GUATEMALA CITY, June 13 (UPI) -- A Guatemalan tomb shows that women may have been more powerful in Mayan society than previously thought -- powerful enough to be killed.
A report in the journal Nature said that the tomb in the city of Waka contained the bodies of two young women who had been slaughtered and then arranged in a ritual manner. Archaeologists believe that the deaths followed some sort of power struggle or inter-city rivalry.
David Freidel, an archaeologist at Southern Methodist University and co-director of the dig a Waka, said that conquerors may have tried to wipe out the line of descent of rulers they had overcome.
"When one Maya group conquered another, it may not have been enough to simply invade and take over," Freidel said. "It may also have been standard practice to slay women of the elite class."
Waka flourished between 400 and 800 A.D. Archaeologists believe that the tomb dates from 350 to 400 A.D.
