NIU anthropology professor William Fash directed a team of 12 students through an ancient Mayan city in 1987 where they uncovered 1,200-year-old jade and flint artifacts. 

Fash had been taking American students to the Copan ruins for the last 10 years to unearth, conserve and reconstruct the thousands of mosaic sculptures scattered over the site and to learn how the society functioned and why it eventually collapsed.

The team taken in 1987 consisted of eight NIU students, two Yale University students, one Princeton University student and one University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign student, according to a 1987 Northern Star article. 

Among the discovered artifacts was a jade figure dating back to A.D. 756, buried under an alter in the Mayan city of Honduras nearly 12 centuries ago. 

“This is the finest ceremonial offering that has yet been discovered in the ruins of Copan,” Fash said, according to the article. 

The Honduran Institute of Anthropology and History displayed the artifacts in a town near Copan on March 19, 1987, in observance of a Catholic religious holiday, Fash said. Since it is a Catholic community, the scientists wanted it displayed in the town for people to celebrate.