In 2015, 7News was first to report on the second largest piece of carved piece of jade ever found in Belize and probably in the entire Maya World. It was unearthed at Nim Li Punit in the Toledo District and researchers are still marveling over it. An online news outlet named "phys.ORG" quotes a paper recently published in the Cambridge University journal Ancient Mesoamerica detailing the jewel's significance.
According to Archaeologist Geoffrey Braswell it's the only pendant known to be inscribed with a historical text. Carved into the pendant's back are 30 hieroglyphs about its first owner. Braswell notes, quote, "We would expect something like it in one of the big cities of the Maya world. Instead, here it was, far from the center." End quote. The pendant measures 7.4 inches wide, 4.1 inches high and just 0.3 inches thick. The article notes that sawing it into this thin, flat form using string, fat and jade dust would have been a technical feat.
Tonight, we re-visit the story on this remarkable piece which I first reported on in June 2015:..
So, what do the inscriptions on the pendant mean? The paper reports that the text is still being analyzed by Christian Prager of the University of Bonn.
But the interpretation so far is this: The jewel was made for the king Janaab' Ohl K'inich, and the hieroglyphs describe the king's parentage. "His mother, the text implies, was from Cahal Pech while the king's father may have come from somewhere in Guatemala.
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