Mexico City: Archaeologists announced on Tuesday that they dug to the very core of Mexico's tallest pyramid and found what may be the original ceremonial offering placed on the site of the Pyramid of the Sun before construction began.
The offerings found at the base of the pyramid in the Teotihuacan ruin site just north of Mexico City include a green serpentine stone mask so delicately carved and detailed that archaeologists believe it may have been a portrait.
The find also includes 11 ceremonial clay pots dedicated to a rain god similar to Tlaloc, who was still worshipped in the area 1,500 years later, according to a statement by the National Institute of Anthropology and History, or INAH.
The offerings, including bones of an eagle fed rabbits as well as feline and canine animals that haven't yet been identified, were laid on a sort of rubble base where the temple was erected about AD 50.
"We know that it was deposited as part of a consecration ritual for the construction of the Pyramid of the Sun," said INAH archaeologist Enrique Perez Cortes.
Experts followed an old tunnel dug through the pyramid by researchers in the 1930s that narrowly missed the centre, and then dug small extensions and exploratory shafts off it.
What they found points to the earliest days of the still largely mysterious Teotihuacan culture.
‘Exciting find'
The remains of three structures that predate the pyramid were found buried at the base. Archaeologists have known that the ceremonial significance of the site, perhaps as a ‘link' to the underworld, predates the pyramids.
They also found seven burials, some of them infant remains.
Susan Gillespie, an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Florida who was not involved in the project, called the find "exciting and important, although I would not say it was unexpected", given that dedicatory offerings were commonly placed in MesoAmerican pyramids.
