine lords” at a Maya site called Tamarindito in what’s now Guatemala left glowing hieroglyphic tributes to themselves as heads of a powerful “Foliated Scroll” dynasty.
But new findings indicate that the bigwigs at Tamarindito spent many generations waiting for their subjects to show up, or perhaps hatching plans to attract followers, say archaeologist and epigrapher Markus Eberl of Vanderbilt University in Nashville and colleagues.
Tamarindito’s kings founded their capital by about the year 400 as a mere hamlet of perhaps a few dozen individuals, consisting of a royal court and a
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