A Maya pyramid in what is
today El Salvador was built in the wake of a giant, climate-cooling volcanic
explosion to 'guard against future eruptions', a study has found.
The AD 539 'Tierra Blanca Joven' eruption of the Ilopango volcano — today a crater lake — was the largest in Central America in the last 10,000 years. It is thought to have released some 20 cubic miles of volcanic material, or 'tephra', into the air, coating the surrounding area in deposits some 1.6 feet thick.
Archaeologist Akira
Ichikawa of the University of Colorado Boulder studied the Campana pyramid at
San Andrés, in the Zapotitán valley, 25 miles from Ilopango. His analysis
revealed that the structure was built out of tephra from the eruption just 5–30
years after the devastating event — and completed within 80 years.
The timing suggests the pyramid was built in response to the volcano — which like mountains, Dr. Ichikawa noted, were sacred in the Mesoamerican worldview. "Due to the catastrophic magnitude of the [Tierra Blanca Joven] eruption, scholars have considered that many sites were abandoned and it took a long time to reoccupy affected areas," explained Dr. Ichikawa.
However, he explained, the
timing and sheer scale of the Campana pyramid's contraction indicate that
people quickly returned to occupy the San Andrés site, transforming it into the
center of occupation in the surrounding valley.
The Campana structure consists of a pyramidal form — some 43 feet (13 meters) in height — build atop a 23 feet (7 meters) tall platform. The total structure had a volume of some 1,165,384 cubic feet (33,000 cubic meters), making it the largest structure in the valley at the time it was built.
Besides its likely
religious function, Dr. Ichikawa believes that the construction of the Campana pyramid
may have also served a social function. The significant construction effort may
have helped to bring people — both survivors of the volcano and newcomers to
the region — together.
Alongside this, the monumental effort may have helped the Maya rulers who commissioned the construction to reinforce their status and power, which may well have been challenged by the preceding volcanic disaster.
This hypothesis may also
account for why a similar spate of construction occurred around 620 AD — in the
wake of a second volcanic eruption from Loma Caldera, a mere 3.7 miles (6
kilometers) to the north of San Andrés.
According to Dr Ichikawa, the smaller but arguably more elaborate Acropolis structure at San Andrés was likely built after the Loma Caldera eruption. "Abrupt environmental change is one of the problems facing modern society," commented Dr. Ichikawa.
"Sites like San Andrés can teach us about human creativity, innovation, adaptation, resilience, and vulnerability in the face of such events."
The full findings of the study were published in the journal Antiquity.
Source: Daily Mail
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