Archaeologists at the pre-Hispanic site of Palenque in the southern Mexican city have discovered a 1,100 year old Maya nose ornament made of human bone. This is the first nose ornament of its kind that archaeologists have found in Palenque.

The delicately carved artefact measures just over 6cm long and 5cm wide. It is made of a fragment of the distal tibia, which is part of the ankle joint. Engravings along the curved bone depict the ceremonial communications between gods and ancestors. Carved in the centre is a Mayan man wearing a headdress with the Mayan glyph ak’ab’ on his arm that symbolises “darkness” or “night”, next to a human skull. It was a common scene in Mayan art from the Classic Period (250-900 AD).

Experts believe the nasal ornament was worn by priests during ceremonies in which they embodied the Mayan deity K’awiil, also known as God K, who was the god of corn and is associated with lightning, fertility and abundance. The piece would have been worn on top of the nose, according to artistic depictions at the site, possibly to recreate the elongated head of K’awiil.

“The Palencanos sought to reproduce the head of this god through intentional cranial deformation,” explained the project coordinator, Arnoldo González Cruz.

It was found buried under a stucco floor in a ritual deposit pit at House C, part of the Palace of Palenque, a Unesco World Heritage site. The conservation project is being conducted by the federal Ministry of Culture, through the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH). 

When describing the dig site, Cruz said “the earth matrix was very dark, with a high amount of charcoal, and intermingled were seeds, fish bones, turtles, small mammals, obsidian blades, some large pieces of charcoal and, among them, a bone nasal ornament.” The extraordinary discovery – the first of its kind in the area – is an important example of Mayan elite artistic practices.