A research group led by Professor Kazuo Aoyama of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Ibaraki University analyzed the polished stone ax buried in the Seibal site in Guatemala with a high-magnification metal microscope for the first time in the world.It was revealed that most of them were ritual stone tools rather than practical products, and that all used ground stone axes were used for shaving wood, which led to the elucidation of the formation process of the dominant layer of the Maya civilization.
Professor Aoyama and his colleagues focused on hard green stone stone axes such as jade buried as offerings at public rituals in the mid-preclassical period (1000-350 BC) at the Seibal site in Guatemala. We empirically examined a part of the formation and early public rituals.
At the time of verification, as a result of analyzing the traces of use of the ground stone ax of the preclassical Maya civilization by the analysis method using the world's first high-magnification metal microscope, most of the ground stone ax is not a practical product but a burial ceremony. It was a ritual stone tool made for the purpose, and it turned out that all used ground stone axes were used for shaving wood.
From this result, it is considered that the idealism that formed and materialized public rituals played an important role in the formation of the ruler of the Maya civilization by interacting with other factors such as interregional exchange and war.A peer-reviewed paper showing this achievement was published in the prestigious archaeological journal Antiquity (Cambridge University Press), with a photo of the relics of the Saybal ruins on the cover of the journal.
