ecopolis

The chocolate enjoyed around the world today had its origins at least 3,100 years ago in Central America as a cerimony beer-like beverage and status symbol, the author of The World of the Ancient Maya (Cornell University Press, 1997), John Henderson said.

All of the Mesoamerican peoples made chocolate beverages, who made it into a beverage known as xocolātl, a Nahuatl word meaning “bitter water”. The seeds of the cacao tree, also being used as a form of currency, have an intense bitter taste, and must be fermented to develop the flavor.

Analysis of residue from a ceramic “teapot” from about 1100 BC, found in Puerto Escondido, Honduras, suggests that chocolate may have been drinking in small, delicate pottery vessels for ceremonial beverages and consumed by elites. This pushed back by at least 500 to years the earliest documented use of cacao.

Deep excavations at Puerto Escondido. The Honduran workman at the right is excavating Olmec-period (approximately 1100-900 BC) remains. Photo by John Henderson.

Chocolate, prepared as a beverage, was introduced in Europe to the Spanish court in 1544 by Kek’chí Maya nobles, brought from Guatemala by Dominican friars. The first load of beans arrived to Sevilla, Spain in 1585. Nowdays Cocoa beans are still used as a form of currency: trade means prices, taxes, and shipping costs. Business chocolate.

Researchers at the Museum of High Altitude Archaeology preparing the frozen mummy of a 15-year-old girl, called La Doncella, “the maiden,” for exhibition.

SALTA, Argentina — The maiden, the boy, the girl of lightning: they were three Inca children, entombed on a bleak and frigid mountaintop 500 years ago as a religious sacrifice.

The three Inca children were found frozen at the peak of Mount Llullaillaco, 6,700 m. above sea level, on March of 1999.
Their frozen bodies were among the best preserved mummies ever found, with internal organs intact, blood still present in the heart and lungs, and skin and facial features mostly unscathed. The children were sacrificed as part of a religious ritual, known as capacocha. They walked hundreds of miles to and from ceremonies in Cuzco and were then taken to the summit of Llullaillaco (yoo-yeye-YAH-co), given chicha (maize beer), and, once they were asleep, placed in underground niches, where they froze to death.

Nature was sacred for American Pre-Columbian cultures. Mountains were considered the gods or “apus” who protected the communities. The Inca state attributed great importance to this ancient worship, and its inhabitants built small constructions for religious rituals that are nowadays known as “high altitude sanctuaries or shrines.” Mount Llullaillaco is the highest peak of the region.

In the eight years since their discovery, the mummies, known here simply as Los Niños or “the children,” have been photographed, X-rayed, CT scanned and biopsied for DNA. The cloth, pottery and figurines buried with them have been meticulously thawed and preserved. One hundred and forty-six artifacts, which formed this miniature treasure, are exhibited for the first time, at the Museum of High Altitude Archaeology.

A computerized climate control system replicates mountaintop conditions inside the case — low oxygen, humidity and pressure, and a temperature of 0 degrees Fahrenheit.
The room holding La Doncella is dimly lighted, and the case itself is dark; visitors must turn on a light to see her. At a touch of the button, she seemed to materialize from the past, sitting cross-legged in her brown dress and striped sandals, bits of coca leaf still clinging to her upper lip, her long hair woven into many fine braids, a crease in one cheek where it leaned against her shawl as she slept.

Source: NYTimes