Among many evidences of early contacts between Mesoamerica and the Near East which are coming to light through current research, some of the more striking concern the use of incense. In the Near East, incense was used ceremonially in ancient times probably to a greater extent than anywhere else in the world except Mesoamerica. The importance of incense-burning in Hebrew ritual is clear in the Old Testament. Examination of the uses of incense in these two widely-separated areas, the Near East and Mesoamerica, shows many parallels. Some of these are: use in periodic temple rites, in incensing holy objects and officiants, in divinations, in New Year renewal ceremonies, in accompanying sacrifices, etc. In both area the ascending smoke symbolized prayer rising to heaven. Other details of concept and practice are equally striking.

Confirming these parallels is a remarkable likeness in the incense-burners themselves. Numerous specific details link those found in early highland Guatemalan sites with a type quite common to the Near East about 3000 years ago. Significant is the fact that the likeness is strongest in the earlier pronged examples yet found in Guatemala, dating to perhaps 500 B.C., while the same general pronged type had already a long history in the Near East by then and passed out of fashion soon after.

The complex parallels in ideas, practices, and paraphernalia involving incense in religious ceremonies of both the Near East and Guatemala seem explainable only on the basis of a movement of people form the former area to the latter.

Additional evidence of such a connection is seen in the use of oracle or “seer” stones of people of ancient and even modern Mesoamerica, especially Yucatán and Guatemala. The Urim and Thummim of the Israelites was only one example of widespread use of such stones in the Old World for predicting the future. A certain traditional account from ancient Mexico strongly suggests that one colonizing group arrived there by sea in the distant past, divinely guided by means of a sacred stone.