Zoque
12 December 2009The Zoque are an indigenous people of Mexico; they speak variants of the Zoque languages.
This group consists of 41,609 people, according to the 2000 census.[1] They live mainly in the northerly sector of Chiapas state, principally in the municipios and towns of Amatán, Copainalá, Chapultenango, Francisco León, Ixhuatán, Ixtacomitán, Jitotol, Ocotepec, Ostuacán, Pantepec, Rayón, Totolapa, Tapilula, Tecpatán, Acala, Blanca rosa, and Ocozocoautla. They also live in the northern part of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, in the state of Oaxaca. Their language is also called Zoque, and has several branches and dialects. The Zoque are related to the Mixe. They follow the Roman Catholic religion.
In the pre-Hispanic period, the Zoque lived throughout Chiapas, and as far away as the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and parts of the state of Tabasco. They are believed to be descendants of the Olmec who emigrated to Chiapas and Oaxaca. They had a good social and commercial relationship with the Mexica, which contributed to the economic prosperity of their culture in Chiapas. In 1494 they were invaded and defeated by the Aztecs, during the reign of Ahuizotl, and forced to pay tribute.
The Spanish conquest of the Zoque lands commenced in 1523, under the leadership of Luis Marin. The Zoque were parceled out amongst the settlers, where they endured forced labor and were obliged to pay high tribute. Diseases, exploitation and the miserable conditions under which they lived contributed to a significant decrease in their numbers.
The situation of the Zoque did not improve with Mexican independence, since they continued to be exploited by the mestizos and criollos. It was not until 1922, when they were assigned ejidos (common lands), that their living conditions improved somewhat.
The Zoque traditional dress is worn almost exclusively by women, and on special occasions. Some elderly men in remote communities wear white cotton shirts. The women wear short-sleeved blue blouses, embroidered at the neck, and long poplin skirts in various colors.
Their houses are mainly rectangular, with one or two rooms and walls of wood and mud, or adobe, whitewashed inside and out. The houses have earthen floors, and roofs consisting of four sloping sides of tile or thatch. In the larger towns they are made of concrete.
As with other groups, agriculture is their prime economic activity. The crops vary according to the topography of the terrain. For the most part they raise maize, beans, chiles, and squash. Their commercial crops are coffee, cocoa, peppers, bananas, mamey, sweetsop, and guava. The soil is of poor quality, and therefore the output is low. They raise pigs and domesticated fowl in small quantities to augment their diet.
The Zoque also work in the construction industry in the cities.
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Chiapa de Corzo (Mesoamerican site)
Chiapa de Corzo (Mesoamerican site) is an archaeological site of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, located in the Chiapas highlands region of present-day Mexico. At its height during the Late Formative period, it was a regional center or capital of the area and controlled trading routes through the Grijalva river valley.
The modern township of Chiapa de Corzo, founded in Colonial times and after which the site was named, is nearby.
Site history
The site shows evidence of continual occupation since the Early Formative period (ca. 1400 BCE). The mounds and plazas at the site, however, date to approximately 700 BCE with the temple and palace constructed during the Late Formative, perhaps 400 BCE to 200 CE. Around 300 BCE, however, formal construction declined. At about the same time, Maya pottery types began to be included in elite burials, although utilitarian ceramics retained traditional patterns. This has suggested to some researchers, that the Maya culture to the east exerted influence or even control over Chiapa de Corzo, although there seems to be a waning of that Maya influence in the first centuries CE. It was during this time that the ancient platform mounds were covered with limestone and stucco.
Notable finds
The oldest Mesoamerican Long Count calendar date yet discovered, December 36 BCE, was found on Stela 2 (which is not a stela at all, but rather a misnamed, inscribed wall panel). All that survives of the original text is the day-name and the digits 7.16.3.2.13.
Chiapa de Corzo is also notable for a pottery shard containing what is likely Epi-Olmec script. Dated to as early as 300 BCE, this sherd would be the oldest instance of that writing system yet discovered.
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Maya peoples
The Maya peoples constitute a diverse range of the Native American people of southern Mexico and northern Central America. The overarching term “Maya” is a convenient collective designation to include the peoples of the region who share some degree of cultural and linguistic heritage; however, the term embraces many distinct populations, societies, and ethnic groups, who each have their own particular traditions, cultures, and historical identity.
There are an estimated 7 million Maya living in this area at the start of the 21st century. Ethnic Maya of southern Mexico and the Yucatan Peninsula, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, and western Honduras have managed to maintain substantial remnants of their ancient cultural heritage. Some are quite integrated into the modern cultures of the nations in which they reside, while others continue a more traditional culturally distinct life, often speaking one of the Mayan languages as a primary language.
The largest populations of contemporary Maya inhabit the Mexican states of Yucatán, Campeche, Quintana Roo, Tabasco, and Chiapas, and in the Central American countries of Belize, Guatemala, and the western portions of Honduras and El Salvador.
Yucatán Peninsula
The largest group of modern Maya can be found on Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula. They commonly identify themselves simply as “Maya” with no further ethnic subdivision (unlike in the Highlands of Western Guatemala), and speak the language which anthropologists term “Yucatec Maya“, but is identified by speakers and Yucatecos simply as “Maya”. Among Maya speakers Spanish is commonly spoken as a second or first language.
The Yucatán’s indigenous population was first exposed to Europeans after a party of Spanish shipwreck survivors came ashore in 1511. One of the sailors, Gonzalo Guerrero, is reported to have started a family and taken up a position of counsel among a local polity near present-day Chetumal. Later Spanish expeditions to the region (Córdoba in 1517, Grijalva in 1518 and Cortés in 1519) resulted in numerous conflicts and open warfare. Vulnerability to European diseases along with a civil war with other ‘city-states’ allied to the Spanish eventually reduced the Yucatec Maya population to less than 10,000 by 1850. Those in the jungles of Quintana Roo to the east were more cut off from the Spanish, enabling them to survive more easily. Historically, the population in the eastern half of the peninsula was less affected by and less integrated with Hispanic culture than those of the western half. Today in the Yucatán Peninsula (Mexican States of Campeche, Yucatán and Quintana Roo) between 750,000 and 1,200,000 people speak Mayan. However three times more than that do not speak their native language but are from Maya origins and hold ancient Maya last names, such as Ak, Can, Chan, Be, Cantun, Canche, Chi, Chuc, Coyoc, Dzib, Dzul, Ehuan, Hoil, Hau, May, Tamay, Ucan, Pool, Zapo, etc..
Matthew Restall, in his book The Maya Conquistador, mentions a series of letters sent to the King of Spain in the 16th and 17th Centuries. The noble Maya Families at that time signed documents to the Spanish Royal Family; surnames mentioned in those letters are Pech, Camal, Xiu, Ucan, Canul, Cocom, and Tun, among others.
A large 19th century revolt by the native Maya people of Yucatán (Mexico), known as the Caste War of Yucatán, was one of the most successful modern Native American revolts; results included the temporary existence of the Maya state of Chan Santa Cruz, recognized as an independent nation by the British Empire.
In Yucatan, Francisco Luna-Kan was elected governor of the state of Yucatán from 1976 to 1982. Luna-Kan was born in Mérida, Yucatán, and he was a Doctor of medicine, then a Professor of Medicine before his political offices, his first being overseer of the state’s rural medical system. He was the first Governor of in the modern Yucatan Peninsula, from a full Maya background. Currently there are dozens of politicians from Deputies, Majors to Senators from a full or mix Maya heritage from the Yucatan Peninsula.
According to the National Institute of Geography and Informatics (Mexico’s INEGI) in Yucatan State there are 1.2 million of Mayan speakers on 2009, representing the 59.5% of the inhabitants. Because of this, the cultural section of the government of Yucatan, began to give on-line classes for grammar and proper pronunciation of Mayan.
Mayan Peoples from Yucatan Peninsula living in the United States of America, have been organizing Mayan lessons and Mayan cooking classes since 2003 in California and other states, clubs of Yucatec Mayan are registered in Dallas and Irving, Texas, Salt Lake City in Utah; Las Vegas, Nevada and California State with groups in San Francisco, San Rafael, Chino, Pasadena, Santa Ana, Garden Grove, Inglewood, Los Angeles, Thousand Oaks, Oxnard, San Fernando Valley and Whittier.
Chiapas
Chiapas was for many years one of the regions of Mexico that were least touched by the reforms of the Mexican Revolution. The Zapatista Army of National Liberation, which launched a rebellion against the Mexican state in Chiapas in January 1994, declared itself to be an indigenous movement and drew its strongest and earliest support from Chiapan Maya, a number of whom still support it today. (see also the EZLN and the Chiapas conflict)
Maya groups in Chiapas include the Tzotzil and Tzeltal, in the highlands of the state, the Tojolabales, concentrated in the lowlands around Las Margaritas, and the Ch’ol in the jungle. (see map)
The most traditional of Maya groups are the Lacandon, a small population avoiding contact with outsiders until the late 20th century by living in small groups in the Lacandon Jungle. These Lacandon Maya came from the Campeche/Petén area (north-east of Chiapas) and moved into the Lacandon rainforest at the end of the 18th century, 1000 years after the ancient (Pre-Columbian) Maya civilization had disappeared (around 850 A.D).
In the course of the 20th century, and increasingly in the 1950s and 1960s, other people (mainly Mayan Indians and subsistence peasants from the highlands), also entered into the Lacandon region; initially encouraged by the government. This immigration led to land-related conflicts and an increasing pressure on the rainforest. To halt the migration the government decided in 1971 to declare a large part of the forest (614,000 hectares, or 6140 km2) a protected area: the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve. They appointed only one small population group (the 66 Lacandon Indian families) as tenants (thus creating the Lacandon Community), thereby displacing 2000 Tzeltal and Ch’ol families from 26 communities, and leaving non-Lacandon communities dependent on the government for granting their rights to land. In the decades that followed the government carried out numerous programs to keep the problems in the region under control, using land distribution as a political tool; as a way of ensuring loyalty from different campesino groups. This strategy of divide and rule led to great disaffection and tensions among population groups in the region.
