THE MAYAN DYNASTY : SNAKE KINGS

AN ALTAR found at Guatemala's La Corona site suggests the Myan dynasty of Kaanul, known as the Snake Kings, acted like its namesake in slowly squeezing the rival kingdom of Tikal, archaeologists said Friday.

A team led by Marcello Canuto of Tulane University uncovered the carved stone altar in the northern Peten region near the Mexico border.

When it was first found in 2017, the altar was encased in the roots of a tree in a collapsed temple. It took a year to painstakingly pry the massive stone slab from the roots, fully excavate it and move it to Guatemala City, where it was presented this week at  a museum.

The alter is dated A.D. 544 and depicts the Tikal ruler Chak Took Ich'aak conjuring two gods from a shaft in the form of a double-headed snake.

The same man appears 20 years later as a vassal of the  Kaanul dynasty and the ruler of the larger, nearby of Peniwaka.  But the gods associated with him are different local Deities associated with that place.

Canuto said the alter suggests Kaanul's  eventual victory was the result of decades of astute politicking and cultural appropriation, not just battles.

Chak Took Ich'aak and his son  are trying to show that they are praying or conjuring up gods that were there way earlier to give them that kind of legitimacy,'' Canuto said.

''It's almost like they are setting up franchises, but using the same recipes of local gods, claiming they had access to local deities. There's an attempt to render this whole process legitimate by appealing to local interests.''

It's unlikely  that La Corona could have simply conquered  EI Peru, which was much more powerful, unless it had backing from someone even more powerful.

''This would be equivalent to  Cuba defeating the  United States in a war. They could have only done that..........if they had had the backing of the Soviet Union,'' Canuto said.

The enormous  city-state of Tikal, whose towering temples still stand in the jungle, battled for centuries for dominance of the Maya world with the Kaanul dynasty.

Just a few a few decades after the alter was carved, Kaanul apparently defeated Tikal by amassing a  string of allied cities that encircled and eventually strangled Tikal.

The symbol of the  Kaanul dynasty were stone masks covered in the form of grinning snakes.

Francisco Estrada-Belli, a Tulane University archaeologist who was not involved in the study La Corona discovery said :  ''Its broader significance is that it shows the   ''behind-the-scenes........machinations of the  Snake Kings as they are expanding their empire in the direction of Tikal.'' [Agencies]