Maya warrior queen may have built the longest 'white road' in the Yucatan
By Tom Metcalfe - Live Science Contributor a day ago
Did she build it for war or peace?
Archaeologists have surveyed the Mayan road with airborne lidar technology to reveal the ancient
structures along its length.
(Image: © Courtesy of Traci Ardren (University of Miami), Proyecto Sacbe Yacuna-Coba, and Cultural
Heritage Engineering Initiative)
A ruthless Maya warrior queen may have ordered the building of an elaborate road more than 1,000 years ago to invade a distant city and to counter the rising power of another, archaeologists say.
They think the queen of the Maya city of Cobá, Lady K'awiil Ajaw, may have ordered the road's construction around A.D. 680 so her armies could travel along it to conquer and take control of the city of Yaxuná, about 60 miles (100 kilometers) to the west, in what is now Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula.
Lady K'awiil Ajaw was one of the most powerful and warlike rulers of ancient Cobá, and carved stone monuments show her standing over captives, says archaeologist Travis Stanton of the University of California, Riverside.
"Given the bellicose nature of her monuments," she may have been the ruler who extended the road to control Yaxuná, Stanton said.
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