(see also the Chiapas conflict and the Lacandon Jungle).
Belize
The Maya population in Belize is concentrated in the Cayo, Toledo districts and Orange Walk district, but they are scattered throughout the country. They are divided into the Yucatec, Kekchi, and Mopan.
Tabasco
The Mexican state of Tabasco is home to the Chontal Maya.
Guatemala
In Guatemala, the largest and most traditional Maya populations are in the western highlands. The departments of Baja Verapaz, Quiché, Totonicapan, Huehuetenango, Quetzaltenango, and San Marcos are majority Maya.
In Guatemala the Spanish colonial pattern of keeping the native population legally separate and subservient continued well into the 20th century. This resulted in many traditional customs being retained, as the only other option than traditional Maya life open to most Maya was entering the Hispanic culture at the very bottom rung.
Considerable identification with local and linguistic affinities, often corresponding to pre-Columbian nation states, continues, and many people wear traditional clothing that displays their specific local identity. Clothing of women tends to be more traditional than that of the men, as the men have more interaction with the Hispanic commerce and culture.
Maya peoples of the Guatemala highlands include the Achi, Akatek, Chuj, Ixil, Jakaltek, Kaqchikel, K’iche’, Mam, Poqomam, Poqomchi’, Q’anjob’al, Q’eqchi’, Tz’utujil and Uspantek.
The southeastern region of Guatemala (bordering with Honduras) includes groups such as the Ch’orti’. The northern lowland Petén region includes the Itza.
External links
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Toniná
Tonina (Toniná in the Spanish language) is a pre-Columbian archaeological site and ruined city of the Maya civilization located in what is now the Mexican state of Chiapas, some 13 km (8.1 mi) east of the town of Ocosingo.
The site is medium to large, with groups of temple-pyramids set on terraces rising some 71 metres (230 ft) above a plaza, a large court for playing the Mesoamerican ballgame, and over 100 carved monuments, most dating from the Maya Classic Era from the 6th century through the 9th century. Toniná is distinguished by its outstanding stucco sculptures and particularly by its in-the-round carved monuments, produced to an extent not seen in Mesoamerica since the end of the much earlier Olmec civilization.
Toniná was an aggressive state in the Late Classic, using warfare to develop a powerful kingdom. For much of its history, Toniná was engaged in sporadic warfare with Palenque, its greatest rival and one of the most important polities in the west of the Maya region, although Toniná eventually became the dominant city in the west.
The city is notable for having the last known Long Count date on any Maya monument, marking the end of the Classic Maya period in AD 909.
Etymology
Toniná means house of stone in the Tzeltal language of the local Maya inhabitants, an alternate interpretation is the place where stone sculptures are raised to honour time. However, this is a modern name and the original name was either Po or Popo, appearing in Classic Maya texts in the title used for the kings of Toniná, k’uhul po’ ajaw (Divine Lord of Po). A Maya rebellion in Colonial times, in 1558, featured a group called the po’ winikob’ (People of Po). Early versions of the Toniná emblem glyph bore a doubled po glyph and the term Popo is also found in Colonial records. Since double sounds were often abbreviated in hieroglyphic texts, Popo may represent the original name of the city.
Location
Toniná is located at an altitude of 800 to 900 metres (2,600 to 3,000 ft) in the Chiapas highlands of southern Mexico, some 40 miles (64 km) south of the contemporary Maya city of Palenque, Toniná’s greatest rival throughout its recorded history. Toniná is separated from Palenque by mountainous terrain and the site core is located along an easily defended ascending limestone ridge immediately to the west of a seasonal tributary of the Rio Jatate, one of the two rivers that forms the Ocosingo Valley.
Rulers
Rulers of Tonina recorded in the Maya script on Tonina monuments include:
Name (or nickname) Ruled
Ruler 1 ?
B’alam Ya Acal (also known as Jaguar Bird Peccary) 6th century
Chac B’olon Chaak ?
K’inich Hix Chapat c. 595–665
Ruler 2 668–687
K’inich B’aaknal Chaak 688–715
Ruler 4 708–723
K’inich Ich’aak Chapat 723–739+
K’inich Tuun Chapat to 762
Ruler 7 ?
Ruler 8 c. 787–806+
Uh Chapat (Ruler 9) c.837
Ruler 10 c.901
The last known recorded date at the site is featured on Monument 101 as 15 January 909 CE.
History
Early Classic
Toniná had a vibrant Early Classic presence, although the Early Classic remains lie entirely buried under later construction. Due to this, early texts are scarce and only offer a glimpse of the early history of the site. An 8th century text refers to a king ruling in AD 217, although it only mentions his title, not his name.[30]
Ruler 1 is depicted on a couple of Early Classic monuments, the better preserved of which is an altar that dates to 514.[31] A ruler known as Jaguar Bird Peccary is represented on a 6th century stela, which describes him acceding to the throne in 568.[32]
The first mention of Toniná in a record from a foreign state is from the site of Chinikiha, located 72 kilometres (45 mi) to the northeast on the Usumacinta River, the text is from a throne and describes the capture of a person from Toniná in 573.
Late Classic
K’inich Hix Chapat
Toniná’s history comes into focus in the Late Classic, when its historical record is more fully represented by hieroglyphic texts.[34] In 633 K’inich Hix Chapat is recorded as installing two subordinate lords but little else is known of his reign,[35] although he was probably enthroned in 595.[36] The last mention of K’inich Hix Chapat is in a monument dated to 665 that appears to be a memorial stone.[37]
Ruler 2
Ruler 2 acceded to the thrown of Toniná in 668. His rule is marked by warfare and the frequent depiction of bound captives on his monuments.[38] Ruler 2 established the use of in-the-round sculptural style that came to typify the stelae of Toniná.[39] A monument dated to 682 depicts three naked prisoners with their arms bound, one of them is identified as a lord from Annak’, an as yet unidentified site.[40] His reign may ended with his defeat and capture by K’inich Kan Balam II of Palenque in September 687, as described in a glyphic text from Temple 17 in the rival city, an event that probably culminated in his sacrifice.
K’inich B’aaknal Chaak
K’inich B’aaknal Chaak was enthroned in 688, twenty years after Ruler 2, and reigned for twenty-seven years.[42] During his reign he restored Tonina’s power with a number of military victories over Palenque, and his reign was dominated by the struggle against the rival city for regional power.[43] Ballcourt 1, the larger of Toniná’s two ballcourts, was dedicated in 699 to celebrate three victories over the city’s arch-rival.[44] The ballcourt originally had six sculptures of bound captives, all vassals of the enemy Palenque king from the Usumacinta region.[45] The date of the king’s death is unknown.[46]
Ruler 4
Ruler 4 came to power in 708 at a very young age.[47] Three years later, in 711, while Ruler 4 was still a child, Toniná gained an important victory over Palenque.[48] The battle resulted in the capture of Kan Joy Chitam II of Palenque and made Toniná the dominant centre in the lower Usumacinta region.[49] The victory was so complete that it resulted in a ten-year gap in the dynastic history of the defeated city,[50] during which the captured ruler may have been held hostage.[51] Ruler 4 continued in power to celebrate the period endings of 716 and 721.[52] A captive depicted on one of his monuments is identified as being from the distant city of Calakmul, one of the two Maya “superpowers”.[53]
K’inich Ich’aak Chapat
Ruler 4 was succeeded by K’inich Ich’aak Chapat in 723.[54] Around 725 Toniná fought a war against Piedras Negras, a city on the north bank of the Usumacinta River, now in Guatemala.[55] A series of events during his reign were marked on monuments between 726 and 729 and in 730 he rededicated the tomb of his predecessor K’inich B’aaknal Chaak.[56] The mother of K’inich Ich’aak Chapat is named as Lady Winik Timan K’awiil and his father may well have been K’inich B’aaknal Chaak himself.[57] The reign of K’inich Ich’aak Chapat is notable for the absence of the usual sculptures depicting bound war captives, although the reason for this is unknown.[58]
Later rulers
Little is known of the next two rulers, Ruler 6 is named as K’inich Tuun Chapat, he celebrated the period ending of 736 and may have died 762.[59] A damaged text accompanying the image of a bound captive indicates renewed warfare with Palenque during his reign, however the name of the prisoner is lost and it is unclear if it is the actual king of Palenque or merely one of his vassals.[60] He was succeeded by Ruler 7, about whom even less is known.[61] Around 764 Toniná defeated Palenque in battle.[62]
In 775 a text recorded the death of Lord Wak Chan K’ak’, a prince who appears to have been the heir to the throne and who died before he could take power.[63]
Ruler 8 was the last of the successful warrior kings of Toniná.[64] He celebrated a series of events between 789 and 806, including the defeat of Pomoy in 789, and the capture of the ruler Ucha’an Aj Chih, who appears to have been the vassal of B’olon K’awiil of Calakmul.[65] In 799 he rededicated the tomb of Ruler 1.[66] Ruler 8 oversaw an extensive remodelling of the upper levels of the Acropolis.[67] Ruler 8 erected a number of sculptures of bound prisoners of war and adopted the title aj b’olon b’aak, “He of Many Captives”.[68] However, the lesser extent of Toniná’s power is evident from its victory over the site of Sak Tz’i’ (White Dog), an important city in the Lacandon region, an area which had once been dominated by Toniná.[69]
By the time of Ruler 8’s successor, Uh Chapat, Toniná was clearly in decline.[70] Only a single event, in 837, can be dated to his reign, although a stucco mural depicting captives with garrottes at their throats may belong to his period of rule.[71]
The history of Toniná continued after most other Classic Maya cities had fallen, perhaps aided by the site’s relative isolation.[72] Ruler 10 is associated with a monument dating to 904 in the Terminal Classic and a monument dating to 909 bears the last known Long Count date although the name of the king has not survived.[73] Ceramic fragments indicate that occupation at the site continued for another century or more.
