Ancient Guatemala Photo Gallery
 

On March 7, 2009, a large Frieze or Panel  was revealed to the world by Dr. Richard Hansen. It was found at El Mirador, measuring 3 m. high and 4 m wide, that is dated ca. 300 BC, and decorated a Royal pool that formed part of the hydraulics works of the city. The Panel  represents the hero twins Hunahpú and Ixbalanqué, swimming away from Xibalbá, with his father's (The Maize God) head as the Popol Vuh, 19 centuries later relates. See Dr. Richard Hansen's Lecture in UFM, Preclassic Mirador Basin, Guatemala on Feb 5 2007

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).
 

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.

Uaxactún Group E	Structure E7 the Focal point in E group ( All the important Classic Maya sites had E groups named after this in Uaxactún , the oldest in the Classic 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.

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.

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.

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.

Rio Azul Temple	Sacbé or Causeway

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