In
this Web site you will find information about more than 110
ancient archaeological Sites, most of them from the Pre Classic and
Classic
Maya Culture, in Guatemala, and all of
those, have photo galleries, as well as information and many photos
Galleries of
Post Classic sites,
Guatemala Living Culture,
Present day Guatemala,
the world awarded
Xocomil and Xetulul
IRTRA,
Amusement Parks,
Holly week,
Antigua Guatemala,
(Top
World City to visit
Wanderlust
award
2009)
Landscape
,Wild Life and
Nature galleries.
You can also Download the best examples of Maya Mythology and History. "The Popol Vuh" and "The Annals of the Kak'chi'kels",
as well as the Maya Theater Play
Rabinal Achí,
and the four surviving Maya Codices (Dresden,
Madrid, Paris and Grolier, see Maya Writing),
in this web site. Also an excellent study of the Post classic Highlands and Classic Maya
Texts is in this Mesoweb Report (PDF
file),
History
It’s accepted that, barring
a few Vikings in the north and proven direct transpacific migration
from Southeast Asia, as long ago as 50,000 B.C., the pre-Hispanic
inhabitants of the Americas arrived from Siberia. They came in several
migrations between perhaps 60,000 and 8000 BC, during the last ice age,
crossing
land that is now submerged beneath the Behring Strait, then gradually
moving southward.
The first proof of human settlers in
Guatemala goes back to 10,000 BC, although there are some
evidences not yet clearly proved that put this date at 18,000 BC, some
obsidian arrow heads,
both the northern "clovis"
and southern "fishtail"
styles, have been found in different parts of
Guatemala such as Piedra Parada
near
Guatemala city,
Chivacabé
(TZI’ KAB’ BE’), in
Huehuetenango, Chajbal
in Quiché, Nahualá
in Sololá, and other regions. They were hunters and
gatherers. Archaic sites have been documented in Quiché in the
Highlands and Sipacate
on the central pacific coast line (6500 BC). These early
inhabitants hunted mammoths, fished and gathered wild foods. The ice
age was followed by a hot,
dry period in which the mammoths’
natural pastureland disappeared and the wild nuts and berries became
scarce. The primitive inhabitants had to find
some other way to survive, so they sought out favorable microclimates
and invented
agriculture, in which
maize (corn) became king. The inhabitants of what are now Guatemala
successfully hybridized this native grass (Euchlæna luxurians or teosinte) with Tripsacum spp, obtaining Zea Luxurians, formerly known
as Zea Guatemala,
and planted it alongside
beans, tomatoes, chili peppers and squashes (marrow). They wove baskets
to carry in the harvest, and they domesticated turkeys and dogs for
food. These early homebodies used crude stone tools and primitive
pottery, and shaped simple clay fertility figurines. there is
archeological proof in pollen samples from Petén
and the Pacific coast that maize crops were
developed around 3500 BC.
Preclassic sites in Guatemala's Highlands and Pacifc Lowlands, note the
South Eastern, not
investigated, until recently
By 2500.BC, small
settlements were developing in Guatemala’s
Pacific Lowlands,
places as Las Victorias,
Tilapa,
La Blanca, Ocós,
El Mesak,
Ujuxte,
Tak'alik' Ab'aj
and
others, where the oldest ceramic pottery from Mesoamerica have been
found, indeed the first pottery documented at San Lorenzo, the earliest
Olmec
Center in Veracruz, is Ocós
style, but dates to some 600 years later (Coe and Diehl
1980; Lowe1977). From 2000 BC heavy concentration of pottery
in the Pacific Coast Line has been documented. The first monumental
sculpture is the so-called Fat Boys from
Monte Alto a
Preclassic site in the central Pacific coastal plain of Guatemala, "There is
little question that the most primitive examples of the
sculptor's art in Mesoamerica, all stem from the Pacific Lowlands in
Guatemala, it was in this region that the raw materials, including both
granite and basalt, were readily available for carving". (Vincent H. Malmström, Department of Geography, Dartmouth College,
Hanover, NH 03755).
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Mysterious
Giant Head near
Monte Alto. Note two men
seated on it and the car (1940s) |
In
the Early Pre-Classic there were few attempts to shape the landscape.
The modification of space was limited to the construction of dwellings
on high ground. Some of these dwellings were apparently more elaborate
than others and may have served as the scene of special actions or
ritual acts. This is an important step, however, in that specific
behaviors became fixed in space; they became associated with a locale.
It was the first step toward segregating and regularizing activities in
space. Things changed fundamentally at the beginning of the Middle
Pre-Classic. Monumental architecture of the type constructed at
La Blanca,
Ujuxte,
Tak'alik Ab'aj, and other centers had several
effects on social interaction. The size and durability of these
monuments is significantly greater than anything that previously
existed in Mesoamerica. The monuments at La Blanca and its secondary
centers appear to define the center and peripheries of a polity, Just
as the earliest Maya Centers in
The Mirador Basin,
in the
Petén
lowlands, and
Polol in
Central Petén.
