Into Death's Dark Night: Exploring a Royal Maya Tomb at El Diablo, Guatemala

In May 2010, a royal tomb came to light at the Classic Maya city of El Zotz, Guatemala, in its high precinct of El Diablo. Such finds are great rarities. Abundant in grave goods, set in majestic buildings, they yield a rich density of information, often of an unexpected sort, about the life- and death-ways of Maya royalty. The discovery of the tomb at El Zotz reveals new evidence about past notions of myth, sacrifice, wealth, and the course by which a king passes into the afterlife. Conceptually, it now seems, the ruler continued as a performer and dancer, a sacrificer and consumer, and the shrines above his tomb endured as nodes of dynastic ritual.