Modern history
The first published account of the ruins was made by Fray Jacinto Garrido at the end of the 17th century.[75] A number of visitors investigated the ruins of Tonina in the 19th century, the first being an expedition led by Guillaume Dupaix in 1808.[76] John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood visited in 1840, and Stephens wrote an extensive description of the site.[77] More thorough accounts did not come until the 1890s, when Eduard Seler, Karl Sapper, and others mapped and photographed the site.
Frans Blom and Oliver La Farge investigated the site in 1925 for Tulane University. Blom returned in 1928, discovering additional monuments in the area.
The French Tonina Project began excavations in 1972 which continued through 1975, then resumed in 1979 to 1980, under the direction of Pierre Becquelin and Claude Baudez.[78] The National Institute of Anthropology and History of Mexico (INAH) began their own excavations at Tonina the following year.
The site is accessible for tourism and has a small museum.
The site
The site occupies seven south-facing terraces rising 71 metres (230 ft) over the plaza below.[80] It has a more distinct geometry than at most Maya sites, with a right-angle relationship between most structures.[81]
Much of the public imagery of the site details the ruthless manner in which the city dealt with its enemies.[82] A large stucco sculpture rising from the fourth to fifth terraces depicts a skeletal death god carrying the decapitated head of a lord of Palenque in one hand.[83] A frieze on the fifth terrace probably displayed Toniná’s most distinguished victims, dozens of fragments of this frieze were discovered in the plaza below.[84] This frieze was carved from the local sandstone but its style is that of Palenque, suggesting that captured artists carried out the work.[85]
After the abandonment of the city at the end of the Classic Period, many of the sculptures fell down the steep embankment supporting the seven terraces.
Structures
Monuments and sculptures
The monuments of Toniná tend to be smaller than those at other Maya sites, with most of the stelae measuring less than 2 metres (6.6 ft) tall.[96] The most important difference from monuments at other Maya sites is that they are carved in the round like statues, often with hieroglyphic text running down the spine.[97] On the fifth terrace, in-the-round sculptures of Toniná’s rulers dominated two-dimensional representations of defeated enemies.[98]
The dated monuments at Toniná span the period from AD 495 to 909, covering most of the Classic Period.
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Chinkultic
Chinkultic is a moderate-size archeological ruin in what is now the state of Chiapas, Mexico, some 56km from the small modern city of Comitán. The Pre-Columbian city was built by the Maya civilization. The city flourished in the Maya Classic Era, from about the 3rd through the 9th century. Most of the sculpture was produced in the last 300 years of this era, with hieroglyphic inscriptions dating from 591 to 897. Post-Classic-Era occupation of the site continued until the 13th century, after which it was abandoned.
The site has some step-pyramids and some 200 smaller buildings, most in undisturbed ruin. Chinkultic has carved stone stelae depicting the site’s rulers.
The site contains a court for playing the Mesoamerican ballgame, which a marker tells us was dedicated on 21 May 591.
The first published account of the site was made by Edward Seler in the late 19th century. A detailed description of the site was made by Enrique Juan Palacios in 1926.
The first archeological investigations of the site were conducted in 1966 under the direction of Stephan F. de Borhegyi of the Public Museum of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Starting in 1970, some further excavations and restorations of a few buildings was conducted by Mexican government archeologists, who also dredged some artifacts from the site’s cenote or natural well known as Agua Azul (”Blue Water”). The cenote gives the site its Maya language name; Chinkultic meaning “stepped-cenote”.
The site is open for tourism visits, although it is not one of the more commonly visited Maya sites. It is within Mexico’s Parque Nacional Lagunas de Montbello.
Further reading
Chinkultic, Una ciudad Maya, by Roberto Gallegos Ruiz (in Spanish)
External links
(Spanish) Chinkultic on cnca.gob.mx (with photos)
Chinkultic on ecoturismolatino.com
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Bonampak
Bonampak (Bòonam Pak’ Painted Wall in Modern Maya) is an ancient Maya archaeological site in the Mexican state of Chiapas. The site is approximately 30 km (20 miles) south of the larger site of Yaxchilan, under which Bonampak was a dependency, and the border with Guatemala. While the site is not overly impressive in terms of spatial or architectural size, it is well-known for a number of murals, most especially those located within Structure 1 (The Temple of the Murals). The construction of the site’s structures dates to the Early Classic period (ca. A.D. 580 to 800).
The site, lying close to a tributary of the Usumacinta River, was first seen by non-Mayans in 1946 by two American travelers, Herman Charles (Carlos) Frey and John Bourne. The Americans were led to the ruins by the local Lacandon Maya who still visited the site to pray in the ancient temples. Shortly thereafter a photographer, Giles Healey, was shown the huge painting covering the walls of one of the structure’s three rooms. The paintings show the story of a single battle and its victorious outcome.
History
Bird Jaguar in the early 5th century fought against K’inich Tatb’u Skull I in Yaxchilan, and lost his freedom. Other nobles were captured in a later war against Knot-eye Jaguar I. In 514, Knot-eye Jaguar I was himself taken captive (by Ruler C of Piedras Negras), giving Bonampak some respite; but after 526, his successor K’inich Tatb’u Skull II attacked Bonampak again and captured more lords.
Bonampak by 600 CE had become a satellite of Yaxchilan. In that time, the ajaw of Yaxchilan installed Yajaw Chan Muwaan I as lord in Bonampak. Subsequent ajawob reconstructed the site to orient toward the metropolis. Circa 790 CE, Yaxchilan’s king Shield Jaguar III oversaw the installation of Chan Muwaan II, and hired Yaxchilano artisans to commemorate it in “Structure I”’s murals. Bonampak collapsed with Yaxchilan in the 800s.
Temple of the Murals
What is often referred to as The Temple of the Murals (Structure 1) is a long narrow building with 3 rooms atop a low-stepped pyramid base. The interior walls preserve the finest examples of classic Maya painting, otherwise known only from pottery and occasional small faded fragments. Through a fortunate accident, rainwater seeped into the plaster of the roof in such a way as to cover the interior walls with a layer of slightly transparent calcium carbonate. Shortly after Healy’s discovery the Carnegie Institution sent an expedition to Bonampak. The walls were painted with kerosene which made the layer over the paintings temporarily transparent, then the murals were extensively and completely photographed and duplicate paintings were made by two different artists. In 1996 a team from Yale University began The Bonampak Documentation Project, which included making an even more detailed study, photographic record, and reproductions of the murals.
The paintings date from 790 and were made as frescos, with no seams in the plaster indicating that each room was painted in a single session during the short time that the plaster was moist. They show the hand of a master artist with a couple of competent assistants. The three rooms show a series of actual events with great realism. The first shows robing of priests and nobles, a ceremony to mark a child as a noble heir, an orchestra playing wooden trumpets, drums, and other instruments, and nobles conferring in discussion. The second room shows a war scene, with prisoners taken, and then the prisoners, with ritually bleeding fingers, seated before a richly-attired Chaan Muwaan II, the Yaxchilano “governor” of Bonampak. It is usually presumed that the prisoners are being prepared for human sacrifice, though this is not actually shown in the murals. The third room shows a ceremony with dancers in fine costumes wearing masks of gods, and the ruler and his family stick needles into their tongues in ritual bloodletting. The accompanying hieroglyphic text dates the scene and gives the names of the principal participants.
The fresco painting technique used in Bonampak is a three step process. An outline was made in red over a coat of stucco and then the flat spaces were filled with paints from mineral origins. These paints took on the colors of blue, red, sepia , yellow, mauve, purple and green. The last step was to outline the figures in black. The finished product was beautiful and well proportioned. Stylized figures representing gods, dragons and other mythological creatures were accompanied by planetary hieroglyphs and chronological inscriptions.
Professor Mary Miller of Yale, who conducted an extensive study of the murals, wrote “Perhaps no single artifact from the ancient New World offers as complex a view of Prehispanic society as do the Bonampak paintings. No other work features so many Maya engaged in the life of the court and rendered in such great detail, making the Bonampak murals an unparalleled resource for understanding ancient society.”
Present-day conditions
While tourists may visit Bonampak, it is a rather difficult and distant journey from anywhere else, and the murals are much less visible than in the photographs from the 1940s. No flash photography is allowed within the Temple of the Murals. Today a good idea of the murals can be gained by visiting the full-scale reproduction of the temple in the National Museum of Anthropology & History in Mexico City.
Since the construction of the Border Highway by the Mexican government in the early 1990s, Bonampak is much more accessible to tourists.
See also
External links
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Yaxchilan
Yaxchilan (also sometimes historically referred to by the names Menché and City Lorillard) is an ancient Maya city located on the bank of the Usumacinta River in what is now the state of Chiapas, Mexico. In the Late Classic Period Yaxchilan was one of the most powerful states along the course of the Usumacinta, with Piedras Negras as its major rival. Architectural styles in subordinate sites in the Usumacinta region demonstrate clear differences that mark a clear boundary between the two kingdoms.
Yaxchilan was a large center, important throughout the Classic era, and the dominant power of the Usumacinta River area. It dominated such smaller sites as Bonampak, and had a long rivalry with Piedras Negras and at least for a time with Tikal; it was a rival of Palenque, with which Yaxchilan warred in 654.
The site is particularly known for its well-preserved sculptured stone lintels set above the doorways of the main structures. These lintels, together with the stelae erected before the major buildings, contain hieroglyphic texts describing the dynastic history of the city.
The ancient name for the city was probably Pa’ Chan. Yaxchilan means “green stones” in Maya.
