2,000-year-old skeleton of Maya Queen discovered in rodent-infested tomb

A 2,000-year-old skeleton of a Maya Queen has been discovered in a rodent-infested tomb in the Guatemalan ruins of Nakum.

The head of the skeleton was spotted niftily placed between two bowls.

Among other excavations were included priceless jade gorgets, beads, and ceremonial knives - which were found underneath a younger 1,300-year-old tomb that also contained a body.

This is the first time that royal burials have been discovered at the site, which was once a densely packed Maya centre.

“We think this structure was something like a mausoleum for the royal lineage for at least 400 years,” the Daily Mail quoted Wieslaw Koszkul from the Jagiellonian University Institute of Archaeology in Krakow, Poland, as saying.

The corpse found in the upper tomb had been badly destroyed by rodents over the intervening centuries, but researchers said it was evident that the body belonged to another Maya ruler.

They also believed that the skeleton might be of a woman due to the small size of a ring found in the tomb.