One day in the year 800, the peaceful Maya city of Cancuen reaped the whirlwind. King Kan Maax must have known that trouble was coming, for he had tried to build makeshift breastworks at the approaches to his 200-room palace. He didn't finish in time.
The attackers quickly overran the outskirts of the city and streamed into Cancuen's ritual heart. The speed of the attack is obvious even today. Unfinished construction projects lay in tumbled heaps. Half-carved stone monuments littered the pathways. Pots and bowls were strewn about the palace kitchen.
The invaders took 31 hostages. The jewels and ornaments found with their remains marked them as nobles, perhaps members of Kan Maax's extended family or royal guests from stricken cities elsewhere. The captives included women and children; two of the women were pregnant.
All were led to the ceremonial courtyard of the palace and systematically executed. The killers wielded spears and axes, impaling or decapitating their victims. They laid the corpses in the palace's cistern. Roughly 30 feet (nine meters) long and 10 feet (three meters) deep, it was lined with red stucco and fed by an underground spring. The bodies, accompanied by ceremonial garments and precious ornaments, fit easily. Kan Maax and his queen were not spared. They were buried a hundred yards (90 meters) away in two feet (0.6 meters) of construction fill intended for remodeling the palace. The king still wore his elaborate ceremonial headdress and a mother-of-pearl necklace identifying him as Holy Lord of Cancuen.
No one knows who the killers were or what they sought. Booty apparently did not interest them. Some 3,600 pieces of jade, including several jade boulders, were left untouched; household goods in the palace and ceramics in Cancuén's giant kitchen were undisturbed. But to archaeologists who have dug up the evidence over the past several years, the invaders' message is clear. By depositing the bodies in the cistern, "they poisoned the well," says Vanderbilt University archaeologist Arthur Demarest. They also chipped the faces from all the carved likenesses on Cancuén's stone monuments and pushed them over, facedown. "The site," says Demarest, "was ritually killed."
fatal - 致命的，命运的
reap - 收获
whirlwind - 旋风
makeshift - 临时的，凑合的
breastwork - 临时性低矮防护墙
overrun - 泛滥
tumble - 倒塌
litter - 散乱 The yard was littered with bottles and cans. No litter.
strew - 散落于
invader - 侵略者
hostage - 人质
ornament - 装饰品
captive - 俘虏
execute - 处死
wield - 挥舞
impale - 刺
decapitate - 斩首
victim - 被害者，牺牲者
corpse - 尸体
cistern - 水槽
garment - 衣服
elaborate - 精巧的
booty - 战利品
boulder - 卵石，巨砾
No one knows who the killers were or what they sought. Booty apparently did not interest them. Some 3,600 pieces of jade, including several jade boulders, were left untouched; household goods in the palace and ceramics in Cancuén's giant kitchen were undisturbed. But to archaeologists who have dug up the evidence over the past several years, the invaders' message is clear. By depositing the bodies in the cistern, "they poisoned the well," says Vanderbilt University archaeologist Arthur Demarest. They also chipped the faces from all the carved likenesses on Cancuén's stone monuments and pushed them over, facedown. "The site," says Demarest, "was ritually killed."
fatal - 致命的，命运的
reap - 收获
whirlwind - 旋风
makeshift - 临时的，凑合的
breastwork - 临时性低矮防护墙
overrun - 泛滥
tumble - 倒塌
litter - 散乱 The yard was littered with bottles and cans. No litter.
strew - 散落于
invader - 侵略者
hostage - 人质
ornament - 装饰品
captive - 俘虏
execute - 处死
wield - 挥舞
impale - 刺
decapitate - 斩首
victim - 被害者，牺牲者
corpse - 尸体
cistern - 水槽
garment - 衣服
elaborate - 精巧的
booty - 战利品
boulder - 卵石，巨砾
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