The excavations of Altun Ha

      Early in 1963 the attention of Belize's first archaeological commissioner, A. H. Anderson, was drawn to the coastal-zone site now known as Altun Ha when a villager from Rockstone Pond attempted to sell a large carved jade pendant he had unearthed at the site to tourists in Belize City. Anderson contacted David Pendergast, who had carried out work in the country's western district at the beginning of that year, and in late summer Pendergast began test excavations at the site. Shortly thereafter Pendergast was invited by the Royal Ontario Museum to lead the revival of the museum's research programme in Belize, and discussions led to the ROM's commencement of full-scale excavations at Altun Ha under his direction in January of 1964. The project, financed by the museum, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the Globe and Mail, and The Canada Council (later the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada), continued through 1970, with a season of laboratory work in the following year. At the time it was the largest-scale and longest-term archaeological endeavour ever carried out in Belize

The 1968 season brought the project's most spectacular discovery, in the form of a 14.9 cm-high, 4.42 kg jade head of the Maya sun god, Kinich Ahau. The giant jade lay atop the right wrist of the person interred in the earliest of a series of seven royal tombs encountered in Altun Ha's Structure B-4, the Temple of The Masonry Altars. The tomb, which lay deep beneath a giant central stair block that dominates the upper part of the structure, was of the characteristic Altun Ha form, with an earthen floor, boulder walls, and giant chert slabs as the roof. In addition to the jade head the crypt contained numerous smaller jade objects, several large modified Spondylus oyster shells, and five polychrome and bichrome pottery vessels. Fragmentary remains showed that the ruler's body was once covered with several skins of large felids, probably jaguar and cougar, and that a corner of the crypt had contained a large pile of cloth, matting, and other perishables. Bits of cloth, probably parts of the individual's garments, lay around the skeleton, impregnated with the red pigment that covered the entire burial. Beneath the crypt contents stood the remains of a large, round-cornered wooden platform with short cylindrical legs, under which were impressions of large cables used to lower the device into the crypt. Excavation below the earth floor revealed three groups of large ceremonial flints, a further pottery vessel, a pyrite mirror, and the remains of two stucco-coated wooden or gourd bowls with polychrome decoration. The jade head, famous almost from the moment of its discovery, has now become the national symbol of Belize, and appears on the country's currency.