These Mayan jawbones are centuries old , and demonstrate the venerable tradition of tooth bling ( in this case , jade and iron pyrite ) . But they ’re also part of a unknown taradiddle of international bone theft .
It ’s long been known that the ancient Mayan opinion classes drilled golf hole in their teeth and put jewels in them . This was a popular practice at the height of the extremely - advanced Mayan Empire , which live on over a millenary before 900 AD , when it abruptly lost control over vast portions of Mexico , Belize , Guatemala , and Honduras .
These jawbones , which scientists have identify as being from two individuals , showed up in a little boxwood delivered to the Honduran Embassy in the Netherlands last hebdomad . Local authority mull over that the bones had been steal in Honduras after researchers at Leiden University ran an analysis on them .
According to the Latin American Herald Tribune :
After the os were receive at the embassy in the Netherlands , the government of that European land request that they be examined at Leiden University to determine their origin and to document the dental adornment , the Honduran alien coition secretariat said .
It added that the pieces were canvas using strontium isotope analytic thinking , which showed that the proportion of strontium in the tooth enamel was consistent with that find oneself in the water system of Honduras ’ Copan River .
The tests determined that the individuals to whom the stiff belong were from an sphere of western Honduras now known as the Copan ruin , the Central American country ’s most crucial archaeological situation .
The finger cymbals were delivered anonymously to the embassy , and nobody has any idea who did it . Perhaps a Dutch collector who mat they should go to their country of blood ? A guilt - wracked phallus of an international ring of archeologist pirates ?
disregarding of who it was , the pearl have now been recall to Honduras , where they will rest at a research institute .
SOURCE : Romance American Herald Tribune
Photo by Orlando Sierra / AFP / Getty Images .
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