Location
Yaxchilan is located on the south bank of the Usumacinta River, at the apex of a horseshoe-shaped meander. This loop defends the site on all sides except for a narrow land approach from the south. The site is 40 kilometres (25 mi) upriver from the ruins of Piedras Negras, its major rival. Yaxchilan is 21 kilometres (13 mi) from the ruins of Bonampak. The site lies in the state of Chiapas, on the Mexican side of the international border with Guatemala, which follows the line of river. It is 80 kilometres (50 mi) downriver from the Maya site Altar de Sacrificios.
Known rulers
Yopaat B’alam I 359–?
Itzamnaaj B’alam I (”Shield Jaguar I”) ?–?
Bird Jaguar I 378–389
Yax Deer-Antler Skull 389–c.402
Ruler 5 c.402–?
K’inich Tatb’u Skull I ?–?
Moon Skull -454–467
Bird Jaguar II 467–?
Knot-eye Jaguar I -508–c.518
K’inich Tatb’u Skull II 526–537+
Knot-eye Jaguar II -526+
Bird Jaguar III 629–669+
Itzamnaaj B’alam II (”Shield Jaguar II”) 681–742
Yopaat B’alam II -749+
Bird Jaguar IV 752–768
Itzamnaaj B’alam III (”Shield Jaguar III”) 769–800+
K’inich Tatb’u Skull III -808+
Moon Skull
Moon Skull was the seventh known ruler of Yaxchilan and ruled in the 5th century. His name is not an actual reference to the moon but is rather the Maya word for a spear-thrower.
Bird Jaguar II
Bird Jaguar II was the eighth king in the dynastic record of Yaxchilan. Two of his sons became kings after him, Knot-eye Jaguar II and K’inich Tatb’u Skull II.
Knot-eye Jaguar I
Knot-eye Jaguar I was the ninth known king of Yaxchilan, he reigned in the early 6th century. His glyphic name should probably be read as Joy B’alam. He was a son of the previous ruler, Bird Jaguar II.
K’inich Tatb’u Skull II
K’inich Tatb’u Skull II is the tenth in the dynastic king list. He was another son of Bird Jaguar II.
Bird Jaguar III
Bird Jaguar III is described in one text as fifteenth in line from Yopaat B’alam I. Bird Jaguar III took Lady Pakal as his wife, who lived a very long life, dying in 705 at the age of at least 98 years. Their son and heir was Itzamnaaj B’alam II.
Itzamnaaj B’alam II
Itzamnaak B’alam II acceded in October 681 and ruled for 60 years. He was ofen referred to in hieroglyphic texts as Master of Aj Nik, referring to the capture of his first captive before he became king, this phrase being attached to his name on 32 separate occasions. Aj Nik himself was a sub-lord from a place known as either Maan or Namaan and was not of high rank.
History
Yaxchilan has its origins in the Preclassic Period. A large part of what is known of the Classic Period history of the city comes from the hieroglyphic texts of the kings who ruled during its Late Classic apogee, one of the most important of which is Hieroglyphic Stairway 1. Some retrospective inscriptions appear to have been used to rewrite Yaxchilan’s dynastic history to suit king Bird Jaguar IV. Before the rule of king Itzamnaaj Balam II, who reigned from 681 to 742, the city was relatively small. The city-state then grew to a regional capital and the dynasty lasted into the early 9th century.
Early Classic
The known history of Yaxchilan starts with the enthronement of Yopaat B’alam I, most likely on 23 July 359. He was the founder of a long dynasty, and took the throne when Yaxchilan was still a minor site. Hieroglyphic inscriptions dating to the Late Classic describe a series of wars in the Early Classic between the city and its neighbours. K’inich Tatb’u Skull I ruled in the early 5th century and was the first of the rulers of Yaxchilan to be recorded as having taken a rival king as a war captive, his prisoner being king Bird Jaguar of Bonampak (not to be confused with the four rulers of Yaxchilan who bore the same name). The long running rivalry with Piedras Negras had already begun by the fifth century AD, with both cities struggling to dominate the Usumacinta trade route. King Moon Skull was credited with gaining a victory over Piedras Negras in 460 and with capturing the enemy king, known only as Ruler A. By the middle of the 5th century Yaxchilan had formal contacts with the great city of Tikal. Bird Jaguar II, the next king of Yaxchilan, captured a vassal of the king of Piedras Negras around 478.
Knot-eye Jaguar I was a warlike king who was recorded as capturing nobles from Bonampak, Piedras Negras and the great city of Tikal. In 514, Knot-eye Jaguar I was taken captive by Ruler C of Piedras Negras, as depicted on Lintel 12 from that city, where he is shown kneeling before the enemy king with his wrists bound.
His successor, K’inich Tatb’u Skull II, was enthroned on 11 February 526. This king is notable for the series of carved lintels he commissioned, including a dynastic list that provides information on the early kings of the city. K’inich Tatb’u Skull II oversaw a revival of Yaxchilan’s fortunes and he captured lords from Bonampak, Lakamtuun and, notably, the lord of Calakmul, one of the two great Maya powers of the Classic Period, as well as a success against Tikal, the second great power.
Little is known of the history of Yaxchilan from 537 to 629, although four kings are known to have reigned in this period. Knot-eye Jaguar II is known to have captured the lord of Lacanha in 564, one of the few events that can be identified from this period. It may be that the lack of an inscribed history for this lengthy period indicates that Yaxchilan had fallen under the dominion of a more powerful neighbour, such as Piedras Negras, Palenque or Toniná, all of which were powerful polities in the Usumacinta region at this time.
Late Classic
The Yaxchilano murals at Bonampak’s Structure I commemorate Yaxchilan’s appointment of Chan Muwaan I as subordinate ruler. Yaxchilan rebuilt the site to point back toward Yaxchilan.
In 629, Bird Jaguar III was enthroned as king of Yaxchilan. In 646 or 647 he captured a lord from the still unidentified site of Hix Witz (meaning “Jaguar Hill”), somewhere on the north side of the Usumacinta.
Yaxchilan reached its greatest power during the reigns of King Itzamnaaj B’alam II, who died in his 90s in 742, and his son Bird Jaguar IV. Itzamnaaj B’alam II was enthroned in October 681 and he ruled for more than sixty years. During the last third of his reign he was responsible for a monumental building programme that included the erection of magnificent buildings with richly carved lintels, hieroglyphic stairways and carved stelae, transforming the centre of the city. During his reign, the kingdom of Yaxchilán extended to include the nearby sites of La Pasadita and El Chicozapote to the northwest of the city. At times the sites of Lacanha and Bonampak appear to have been under his domination, although this region was controlled by Toniná in 715.
In 689, relatively early in his reign, Itzamnaaj B’alam II is recorded as having captured Aj Sak Ichiy Pat. In 713 he captured Aj K’an Usja, the ajaw, or lord, of B’uktunn, an otherwise unknown site. In 726, Yaxchilan was defeated by its rival Piedras Negras, an event described on Piedras Negras Stela 8. A sajal (subordinate lord) of Itzamnaaj B’alam II was captured by the enemy city, an event that is completely absent from inscriptions at Yaxchilán itself although, importantly, there is no false claim of victory. It is after this period, over forty years into the reign of Itzamnaaj B’alam II, that this king embarked upon his impressive building programme, this may indicate that at this time Yaxchilan was able to exert independence from the hegemony of once powerful neighbours and claim greater political independence and more lucrative control of riverine trade. In 729, Itzamnaaj B’alam II captured Aj Popol Chay, the lord of Lacanha. This event, together with the other victories of Itzamnaaj Balam II’s reign, is described both in the hieroglyphic texts of Structure 44 and also on a series of stelae near Structure 41. This victory over Lacanha is compared to the earlier victory of Knot-eye Jaguar II against the same city. Similarly, his capture of a lord of Hix Witz in 732 is compared to Bird Jaguar III’s victory over the same site.
In 749, Yopaat B’alam II of Yaxchilan attended a ceremony to honour Ruler 4 of Piedras Negras. If Yopaat B’alam II was king of Yaxchilan at this time, this would indicated that he was subordinate to the king of Piedras Negras. This event was recorded on Piedras Negras Panel 3, there are no records of the reign of Yopaat B’alam II at Yaxchilan itself, indicating that any records were later destroyed if he had indeed ruled there.
Yaxchilan retaliated in 759, gaining a victory over its enemy. Circa 790 CE, Yaxchilan’s king Shield Jaguar III oversaw the installation of Chan Muwaan II in Bonampak, and hired Yaxchilano artisans to commemorate it (and the previous Chan Muwaan) in “Structure I”’s murals.
In 808, king K’inich Tatb’u Skull III marked his capture of the king of Piedras Negras, an event that probably represented the final overthrow of Yaxchilan’s long running enemy, ending dynastic rule there and destroying the city as a capital.
Modern history
The first published mention of the site seems to have been a brief mention by Juan Galindo in 1833, published by the Royal Geographical Society. Professor Edwin Rockstoh of the National College of Guatemala visited in 1881 and published another short account. Explorers Alfred Maudslay and Désiré Charnay arrived here within days of each other in 1882, and they published more detailed accounts of the ruins with drawings and photographs. Charnay dubbed the ruins “Lorillard City” in honor of Pierre Lorillard who contributed to defray the expense of his expedition into the Maya zone, while Maudslay named it “Menché”. Maudslay’s report was published by the Royal Geographical Society in 1883. Teoberto Maler visited the site repeatedly from 1897 to 1900, his detailed two volume description of the ruins and other nearby sites was published by the Peabody Museum of Harvard University in 1903, he was the first to name the city as Yaxchilan.
In 1931 Sylvanus Morley led a Carnegie Institution expedition to Yaxchilan, mapped the site and discovered more monuments.
From 1970 onwards, Ian Graham made numerous visits to Yaxchilan and recorded the inscriptions there. These inscriptions were published from 1977 onwards in the Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions by the Peabody Museum of Harvard University.
The Mexican National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) conducted archeological research at Yaxchilan in 1972 – 1973, again in 1983, and further INAH work was conducted in the early 1990s. INAH has consolidated and preserved the central portion of the site.
