MICHOACAN.- The discovery of a funerary chamber of more than a 1,000 years old, in the Archaeological Zone of Tingambato Michoacan, with an unidentified character’s burial, accompanied by 19,000 green stone beads, shells and human bones, is one of the most outstanding results of a special archaeological investigation and conservation project by INAH in five different pre Hispanic sites in this zone.
According to the archaeologists of the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH-Conaculta), the architectural complexity of the mortuary chamber and the burial’s wealth (which belong to the Classic period [200 through 900 AD]) indicate that the remains belong to a high ranking character from the ancient metropolis of Tingambato.
The cultural particulars of the burial haven’t been identified yet, but it’s inferred that the chamber matches the funerary traditions of the West, such as shaft tombs and the tombs of El Opeño, although these we built during the Pre Classic period (300 through 200 BC) and continuing through the Classic period (400 through 600 AD).
Archaeologist Melchor Cruz, coordinator of the conservation and investigation works of Tingambato, reported that the characteristics that have dominated in Tomb II and the wealth of the burial indicate that Tingambato must have had a major importance in the pre Hispanic culture of this region, which until now “could have been a governing center of the Classic Mesoamerican period, in the central region of what today is Michoacan”.
Archaeologists discover funerary chamber more than a 1,000 years old in Michoacan
