John Travolta might know how to photobomb, but the Mayans did it better. (OK, at least first!)
Most Maya murals depict the royal life, but a newly discovered mural in the Guatemalan rainforest shows advisers to the royal governor, dressed as the wind god - and an attendant peeking out from behind the leader's headdress, according to Live Science.
"It's really our first good look at what scholars in the eighth-century Maya lowlands are doing," Bill Saturno, the study's lead researcher and an assistant professor of archaeology at Boston University, told Live Science.
There was a man buried beneath the murals dressed like one of the intellectuals in the mural. Saturno thinks the man may have once lived in the room, according to Live Science. He might have been one of the mysterious "obsidians" whose images cover the walls.
The 1,250-year-old mural was found in the ancient city of Xultun, in the northeastern part of present-day Guatemala.
"My assumption was that there would be very little to see," Saturno said. "Not because the Maya didn't paint murals - they did - but they don't preserve well in a tropical environment."
The environment played nicely with the elements, and archaeologists found a room covered in murals and the oldest known Maya dating system on record - a Maya calendar.
The study was published in the journal Antiquity. The co-authors are Heather Hurst at Skidmore College in New York, Franco Rossi at Boston University and David Stuart at the University of Texas at Austin.