Mayanist Tatiana Proskouriakoff did some pioneering work on deciphering Maya writing using the inscriptions of Yaxchilan, and was able to identify the glyphs for death, capture and captor. Since then Peter Mathews and others have expanded on her early work.
Since 1990, the project La Pintura Mural Prehispánica en México (Prehispanic Wall Painting in Mexico) of the Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México has examined and recorded precolumbian murals such as those at Yaxchilan.
Yaxchilan has long been difficult to reach other than by river. Until recently, no roads existed within 100 miles. The only ways to get to the site were hundreds of miles by boat, or else by small plane. Since the construction of the Border Highway by the Mexican Government in the early 1980s, it is possible for tourists to visit. To reach the site, it is necessary now only to take an hour long boat ride down the Usumacinta River from Frontera Corozal.
Some Lacandon Maya still make pilgrimages to Yaxchilan to carry out rituals to the Maya gods.
The site
The site contains impressive ruins, with palaces and temples bordering a large plaza upon a terrace above the Usumacinta River. The architectural remains extend across the higher terraces and the hills to the south of the river, overlooking both the river itself and the lowlands beyond. Yaxchilan is known for the large quantity of excellent sculpture at the site, such as the monolithic carved stelae and the narrative stone reliefs carved on lintels spanning the temple doorways. Over 120 inscriptions have been identified on the various monuments from the site.
The major groups are the Central Acropolis, the West Acropolis and the South Acropolis. The South Acropolis occupies the highest part of the site. The site is aligned with relation to the Usumacinta River, at times causing unconventional orientation of the major structures, such as the two ballcourts.
Structures
Structure 6 is near the Main Plaza in the Central Acropolis. It is in a good state of preservation and has six doorways, three facing the plaza and three facing the river. The doorways that open onto the plaza were blocked up in antiquity and new doorways were cut into the sides of the structure. The facade of the building facing the plaza has a surviving frieze with a sculpture of a head. The structure has a surviving perforated roof comb and is believed to date to the Early Classic.
Structure 7 is beside Structure 6 but is in a much poorer state of preservation, with its vaulted ceiling having collapsed. This structure also had doorways facing both the river and the Main Plaza.
Structure 8 is located in the Main Plaza in front of Structure 7 and divideds the plaza into northwestern and southeastern sections.
Structure 9 is an unrestored mound northwest of Structure 7. Stela 27 stands in front of it.
Structure 10 shares an L-shaped platform with Structures 13 and 74, in the Central Acropolis. The structure contains a series of hieroglyphic lintels describing the birth and accession of king Bird Jaguar IV.
Structure 12 is a small structure in the Central Acropolis, close to the river. It contained eight lintels dating to the early 6th century. The structure is located in the Central Acropolis close to one of the ballcourts. The lintels record nine generations of rulers of the city. The lintels were commissioned by K’inich Tatb’u Skull II, their original location is unknown, being reset into Structure 12 in the 8th century by king Bird Jaguar IV. Some of the lintels remain in place.
Structure 13 rests on an L-shaped platform in the Central Acropolis, together with Structures 10 and 74.
Structure 14 is the northwest ballcourt. It is located on the Main Plaza of the Central Acropolis. Five sculpted ballcourt markers were found here, three of which were aligned on the playing area and one on each of the platforms to either side. One of the ballcourt markers was removed from the site, the rest are broken and eroded.
Structure 16 is close to the northwest ballcourt. It contains Lintels 38 through to 40, which have been reset in their original positions.
Structure 19 is also known as the Labyrinth. It lies at the western edge of the Central Acropolis. The structure is a temple with rooms spread over three levels, linked by interior stairways. The temple facade has four doorways, with three doorway-sized niches between them. Two sculptured altars are located in front of the structure, which still has the remains of a perforated roof comb.
Structure 20 is in the Central Acropolis and has three rooms. The three doorways to this structure once supported sculpted Lintels 12, 13 and 14, although only two now remain. A small amount of the roof comb of the building remains, and the sloped roof still has surviving friezes containing niches. Structure 20 was excavated by Ian Graham in 1982, during the excavations a hieroglyphic step was found in front of the building, it was reburied in order to preserve it.
Structure 21 is on a terrace below Structure 25 and 26. The three lintels over the doorways in this structure were Lintels 15 through to 17, although they were removed in the 19th century and are now in the British Museum in London. Structure 21 was excavated in 1983. The vaulted roof of the structure had already collapsed before 1882, filling the rooms with rubble that has now been removed, uncovering several important monuments, including Stela 35 and the remains of life size stucco figures on the back wall behind the stela itself.
Structure 22 is on a terrace in the Central Acropolis near the Main Plaza. It still has sculptured lintels in place.
Structure 23 is in the Central Acropolis, overlooking the Main Plaza. It was built during the reign of Itzamnaaj B’alam II and is especially significant because it was the first major construction undertaken after a lapse of 150 years. Structure 23 is dedicated to Lady K’ab’al Xook, a wife of the king. It originally had three lintels set above its doorways that appear to mark the re-founding of Yaxchilan in an effort to reinforce the lineage and right to rule of king Itzamnaaj B’alam II. Lintels 24 and 25 were removed at the end of the 19th century and are now in the British Museum, while Lintel 26 is in the Museo Nacional de Antropología in Mexico City. This series of lintels are among the finest relief sculpture surviving in the Maya region.
Structure 24 is on a terrace near the Main Plaza in the Central Acropolis. It still has sculptured lintels in place.
Structure 25 is in the Central Acropolis close to the approach to Structure 33. It has not been excavated or restored, although it has some intact vaulting.
Structure 26 is located beside Structure 25 in the Central Acropolis and has not been excavated. It is the least well preserved of the two structures.
Structure 30 is in the Central Acropolis, it has three doorways facing onto the Plaza. The structure has two parallel rooms with well-preserved vaulting.
Structure 33, in the Central Acropolis, has been described as a masterpiece in stone and was probably dedicated in 756 by Bird Jaguar IV. The structure overlooks the plaza and the river and would have been prominent to river traffic in the 8th century. It has plain lower walls with three doorways, each of the which supports a well preserved lintel (Yaxchilan Lintels 1 to 3). In centre of the back wall of the structure, opposite the central doorway, is a niche containing the headless sculpture of a human figure, probably Bird Jaguar IV himself. The roof of the structure is largely intact, including a sloped roof supporting a frieze and a well preserved roof comb. There are niches in both the roof comb and the frieze, the niche in the roof comb contains the remains of a sculpted figure. Tennons on both roof sections once supported stucco decoration. Leading up to the front of Structure 33 from the plaza is a stairway, the top step of which is sculpted, this step is known as Hieroglyphic Stairway 2.
The South Acropolis consists of Structures 39, 40 and 41. A number of stelae and altars are associated with them.
Structure 39 has been restored and lies within the South Acropolis. It has three stepped doorways that open onto a single, irregularly shaped room. The remains of a perforated roof comb survive, with tenons that once supported stucco decoration.
Structure 40 is flanked by structures 39 and 41. It has been restored and also has three doorways opening onto a single room and the remains of a perforated roof comb. The room has the remains of murals that once covered all the interior walls. Stelae 12 and 13 stand before structure 40 and Stela 11 once stood between them.
Structure 41 has also been restored. Like the other two structures in the South Acropolis, it has three doorways that open onto a single room. It is not as well preserved as Structures 39 and 40 and much of the vaulted roof has collapsed. A fraction of stucco frieze from the sculpture may date the building to 740, the 3rd K’atun anniversary of Itzamnaaj B’alam II’s reign. The central doorway is stepped and the front wall has been buttressed. It is one of three principal structures atop the highest vantage point in the city and a series of stelae was set in front of it that described the military campaigns of Itzamnaaj B’alam II.
Structure 42 is located in the West Acropolis. The structure had a series if carved limestone lintels that depict Bird Jaguar IV’s efforts to consolidate power, emulating events carried out by his father Itzamnaaj B’alam II.
Structure 44 is in the West Acropolis. It still contrains a carved lintel, and has sculpted steps. A number of stelae were originally associated with Structure 44. This temple was built by Itzamnaaj B’alam II and was dedicated around 732. The sculpted texts from this building provide an account of the 8th century resurgence of the city. Each of the three doorways contained sculptured lintels and two hieroglyphic steps.
Structure 67 is the southeast ballcourt, located in the Central Acropolis.
Monuments
Hieroglyphic stairways
Hieroglyphic Stairway 1 leads up to Structure 5 in the Central Acropolis. It has six sculpted risers consisting of various carved blocks, many of which are heavily eroded.
Hieroglyphic Stairway 2 is the riser of the uppermost step approaching Structure 33. It consists of 13 sculptured blocks, numbered from left to right as Steps I to XIII. Steps VI, VII and XVIII are extremely well preserved and depict Bird Jaguar IV and two of his predecessors dressed as ball players.
Lintels
Lintel 1 is above the eastern doorway of Structure 33 in the Central Acropolis. It depicts 8th century king Bird Jaguar IV accompanied by his wife Lady Great Skull Zero.
Lintel 2 is set above the central doorway of Structure 33. It shows Bird Jaguar IV accompanied by his son and heir, Shield Jaguar II.
Lintel 3 is above the westernmost doorway of Structure 33. It also shows Bird Jaguar IV, this time accompanied by an ally.
Lintel 10 is the last known monument at Yaxchilan, dating to 808. It depicts Ruler 7 of Dos Pilas as a captive of Yachilan king K’inich Tatb’u Skull III.
Lintel 12 was originally set into Structure 20 in the Central Acropolis. It is now in the Museo Nacional de Antropología in Mexico City.
Lintel 13 is above a doorway in Structure 20. It had fallen when the roof of the building collapsed but has since been reset. The sculpture on the lintel is very well preserved.
Lintel 14 is set above a doorway in Structure 20 and is particularly well preserved.
