2,400-year-old puppets with 'dramatic facial expression' discovered atop pyramid in El Salvador

Archaeologists have discovered rare, 2,400-year-old puppets in El Salvador that may have been used in public rituals to perform well-known events that were "mythical or real." The finding suggests that the people of El Salvador were more integrated into the wider Central American culture than previously thought, a new study finds.

Archaeologists found the five ceramic figurines, depicting four females and one male, on top of a large pyramidal structure in 2022. The unexpected find, reported in the journal Antiquity on Wednesday (March 5), initially appeared to be part of lavish burial offerings. But because the archaeologists found no human remains onsite, the puppets' location at the tallest pyramid at the site instead hints that they were used for public rituals, the archaeologists said.

"One of the most striking features of the puppets is their dramatic facial expression, which changes depending on the angle that we look at them from," study lead author Jan Szymański, an archaeologist at the University of Warsaw, said in a statement. At eye-level, the puppets appear angry; from above, they appear to be grinning; from below, they look scared. "This is a conscious design, perhaps meant to enhance the gamut of ritual performances the puppets could have been used in," Szymański said.

Three of the five puppets are each nearly 1 foot (30 centimeters) tall, while the others are shorter at 0.6 feet (18 cm) and 0.3 feet (10 cm) in height. The three larger figurines are depicted naked and don't have hair or jewelry, but the two smaller ones are fashioned with "locks of hair on their foreheads and earspools in the lobes," the researchers wrote in the study.

The larger figurines have movable heads and open mouths, like modern toy dolls, and may have been used in a theatrical scene or tableau to convey messages or stories from "readily decodable events, mythical or real," that are now lost, the archaeologists wrote. It was unclear whether these figures represent actual individuals.

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Apart from the five intact figurines, the archaeologist also found figurine fragments in other parts of the excavation site. The upper part of the smallest figurine from the tableau fits into a hollow torso figure, which the archaeologists speculated could be elements of a birth reenactment scene.

This is only the second time that researchers have found ceramic figurines like these in their original location, and "the first to feature a male figure," Szymański said. The first discovery was of six broken but complete female figurines that other archaeologists found in 2012 at a burial site in the western Guatemalan highlands. Those figurines date to the late Middle Preclassical period (350 to 100 B.C.).

The El Salvador finds, which date to around 400 B.C. suggest that this kind of puppet may have been used in rituals during the Preclassic (2000 B.C. to A.D. 200) and Classic (A.D. 200 to 900) periods in Central America. Their style and material, similar to those found in Guatemala, suggests a shared tradition and connections between the elites of the time, according to the archaeologists.

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Three of the five figurines have movable heads with a protrusion and socket allowing for movement.

One of the three large figurines depicts a male whose head bears tattoos or scars.

The upper body of the smallest figurine fits inside the hollow belly of another figurine discovered nearby at the site.

El Salvador was thought to be isolated

Around A.D. 400 to 500, many of El Salvador's artifacts were lost or buried in volcanic ashes when the Ilopango volcano erupted and unleashed pyroclastic flows — a mixture of volcanic gases, ash and rocks. The massive eruption released 10 times the volume of material as Mount Vesuvius' eruption in Pompeii in A.D. 79 and killed all life within 25 miles (40 kilometers) of the volcano, a 2020 study in the journal PNAS found.

Because of the devastation caused by the volcano, as well as the region's high population density today, which limits archaeological digs, "very little is known about the identities and ethnolinguistic affiliations of the creators of ancient settlements that predate the arrival of Europeans in the early 16th century," Szymański said. This lack of evidence led some to believe that El Salvador might not share the same political or social beliefs that neighboring countries had.

But the discovery of the figurines suggests that ancient people in what is now El Slavador had ties with other parts of Central America. Other artifacts found at the El Salvador site, including jade pendants, are similar to those found at archaeological sites in modern-day Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama, indicating cultural and trade connections between El Salvador and its neighbors, the researchers found.

"This discovery contradicts the prevailing notion about El Salvador's cultural backwardness or isolation in the ancient times," Szymański said. "It reveals the existence of vibrant and far-reaching communities capable of exchanging ideas with remarkably distant places."