At the same time social space was becoming more highly segregated
during the Pre-Classic,
the calendrical reckoning of time
was also becoming more formalized and more elaborate. The disciplinary
dimensions surrounding the control of time by the elite are enormous
and had ramifications for every aspect of daily life. (Michael Love,
1992)
Recent
excavations suggest that the
Highlands in sites as
Naranjo, and
Kaminaljuyú, were a geographic and
temporal bridge between Early Preclassic villages of the Pacific coast
and later
Petén lowlands
cities. Recent excavations in the Antigua Guatemala Valley, at Urías and Rucal, have yielded stratified
materials for the Early and Middle Preclassic, the first pottery in the
Antigua Valley is very well made and not
simply a copy of either coastal or piedmont types.Recently
a Village submerged in Lake Atitlán has been discovered, it is
named Samabaj,
follow this link to see a Video from UFM. Their paste
analyses, however, indicate that the vessels were made on clays from
different environmental zones, suggesting to them that these were
people from the Pacific coast who expanded into the Antigua Valley.
There are at least 5000
archeological sites in Guatemala, some 3000 of them in
Petén alone.
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|
Uaxactún
Group E |
Structure
E7 the Focal point in E group ( All the important Classic Maya sites
had E groups named after this , the oldest in the Maya Civilization) |
In
Monte Alto near La
Democracia, Escuintla some giant stone heads and Potbellies or "Fat
Boys" (Barrigones) have been found, Dated at 2000 BC (Ian
Graham 1979). The so named Monte Alto Culture, that is classified as
Pre-Olmec, (Why not Pre-Maya?), letting the door open to the opinion of some
experts that the
Olmec Culture
was born in that area of the Pacific Lowlands, although the size
is the only similarity with the
posterior dated Olmec heads, it is more accurate to say that the Monte Alto Culture was the
first Complex Culture of Mesoamerica and the Predecessors of all the
other cultures. In Guatemala, there are some sites with unmistaken
Olmec style, such as
Chocolá
in Suchitepéquez, La Corona, in
Cotzumalguapa, and
Tak'alik' Ab'aj,
in Retalhuleu, that is the only ancient City in Mesoamerica with Olmec
and Mayan features.
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|
Tak'alik
A´baj Head |
Monte Alto Potbelly |
The renown Archeologist Dr. Richard
Hansen is sure that the Maya at
Mirador Basin
developed the first True political state in America,
(Tha Kan Kingdom),
around 1500 BC, (although
Maize (corn) pollen samples
have been documented in lakes in the area dated in 2400 BC),
not as thought before that the Olmec was the mother culture in
Mesoamerica, he thinks, due to recent finding at Mirador Basin,
Northern Petén, Guatemala, that the Olmec and Mayas
developed its cultures, separately, and merged in
some
places like Tak'alik Abaj
on the Pacific Low Lands; there is no evidence yet to link the Pre
Classic Maya from Petén and those from the Pacific coast,
but undoubtedly, they had cultural and economical links.
North Central Petén
has particularly high densities of Late Preclassic sites, including
Naachtún, Xulnal,
El Mirador, Porvenir, La Florida, Pacaya, La Muralla,
Nakbé, Tintal, Wakná
(formerly Güiro),
Uaxactún,,
Cival,
San Bartolo,
Holmul,
Polol
and
Tikal. Of these, El Mirador, Tikal, Nakbé, Tintal,
Xulnal and Wakná
are the largest in the Maya world, Such size was manifested not only in
the extent of the site, but also in the volume or monumentality,
especially in the construction of immense platforms to support large
temples. Many sites of this era display monumental masks for the first
time (Uaxactún, El Mirador, Cival, Tikal and Nakbé ). These masks
often seem to depict powerful natural forces such as Sun and Earth, in
the Maya Cosmology and
Mythology.
|
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|
EL Mirador in 300 BC, El Tigre in first plane, La Danta in
the horizon. View from Los Monos. |
Nakbé,
Stucco Mask |
Tikal, Stucco Mask |
Naranjo and
then
Kaminaljuyú,
in the Central
Highlands are the sites that shows the
longest occupation in Mesoamerica, (1000 BC to 1200 AD), located in the
central highlands, in what now is Guatemala City,
had a very privileged part, serving as trading center between
Petén and
the
Pacific lowlands,
where they traded,
cacao,
salt, chile,
jade,
furs, sea shells (The first currency), from both coastal
areas, Quetzal feathers from the
cloud forest in the
Highlands,
obsidian
from "El Chayal",
Ixtepeque Volcano,
and other quarries near Kaminaljuyú, among many
other local and exotic goods.