Lintel 15 originally spanned a doorway in Structure 21, it was removed to the British Museum in 1982-3. Like Lintels 16 and 17 from the same series, it was carved from limestone. It was originally set above the southeast doorway of the central room. Lintel 15 depicts Lady Wak Tuun, one of the wives of king Bird Jaguar IV, during a bloodletting ritual that results in the appearance of the Vision Serpent. Lady Wak Tuun is carrying a basket containing the tools used for the bloodletting ritual, including a stingray spine, rope and bloodstained paper. The Vision Serpent emerges from a bowl containing strips of bark paper.
Lintel 16 also spanned a doorway in Structure 21 and was removed to the British Museum in 1982-3. It was sculpted from limestone and was originally set above the central doorway of the central room. It shows Bird Jaguar IV holding a spear and standing over a kneeling captive. Bird Jaguar IV wears the same costume that his father is depicted wearing on Lintel 26. The capture event depicted on Lintel 16 took place in 752.
Lintel 17 was another lintel from a doorway in Structure 21 that is now in the British Museum. It is sculpted from limestone and was originally set above the northwest doorway of the central room. It dates to the reign of Bird Jaguar IV. The lintel depicts Bird Jaguar IV and his wife Lady B’alam Mut participating in a bloodletting ritual. The king watches while his wife pulls a rope through her tongue draw blood. This ritual is recorded as having taken place eight days after the capture event depicted on Lintel 16.
Lintel 24 is sculpted from limestone and is regarded as a masterpiece of Maya art. It is one of a series of three lintels that were set above the doorways of Structure 23, this one having been set above the southeast doorway. It shows a bloodletting ritual being carried out by king Itzamnaaj B’alam II and his wife Lady K’ab’al Xook, the king stands holding a burning torch over his wife, who pulls a spiked rope through her tongue. A screenfold book lies in a basket in front of the kneeling princess. The lintel has traces of red and blue pigments. The ceremony represented on the sculpture took place on 28 October, 709. Lintel 24 was removed at the end of the 19th century and is now on display in the British Museum.
Lintel 25 was originally set above the central doorway of Structure 23. It was carved from limestone during the reign of king Itzamnaaj B’alam II and shows Lady Xook invoking the Vision Serpent to commemorate the accession of her husband to the throne. Lady Xook holds a bowl containing boodletting apparatus consisting of a stingray spine and bloodstained paper. The Vision Serpent rising before her has two heads, one at each extreme, from the mouth of one emerges a warrior, from the other emerges the head of central Mexican deity Tlaloc, the war god of the distant metropolis of Teotihuacan in the Valley of Mexico. The hieroglyphic inscription on the lintel is unusual, being reversed as if it were meant to be read in a mirror, although the significance of this is unknown. Like Lintel 24, Lintel 25 was removed at the end of the 19th century and is now on display in the British Museum. The events depicted on the lintel are described as having occurred “in front of the water of Siyan Chan”, a reference to the main plaza of the city being located on the shore of the Usumacinta River.
Lintel 26 was the third in the series set above the doorways of Structure 23, it is now in the Museo Nacional de Antropología in Mexico City. It dates to 726 and bears a portrait of Itzamnaaj B’alam II.
Lintel 29 is set into Structure 10 in the Central Acropolis. It is part of a series of three lintels bearing a continuous hieroglyphic text detailing the birth and accession of king Bird Jaguar IV.
Lintel 30 is part of the lintel series carved with a continuous hieroglyphic text set into Structure 10.
Lintel 31 is another part of the series of three hieroglyphic lintels set into Structure 10.
Lintel 35 was found by Maudslay among the rubble of Structure 12. It was sculpted from limestone in the 6th century under the rule of K’inich Tatb’u Skull II and records a series of victories including that over the great city of Calakmul.
Lintel 38, Lintel 39 and Lintel 40 have been reset in their original positions in Structure 16 in the Central Acropolis. Unlike most of the other lintels at Yaxchilan, they are sculpted on their edges instead of the undersides.
Lintel 41 was set above the south doorway of Structure 42 in the West Acropolis. It had fallen and broken into two pieces when Maudsley found it in the late 19th century. The upper section is on display in the British Museum, the lower section is damaged. The lintel was carved from limestone and is one of a series of lintels set in the same structure that celebrate the victories of king Bird Jaguar IV. The king is shown preparing for a battle that took place in 755, his wife is offering him his spear, she is Lady Wak Jalam Chan Ajaw from the site of Motul de San José in the Petén Lakes region of Guatemala.
Lintel 50 is set into Structure 13 in the Central Acropolis.
Lintel 60 remains in its original setting in Structure 12. It was discovered during excavations of the structure in 1984.
Stelae
Stela 2 is on the lowest terrace opposite the stairway approach to Structure 33. It is badly weathered and dates to 613.
Stela 3 stands on a platform in the middle of a plaza by Structure 20. It was badly damaged and the fragments have been reassembled and the monument re-erected. One side of the stela has well preserved sculpture.
Stela 5 is in front of the terrace holding Structure 20. The upper part of this monument depicts king Itzamnaaj B’alam II.
Stela 6 stands in front of the terrace supporting Structure 20. It is largely intact and depicts the 7th century ruler Bird Jaguar III.
Stela 7 was badly damaged, being broken into fragments. The monument has now been reassembled and the surviving sculpture is of excellent quality. The stela stands in front of a terrace below Structure 20. It depicts a kneeling figure.
Stela 11 originally stood in front of Structure 40. The stela was removed in 1964 and shipped upriver to Agua Azul to be flown to Mexico City for display in the Museo Nacional de Antropología. However, it was too heavy to fly and was returned to Yaxchilan in 1965 and now lies near the bank of the river. The upper side of the stela depicts king Bird Jaguar IV and his father. The figures and the accompanying hieroglyphic panel are very well preserved. There are various dates inscribed on the stela with the earliest being 741. The stela is broken into two parts.
Stela 18 dates from some time after 723. It depicts the victorious king Itzamnaaj B’alam II standing over a kneeling captive, who is identified as Aj Popol Chaj, the ruling lord of Lacanha.
Stela 27 has been re-erected in front of Structure 9 on the Main Plaza in the Central Acropolis. The monument dates to 514 and depicts the king Knot-eye Jaguar I. This stela is the earliest known from Yaxchilan. Stela 27 is particularly notable because it was obviously damaged in antiquity and subsequently restored in the Late Classic, with substantial reworking in the lower third of the stela dating to the time of Bird Jaguar IV.
Stela 31 is located a short distance in front of Structure 33. It is a particularly unusual monument because it is sculpted from a stalactite. It is undated and depicts three incised figures and some hieroglyphs.
Stela 33 is a fragmented monument that was discovered during excavations of the platform supporting Stela 3.
Stela 35 is an exceptionally well preserved monument found during excavations of Structure 21 in 1983. The stela is fairly small and depicts Lady Eveningstar (also known as Lady Ik Skull), the mother of king Bird Jaguar IV.
See also
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Palenque
Palenque (Bàak’ in Modern Maya) was a Maya city state in southern Mexico that flourished in the seventh century CE. After its decline it was absorbed into the jungle, but has been excavated and restored and is now a famous archaeological site attracting thousands of visitors. It is located near the Usumacinta River in the Mexican state of Chiapas, located about 130 km south of Ciudad del Carmen (see map) about 150 meters above sea-level. It is a medium-sized site, much smaller than such huge sites as Tikal or Copán, but it contains some of the finest architecture, sculpture, roof comb and bas-relief carvings the Maya produced. Much of the history of Palenque has been reconstructed from reading the hieroglyphic inscription on the many monuments, and historians now have a long sequence of the ruling dynasty of Palenque in the seventh century and extensive knowledge of the city states rivalry with other states such as Calakmul and Toniná. The most famous ruler of Palenque is Pacal the Great whose tomb has been found and excavated in the temple of the inscriptions.
Name and etymology
The site of Palenque had been abandoned by the Maya people for several centuries, when the Spanish explorers arrived in Chiapas in the 16th century. The first European to visit the ruins and publish an account was Priest Pedro Lorenzo de la Nada in 1567; at the time the local Chol Maya called it Otolum meaning “Land with strong houses”, de la Nada roughly translated this into Spanish to give the site the name “Palenque”, meaning “fortification”. Palenque also became the name for the town (Santo Domingo del Palenque) which was built over some peripheral ruins down in the valley from the main ceremonial center of the ancient city.
An ancient name for the central core of the city currently consolidated was Lakam Ha, which translates as “Big Water”, for the numerous springs and wide cascades that are found within the site. Palenque was the capital of the important Classic period Maya city-state of B’aakal or B’aak (Bone), after one of the city’s most frequently occurring Emblem Glyphs.
Toponyms and associated emblem glyphs in Palenque texts
Other important locations and emblem glyphs that occur in Palenque texts include the following:
History
Much of the Early Classic history of the city still awaits the archaeologist’s trowel. However, from the extent of the surveyed site and the reference to Early Classic rulers in the inscriptional record of the Late Classic, it is clear Palenque’s history is much longer than we currently know. The fact that early ajaw (king or lord) and mythological beings used a variety of emblem glyphs in their titles indeed suggests a complex early history. For instance, K’uk’ B’ahlam, the supposed founder of the Palenque dynasty, is called a Toktan Ajaw in the text of the Temple of the Foliated Cross.
The famous structures that we know today probably represent a rebuilding effort in response to the attacks by the city of Calakmul and its client states in 599 and 611. One of the main figures responsible for rebuilding Palenque and for a renaissance in the city’s art and architecture is also one of the best-known Maya Ajaw, K’inich Janaab’ Pakal (Pacal the Great), who ruled from 615 to 683. He is best known through his funerary monument, dubbed the Temple of Inscriptions after the lengthy text preserved in the temple’s superstructure. At the time Alberto Ruz Lhuillier excavated Pakal’s tomb it was the richest and best preserved of any scientifically excavated burial then known from the ancient Americas. It held this position until the discovery of the rich Moche burials at Sipan, Peru and the recent discoveries at Copan and Calakmul.
