User:Chapa~enwiki/Maya Belt Plaques

Maya Belt Plaques'''

Ancient Maya belt plaques were worn by rulers to validate their rulership through referencing major deities and important ancestors. David Mora-Marin (2001) believes that wearing these belts were based on "symbolic (ideology and ritual) and objective (staple and wealth) sources of power." Belt plaques were usually carved from jade, which was a precious stone in Ancient Maya Civilization because of it had to be traded from the Motagua River in Guatemala, making this stone a precious and valuable material. These plaque belts were used during rituals to signify either a specific event or date that was important to the society. They display rulers on their inauguration, important calendar dates and ancestral and deity worship. The Ancient Maya stimulated all senses of the human body, the natural world and the invisible world. The sounds of the plaques hitting together would have made a tinkering sounds, which would have been part of the ritual. On one side of the plaque shows a beautifully decorated ruler with a left facing profile and the other side with a double columned hieroglyphic explaining the significance of the plaque. Maya rulers were seen as divine through ancestry and closest to the gods, therefore, wearing these belts during rituals and death was a way of communicating and celebrating the gods and their ancestors.

The most famous known belt plaque is the Leyden Plaque, which was discovered in 1864 in Bahia de Graciosa in northern Guatemala. Dated from the Maya Classical period and is believed to be from the central lowlands region, more specifically, Tikal. An important artifact in Ancient Maya archaeology because it was one of the only Mayan inscriptions known for a long time and it showed the importance of hieroglyphic text in the society.

Monuments

Leiden Plaque