Cancuén (Land of Serpents) is located in the Southern region of Sayaxché,
Petén
on
La Pasión river, where it begins to be navigable, after crossing the
Highlands
in southern Petén,
Guatemala. It is also known as the Entrance
to the Mayan World, due to its location, and The Lost City, because it was
ignored by archeologist as a minor site since 1909, but the recent
excavations uncovered a Magnificent Classic site. 
Cancuén is an
important site due to its unique location and was occupied from 300 to 950
AD, reaching its maximum splendor during the late classic period Around
800 AD. The recent findings there, have been remarkable and range from
fine pottery to jade workshops and beautiful carved images as
Ball game
Markers, and the largest and most impressive Mayan Palace discovered to date,
build between 765 and 790 AD, by
T'ah 'ak' Cha'an, the
King that made Cancuén the dominant city in
Southern Petén.
This
Palace, (More an "Acropolis", due
to its various patios and buildings),
is a massive 3 story high structure, with some 270,000 feet, (82,000 m2.)
that has more than 170 rooms and 11 courtyards. In some areas the walls are up to
6 feet thick. (1.80 m.). The arches and vaults found in the numerous
passageways are up to 20 feet high, (6 m.) giving this structure a
complex labyrinth like shape. In the ball court were found 3 altars that
shows
T'ah 'ak' Cha'an
playing the ceremonial ball game so sacred to the Mayan culture, also in
the same
ball court
was discovered an impressive carved panel, weighing
around 100 pounds (45 kg) showing him presiding a ceremony in the city of
Machaquilá, a nearby city located in the
upper La Pasión River that
was its second capitol and then turned against Cancuén, 1 century after its
reign. Kan Maax
his successor had a distinct fate, being massacred along with more
than 30 nobles by an unknown enemy, in a
war that ended as soon as
it begun (see Maya Culture
Collapse)
Arthur Demarest
from Vanderbilt University, and
Tomás Barrientos
from Universidad del Valle
de Guatemala along with
Federico Fashen
a Guatemalan
epigraphist,
sponsored also by The National Geographic Society, are the main
investigators in this site. They have discovered a Jade workshop and more
than 4,000 elaborated Jade pieces, and much more Jade debris, they
think that this site distributed Jade to the
Petén Lowlands
and the rest of the northern Maya lowlands.
Fashen believes
that this city gain power by merging with Royal families from
Dos Pilas,
and other cities such as
Aguateca, aside its domain in the trading
of
Jade, Pyrite (for
mirrors) and Obsidian (for tool and
warfare
blades). This make its inhabitants wealthy, the investigators think,
because of the jade implants found
in the teeth of artisans, usually found only in nobles in other cities,
the site has been mapped by Demarest and his team and is more than 3 sq.
miles. Deamarest explains the lack of
Pyramids due to the fact that the
Karst Hills
surroundings the site resembles the "Witz"
that the Maya
recreate in other sites, also the
Candelaria caves nearby represent
Xibalbá, thus making it better than the man made features.
Despite its
protective walls, it was destroyed by the rulers of
Machaquilá
and
Ceibal,
located also in La Pasión River on the mid 9th century AD and
then
abandoned, when it was found around 1900 the site was classified as a
minor site, until 20 years ago when major discovers begin and surely will
continue, due
to the work of the archeologist, to visit this site You can
go from Cobán to Chisec in Alta Verapaz, and enjoy the
Candelaria Caves
as well as the
Sepalau lagoons nearby, by a paved
highway from Sayaxché ( 3hrs), or by boat, also from Sayaxché, although is a very long river trip.