Beside the attention that K’inich Janaab’ Pakal’s tomb brought to Palenque, the city is historically significant for its extensive hieroglyphic corpus composed during the reigns of Janaab’ Pakal his son K’inich Kan B’ahlam and his grandson K’inich Akal Mo’ Naab’, and for being the location where Heinrich Berlin and later Linda Schele and Peter Mathews outlined the first dynastic list for any Maya city. The work of Tatiana Proskouriakoff as well as that of Berlin, Schele, Mathews, and others initiated the intense historical investigations that characterized much of the scholarship on the ancient Maya from the 1960s to the present. The extensive iconography and textual corpus has also allowed for study of Classic period Maya Mythology and ritual practice.
Dynastic list
A list of known Maya rulers of the city, with dates of their reigns:
Early Classic period
The first ajaw, or king, of B’aakal that we know of was K’uk Balam (Quetzal Jaguar), who governed for four years starting in the year 431. After him, a king came to power, nicknamed Gasparín by archaeologists. The two next kings were probably Gasparín’s sons. Little was known about the first of these, B’utz Aj Sak Chiik, until 1994, when a tablet was found describing a ritual for the king. The first tablet mentioned his successor Ahkal Mo’ Naab I as a teenage prince, and therefore it is believed that there was a family relation between them. For unknown reasons, Akhal Mo’ Naab I had great prestige, so the Kings who succeeded him were proud to be his descendants.
When Ahkal Mo’ Naab I died in 524, there was an interregnum of four years, before the following king was crowned en Toktán in 529. K’an Joy Chitam I governed for 36 years. His sons Ahkal Mo’ Naab II and K’an B’alam I were the first kings who used the title Kinich, which means the great son. This word was used also by later kings. B’alam I was succeeded in 583 by Yok Iknal, who is supposedly his daughter. The inscriptions found in Palenque document a battle that occurred under her government in which troops from Calakmul invaded and sacked Palenque, a military feat without known precedents. These events took place on April 21, 599.
A second victory by Calakmul occurred some twelve years later, in 611, under the government of Aj Ne’ Yohl Mat, son of Yol Iknal. In this occasion, the king of Calakmul entered Palenque in person, consolidating a significant military disaster, which was followed by an epoch of political disorder. Aj Ne’ Yohl Mat was to die in 612.
Late Classic period
B’aakal began the Late Classic period in the throes of the disorder created by the defeats before Calakmul. The glyphic panels at the Temple of Inscriptions, which records the events at this time, relates that some fundamental annual religious ceremonies were not performed in 613, and at this point states: “Lost is the divine lady, lost is the king.” Mentions of the government at the time have not been found.
It is believed that after the death of Aj Ne’ Yohl Mat, Janaab Pakal, sometimes called Pakal I, took power thanks to a political agreement. Janaab Pakal assumed the functions of the ajaw (king) but never was crowned. He was succeeded in 612 by his daughter, the queen Sak K’uk’, who governed for only three years until her son was old enough to rule. (See citation hereof in Spanish wikipedia.) It is considered that the dynasty was reestablished from then on, so B’aakal retook the path of glory and splendor.
The grandson of Janaab Pakal is the most famous of the Mayan kings, K’inich Janaab’ Pakal, also known as Pakal the Great. Starting at 12 years of age, he reigned in Palenque from 615 to 683. Known as the favorite of the gods, he carried Palenque to new levels of splendor, in spite of having come to power when the city was at a low point. Pakal married the princess of Oktán, Lady Tzakbu Ajaw (also known as Ahpo-Hel) in 624 and had at least three children.
During his government, most of the palaces and temples of Palenque were constructed; the city flourished as never before, eclipsing Tikal. The central complex, known as The Palace, was enlarged and remodeled on various occasions, notably in the years 654, 661, and 668. In this structure, is a text describing how in that epoch Palenque was newly allied with Tikal, and also with Yaxchilan, and that they were able to capture the six enemy kings of the alliance. Not much more had been translated from the text.
After the death of Pakal in 683, his older son K’inich Kan B’alam assumed the kingship of B’aakal, who in turn was succeeded in 702 by his brother K’inich K’an Joy Chitam II. The first continued the architectural and sculptural works that were begun by his father, as well as finishing the construction of the famous tomb of Pakal. Furthermore, he began ambitious projects, like the Group of the Crosses. Thanks to numerous works begun during his government, now we have portraits of this king, found in various sculptures. His brother succeeded him continuing with the same enthusiasm of construction and art, reconstructing and enlarging the north side of the Palace. Thanks to the reign of these three kings, B’aakal had a century of growing and splendor.
In 711, Palenque was sacked by the realm of Toniná, and the old king K’inich K’an Joy Chitam II was taken prisoner. It is not known what the final destination of the king was, and it is presumed that he was executed in Toniná. For 10 years there was no king. Finally, K’inich Ahkal Mo’ Nab’ III was crowned in 722. Although the new king belonged to the royalty, there is no reason to be sure that he was the direct inheritor direct of K’inich K’an Joy Chitam II. It is believed, therefore, that this coronation was a break in the dynastic line, and probably K’inich Ahkal Nab’ arrived to power after years of maneuvering and forging political alliances. This king, his son, and grandson governed until the end of the century. Little is known about this period, except that, among other events, the war with Toniná continued, where there are hieroglyphics that record a new defeat of Palenque.
Abandonment
During the 8th century, B’aakal came under increasing stress, in concert with most other Classic Mayan city-states, and there was no new elite construction in the ceremonial center sometime after 800. An agricultural population continued to live here for a few generations, then the site was abandoned and was slowly grown over by the forest. The district was very sparsely populated when the Spanish first arrived in the 1520s.
Art and architecture
mportant structures at Palenque include:
Palace
The Palace, actually a complex of several connected and adjacent buildings and courtyards built up over several generations on a wide artificial terrace. The Palace houses many fine sculptures and bas-relief carvings in addition to the distinctive four-story tower.
Temple of the Inscriptions
Main article: Temple of the Inscriptions
The Temple of Inscriptions was begun perhaps as early as 675 as the funerary monument of K’inich Janaab’ Pakal. The temple superstructure houses the second longest glyphic text known from the Maya world (the longest is the Hieroglyphic Stairway at Copan). The Temple of the Inscriptions records approximately 180 years of the city’s history from the 4th through 12th K’atun. The focal point of the narrative records K’inich Janaab’ Pakal’s K’atun period-ending rituals focused on the icons of the city’s patron deities prosaically known collectively as the Palenque Triad or individually as GI, GII, and GIII.
The Pyramid measure 60 meters wide 42.5 meters deep 27.2 meters high The Summit temple measure 25.5 meters wide 10.5 meters deep 11.4 meters high. The largest stones weigh 12 to 15 tons. These were on top of the Pyramid. The Total volume of pyramid and temple is 32,500 cu. meters.
In 1952 Alberto Ruz Lhuillier removed a stone slab in the floor of the back room of the temple superstructure to reveal a passageway (filled in shortly before the city’s abandonment and reopened by archeologists) leading through a long stairway to Pakal’s tomb. The tomb itself is remarkable for its large carved sarcophagus, the rich ornaments accompanying Pakal, and for the stucco sculpture decorating the walls of the tomb. Unique to Pakal’s tomb is the psychoduct, which leads from the tomb itself, up the stairway and through a hole in the stone covering the entrance to the burial. This psychoduct is perhaps a physical reference to concepts about the departure of the soul at the time of death in Maya eschatology where in the inscriptions the phrase ochb’ihaj sak ik’il (the white breath road-entered) is used to refer to the leaving of the soul.
The much-discussed iconography of the sarcophagus lid depicts Pakal in the guise of one of the manifestations of the Maya Maize God emerging from the maws of the underworld.
Temples of the Cross group
The Temple of the Cross, Temple of the Sun, and Temple of the Foliated Cross. This is a set of graceful temples atop step pyramids, each with an elaborately carved relief in the inner chamber depicting two figures presenting ritual objects and effigies to a central icon. Earlier interpretations had argued that the smaller figure was that of K’inich Janaab’ Pakal while the larger figure was K’inich Kan B’ahlam. However, it is now known based on a better understanding of the iconography and epigraphy that the central tablet depicts two images of Kan B’ahlam. The smaller figure shows K’inich Kan B’ahlam during a rite of passage ritual at the age of six (9.10.8.9.3 9 Akbal 6 Xul) while the larger is of his accession to kingship at the age of 48. These temples were named by early explorers; the cross-like images in two of the reliefs actually depict the tree of creation at the center of the world in Maya mythology.
Other Notable Constructions
The site also has a number of other temples, tombs, and elite residences, some a good distance from the center of the site, a court for playing the Mesoamerican Ballgame, and an interesting stone bridge over the Otulum River some distance below the Aqueduct.
Modern investigations
Palenque is perhaps the most studied and written about of Maya sites.
After de la Nada’s brief account of the ruins no attention was paid to them until 1773 when one Don Ramon de Ordoñez y Aguilar examined Palenque and sent a report to the Capitan General in Antigua Guatemala, a further examination was made in 1784 saying that the ruins were of particular interest, so two years later surveyor and architect Antonio Bernasconi was sent with a small military force under Colonel Antonio del Río to examine the site in more detail. Del Rio’s forces smashed through several walls to see what could be found, doing a fair amount of damage to the Palace, while Bernasconi made the first map of the site as well as drawing copies of a few of the bas-relief figures and sculptures. Draughtsman Luciano Castañeda made more drawings in 1807, and a book on Palenque, Descriptions of the Ruins of an Ancient City, discovered near Palenque, was published in London in 1822 based on the reports of those last two expeditions together with engravings based on Bernasconi and Castañedas drawings; two more publications in 1834 contained descriptions and drawings based on the same sources.