All the Mesoamerican
Jade, comes
from quarries located in "La Sierra de Las Minas" and the "Motagua"
River valley, Eastern Highlands, Guatemala. Fine jadeite
material in natural colors ranging from a bright, intense green to soft
lilac, blue, pink, white, black and yellow were available only in
Guatemala, and then exported to all Mesoamerica, the green Jade is also
known as "Mayan Jade". The Black jadeite from the Motagua
Valley area, represents the creamiest, richest, and best black jadeite
in the world.
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|
Jadeite Boulder |
The Archeologist divide the
cultural History of Mesoamerica in 3 periods:
The Pre-Classic or Formative from 2000 BC to 250 AD,
(Early: 2000 BC to 800 BC, Middle: 800 to 400 BC, and Late 400 to BC
250 AD), Classic from
250 to 900 AD, (Early 250 to 550 AD, Middle from 550 to 700 AD, and Late
700 to 900 AD), and Post Classic
from 900 to contact (1520 AD), (Early 900 to1200 AD, and Late 1200 to
1520 AD), Although
Tayasal, capitol of
the Itzá and
Zacpetén,
Capitol of the K'owoj, both in Central Petén, where conquered until 1697,
being the last
cities to be conquered in América.
Until a few years ago, the Pre
Classic, was thought to be a formative period, with small villages of
farmers, that lived in huts, and few
permanent buildings, but this
concept has been proved to be a big mistake, due to recent findings all
over Guatemala, such as a 25 mt.
high Pyramid and a quatrefoil altar in
La Blanca, San Marcos, some 3 mt. in diameter from 1000 BC;
Ceremonial sites at Miraflores, and El Naranjo from 800 BC, near Kaminaljuyú,
in Guatemala City, El Portón in Baja Verapaz, The
Mural paintings in
San Bartolo,
Petén, the Stucco Masks and monuments in
Cival and of course
The Mirador Basin's major
cities of Nakbé, Xulnal, Tintal, Wakná
and El Mirador, the Cradle of the
Maya Civilization,
where, the cities were not only numerous, but very sophisticated, and
developed, with architectonic structures from 1400 BC, indeed
the two biggest cities of the Maya Civilization (Mirador and Tintal)
are there, with the same religious believes, astronomical, mathematics
and writing knowledge that those in the Classic period.
The city of
El Mirador was the
largest city in ancient America, and also, has the largest pyramid in
the WORLD, with a mass of 2,800,000
Mt2, some 200,000 more that the
Giza pyramid in Egypt, and was by far the most populated city in the
Pre Columbine America, in fact, Mirador was the first Politically
organized State in America, named the Kan Kingdom in ancient texts. The
first aerial surveys of this area in the 1930' by North American
Archeologist does not give any results, because they interpreted the
huge Pyramids as Volcanoes. There are 26 cities, some bigger
than
Tikal, the Jewel of
the Classic period, all connected by huge Sacbeob
(Plural for highways ), or Sacbé
(Singular), meaning "White road", up to 40
Km. long (Tintal-El Mirador, the
largest in Mesoamerica) and up to 44 m. wide and 2 to 6 m.
above the ground, paved with stucco, that are clearly distinguishable
from the air in the most extensive virgin Tropical Rain Forest left in
Mesoamerica, thus, these were Kingdoms equal in Power and
Culture to those in Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, etc.
The Classic is represented by countless
sites, mainly in Petén, although there are Classic sites all
over Guatemala, After the
Classic Maya Collapse,
El Petén was nearly deserted. The Post Classic is
represented by different kingdoms like the
Itzá and
Ko'woj in the Lakes
area in
Petén that were the last cultures in
Mesoamérica to be conquered by the Spaniards on
1697 when
Tayasal
capital of the Itzá fell; and, by
the
Mam,
Ki'ch'es,
Kack'chiquel,
Tz'utuh'il,
Poko'mam,
Achí,
Kek'chi and
Chortí among others in the Highlands, Izabal,
Petén and the Pacific Lowlands that kept the essential
believes of the Maya Civilization but didn't reach the splendor of the
Pre Classic and Classic cities. In fact,
they still retain the use of not only their
languages, but also their believes and cosmology., even more they use
the Tzolk'in calendar in their ceremonies and for crops.
An
excellent study of the Post Classic Highlands Maya, and Classic Maya
Texts is in this Mesoweb Report (PDF
file) .
Recently The
National Archaeology Institute, disclosed the existence of a submerged
city
in
Lake Atitlán, named
“Samabaj”, some
15
meters deep near Cerro de Oro, and 10 Km from
Chuitinamit, the
Tz'utuh'il capitol, although it has not been dated yet, formal
investigations are underway since February 2008.
Main
Online sources:
www.famsi.org
;
www.mesoweb.org ;
USAC
www.atlasarqueologico.com
:
UFM
www.UFM.edu.gt;
Popol Vuh Museum;
UVG
www.UVG.edu.gt
