A 1,600-year-old Mayan Tablet Discovered In Guatemalan Forest

One 1,600 year-old Mayan tablet was found recently in the El Achiotal ruins of a temple in Guatemala. It displays a king's 40-year reign when there was conflict in Mayan period between 400 BC and 550 AD, according to rt.

"This stela portrays an early king during one of the more poorly understood periods of ancient Maya history," Marcello Canuto, an anthropologist at Tulane University in Louisiana, says.

While the digging had been ongoing for a long time, it was found in an unseen chamber or shrine. Various objects were found here along with the tablet.

The ruler at the time was the fifth vassal of another king, who had been ruling even when there had been some military chaos.

"He's someone under another larger person. He has an overlord of his own," Canuto told LiveScience.

The broken tablet, or stela, as it is called, shows the king's head, crowned with a feathered headdress. Some of it falls on his neck and shoulders too. Another inscription in hieroglyphics commemorates his 40-year reign.

The exact date of the plate is not too clear, as the writing is too worn. However, there are four theories, and the most likely years is 418 AD, when the king celebrated his 40th year as a ruler.

A number of events has made Canuto identify a design that shows that "the fall of one [king] was at the hands of the rise of the other."