NewsArchaeologyThese ancient Maya puppets may have been used in ritualsThe figurines indicate cultural connections with other parts of Mesoamerica These oddly expressive figurines from the ancient Maya world were probably puppets for ritual scenes and perhaps used for portraying people long dead.J. Przedwojewska-Szymaska/PASIBy Tom Metcalfe35 seconds agoFive oddly expressive clay figurines, made on the edge of the Maya world about 2,400 years ago, were probably used as puppets in public rituals to commemorate mythical or real events.They would have either represented actual personages, or they were generic media for rituals connected to rulers, says archaeologist Jan Szymaski of the University of Warsaw.Szymaski and his colleague Gabriela Prejs unearthed the puppets near the top of a ruined pyramid at the San Isidro archaeological site, a little under 50 kilometers west of San Salvador. The soil layer containing the puppets dates to about 400 B.C. But such figurines may have been used throughout the Maya Preclassic and Classic periods, from about 2000 B.C. to A.D. 900, Szymaski and Prejs report March 5 in Antiquity.This head of a male figurine, unearthed with others amid the ruins of an ancient pyramid in El Salvador, exhibits tattoos or scarification.J. Przedwojewska-Szymaska/PASIOne of the largest puppets is about 30 centimeters tall and depicts a man, while two others of similar size depict women. The three large figurines lack hair, but two smaller ones one almost 18 centimeters tall and the other about 10 centimeters depict women with locks of hair on their foreheads.The puppets had no clothes when they were found, but Szymaski thinks they were decorated for their ritual roles. Im pretty sure that they were given clothes and wigs in order to look more lifelike, he says.