MessageToEagle.com – This mysterious corncob-shaped artifact has been discovered underwater at the site of Arroyo Pesquero in Veracruz, Mexico.
It has been dating to somewhere between 900 B.C. and 400 B.C., and is made of jadeite, a material harder than steel.
The Arroyo Pesquero region has been long recognized as an important but largely unknown south-eastern Olmec archaeological zone.
The archaeological region is not only important for the many Olmec sites, but also for its close proximity (10 km) to the Middle Formative period (900-500 BC) Olmec political capital of La Venta.
According to archaeologists the artifact contains rectangular shapes, engraved lines and a cone that looks like it is emerging from the top. It looks like a corncob in an abstract way
It’s an “extraordinary and unusual archaeological specimen made of mottled brown-and-white jadeite,” the team wrote in an article published recently in the journal Ancient Mesoamerica.
Jack Hunter, a diver with the Arroyo Pesquero archaeological project, discovered the artifact in 2012 while diving with Jeffery Delsescaux about 2 to 3 meters (6.6 to 9.8 feet) below the surface of a deep stream.
“Underwater conditions were particularly challenging and included near-zero visibility and many obstructions, including large logs, smaller debris, partially decomposed leaves and other vegetation,” the team wrote.
The artifact dates to a time when a civilization now called the Olmec flourished in the area. The Olmec people built stone statues of giant human heads and constructed a city now called “La Venta” about 10 miles (16 kilometers) northeast of Arroyo Pesquero. The city, which may have supported some 10,000 people, contained a 112-foot-high (34 m) pyramid.
The artifact, which measures 8.7 centimeters high by 2.5 centimeters wide (3.4 inches by 1 inch) at its widest point, is tricky to decipher.
“The iconography is pretty difficult to interpret; it’s definitely not clear,” said Carl Wendt, a professor at California State University, Fullerton who is directing the project. “It seems to be an abstract representation, I believe, of a cob of corn,” he said. Corn, along with beans and squash, was an important part of the diet for people in ancient Mesoamerica.
See also:
The Olmecs – Who They Were, Where They Came From Still Remains A Mystery
Precious Ancient Chinese Immortality Suits Made Of Jade
Epi-Olmec: Undeciphered Isthmian Script Of Mesoamerica
The artifact may have had several uses. “While it certainly could have once been the handle of a bloodletter, in its current form, we argue that it probably would have been attached, as a finial, to a staff and functioned as a symbol of power and authority,” the team wrote in the article.
In the end, the artifact may have been placed in the stream as an offering, Wendt said. The offering could have been connected to deities, ancestor veneration or magic, he added. Over the past 50 years thousands of artifacts have been found at the site and they may have been left as offerings, archaeologists say.
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