Juan Galindo visited Palenque in 1831, and filed a report with the Central American government. He was the first to note that the figures depicted in Palenque’s ancient art looked like the local Native Americans; some other early explorers, even years later, attributed the site to such distant peoples as Egyptians, Polynesians, or the Lost Tribes of Israel.
Starting in 1832 Jean Frederic Waldeck spent two years at Palenque making numerous drawings, but most of his work was not published until 1866. Meanwhile the site was visited in 1840 first by Patrick Walker and Herbert Caddy on a mission from the governor of British Honduras, and then by John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood who published an illustrated account the following year which was greatly superior to the previous accounts of the ruins.
Désiré Charnay made the first photographs of Palenque in 1858, and returned in 1881–1882. Alfred Maudslay encamped at the ruins in 1890–1891 and made extensive photographs of all the art and inscriptions he could find, and made paper and plaster molds of many of the inscriptions, setting a high standard for all future investigators to follow.
Several other expeditions visited the ruins before Frans Blom of Tulane University in 1923, who made superior maps of both the main site and various previously neglected outlying ruins and filed a report for the Mexican government on recommendations on work that could be done to preserve the ruins.
From 1949 through 1952 Alberto Ruz Lhuillier supervised excavations and consolidations of the site for Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH); it was Ruz Lhuillier who was the first person to gaze upon Pacal The Great’s tomb in over a thousand years. Further INAH work was done in lead by Jorge Acosta into the 1970s.
In 1973 the first of the very productive Palenque Mesa Redonda (Round table) conferences was held here on the inspiration of Merle Greene Robertson; thereafter every few years leading Mayanists would meet at Palenque to discuss and examine new findings in the field. Meanwhile Robertson was conducting a detailed examination of all art at Palenque, including recording all the traces of color on the sculpture.
The 1970s also saw a small museum built at the site.
In the last 15 or 20 years, a great deal more of the site has been excavated, but currently, archaeologists estimate that only 5% of the total city has been uncovered
Palenque remains much visited, and perhaps evokes more affection in visitors than any other Mesoamerican ruin.
See also
External links
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Maya civilization
The Maya is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as its art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems. Initially established during the Preclassic period (c. 2000 BC to 250 AD), many Maya cities reached their highest state development during the Classic period (c. 250 AD to 900 AD), and continued throughout the Postclassic period until the arrival of the Spanish. At its peak, it was one of the most densely populated and culturally dynamic societies in the world.
The Maya civilization shares many features with other Mesoamerican civilizations due to the high degree of interaction and cultural diffusion that characterized the region. Advances such as writing, epigraphy, and the calendar did not originate with the Maya; however, their civilization fully developed them. Maya influence can be detected from Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and to as far as central Mexico, more than 1000 km (625 miles) from the Maya area. Many outside influences are found in Maya art and architecture, which are thought to result from trade and cultural exchange rather than direct external conquest. The Maya peoples never disappeared, neither at the time of the Classic period decline nor with the arrival of the Spanish conquistadores and the subsequent Spanish colonization of the Americas. Today, the Maya and their descendants form sizable populations throughout the Maya area and maintain a distinctive set of traditions and beliefs that are the result of the merger of pre-Columbian and post-Conquest ideas and cultures. Many Mayan languages continue to be spoken as primary languages today; the Rabinal Achí, a play written in the Achi’ language, was declared a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2005.
Geographical extent
The geographic extent of the Maya civilization, known as the Maya area, extended throughout the southern Mexican states of Chiapas, Tabasco, and the Yucatán Peninsula states of Quintana Roo, Campeche and Yucatán. The Maya area also extended throughout the northern Central American region, including the present-day nations of Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador and western Honduras.
As the largest sub-region in Mesoamerica, it encompassed a vast and varied landscape, from the mountainous regions of the Sierra Madre to the semi-arid plains of northern Yucatán. Climate in the Maya region can vary tremendously, as the low-lying areas are particularly susceptible to the hurricanes and tropical storms that frequent the Caribbean.
The Maya area is generally divided into three loosely defined zones: the southern Maya highlands, the southern (or central) Maya lowlands, and the northern Maya lowlands. The southern Maya highlands include all of elevated terrain in Guatemala and the Chiapas highlands. The southern lowlands lie just north of the highlands, and incorporate the Mexican states of Campeche and Quintana Roo and northern Guatemala, Belize and El Salvador. The northern lowlands cover the remainder of the Yucatán Peninsula, including the Puuc hills.
History
Preclassic
The Maya area was initially inhabited around the 10th century BC. Recent discoveries of Maya occupation at Cuello in Belize have been carbon dated to around 2600 BC. This level of occupation included monumental structures. The Maya calendar, which is based around the so-called Mesoamerican Long Count calendar, commences on a date equivalent to 11 August, 3114 BC. However, according to “accepted history” the first clearly “Maya” settlements were established in approximately 1800 BC in Soconusco region of the Pacific Coast. This period, known as the Early Preclassic, was characterized by sedentary communities and the introduction of pottery and fired clay figurines.
Important sites in the southern Maya lowlands include Nakbe, El Mirador, Cival, and San Bartolo. In the Guatemalan Highlands Kaminal Juyú emerges around 800 BC. For many centuries it controlled the Jade and Obsidian sources for the Petén and Pacific Lowlands. The important early sites of Izapa, Takalik Abaj and Chocolá at around 600 BC were the main producers of Cacao. Mid-sized Maya communities also began to develop in the northern Maya lowlands during the Middle and Late Preclassic, though these lacked the size, scale, and influence of the large centers of the southern lowlands. Two important Preclassic northern sites include Komchen and Dzibilchaltun. The first written inscription in Maya hieroglyphics also dates to this period (c. 250 BC).
There is disagreement about the boundaries which differentiate the physical and cultural extent of the early Maya and neighboring Preclassic Mesoamerican civilizations, such as the Olmec culture of the Tabasco lowlands and the Mixe-Zoque and Zapotec–speaking peoples of Chiapas and southern Oaxaca, respectively. Many of the earliest significant inscriptions and buildings appeared in this overlapping zone, and evidence suggests that these cultures and the formative Maya influenced one another. Takalik Abaj, in the Pacific slopes of Guatemala, is the only site where Olmec and then Maya features have been found.
Classic
The Classic period (c. 250–900 AD) witnessed the peak of large-scale construction and urbanism, the recording of monumental inscriptions, and a period of significant intellectual and artistic development, particularly in the southern lowland regions. They developed an agriculturally intensive, city-centered empire consisting of numerous independent city-states. This includes the well-known cities of Tikal, Palenque, Copán and Calakmul, but also the lesser known Dos Pilas, Uaxactun, Altun Ha, and Bonampak, among others. The Early Classic settlement distribution in the northern Maya lowlands is not as clearly known as the southern zone, but does include a number of population centers, such as Oxkintok, Chunchucmil, and the early occupation of Uxmal.
The most notable monuments are the stepped pyramids they built in their religious centers and the accompanying palaces of their rulers. The palace at Cancuen is the largest in the Maya area, though the site, interestingly, lacks pyramids. Other important archaeological remains include the carved stone slabs usually called stelae (the Maya called them tetun, or “tree-stones”), which depict rulers along with hieroglyphic texts describing their genealogy, military victories, and other accomplishments.
The Maya civilization participated in long distance trade with many of the other Mesoamerican cultures, including Teotihuacan, the Zapotec and other groups in central and gulf-coast Mexico, as well as with more distant, non-Mesoamerican groups, for example the Tainos in the Caribbean. Archeologists have also found gold from Panama in the Sacred Cenote of Chichen Itza. Important trade goods included cacao, salt, sea shells, jade and obsidian.
The Maya collapse
Main article: Maya collapse
For reasons that are still debated, the Maya centers of the southern lowlands went into decline during the 8th and 9th centuries and were abandoned shortly thereafter. This decline was coupled with a cessation of monumental inscriptions and large-scale architectural construction. Although there is no universally accepted theory to explain this “collapse,” current theories fall into two categories: non-ecological and ecological.
Non-ecological theories of Maya decline are divided into several subcategories, such as overpopulation, foreign invasion, peasant revolt, and the collapse of key trade routes. Ecological hypotheses include environmental disaster, epidemic disease, and climate change. There is evidence that the Maya population exceeded carrying capacity of the environment including exhaustion of agricultural potential and overhunting of megafauna. Some scholars have recently theorized that an intense 200 year drought led to the collapse of Maya civilization. The drought theory originated from research performed by physical scientists studying lake beds, ancient pollen, and other data, not from the archaeological community.
Postclassic period
During the succeeding Postclassic period (from the 10th to the early 16th century), development in the northern centers persisted, characterized by an increasing diversity of external influences. The Maya cities of the northern lowlands in Yucatán continued to flourish for centuries more; some of the important sites in this era were Chichen Itza, Uxmal, Edzná, and Coba. After the decline of the ruling dynasties of Chichen and Uxmal, Mayapan ruled all of Yucatán until a revolt in 1450. (This city’s name may be the source of the word “Maya”, which had a more geographically restricted meaning in Yucatec and colonial Spanish and only grew to its current meaning in the 19th and 20th centuries). The area then degenerated into competing city-states until the Yucatán was conquered by the Spanish.
The Itza Maya, Ko’woj, and Yalain groups of Central Peten survived the “Classic Period Collapse” in small numbers and by 1250 reconstituted themselves to form competing city-states. The Itza maintained their capital at Tayasal (also known as Noh Petén), an archaeological site thought to underlay the modern city of Flores, Guatemala on Lake Petén Itzá. It ruled over an area extending across the Peten Lakes region, encompassing the community of Eckixil on Lake Quexil. The Ko’woj had their capital at Zacpeten. Postclassic Maya states also continued to survive in the southern highlands. One of the Maya nations in this area, the K’iche’ Kingdom of Q’umarkaj, is responsible for the best-known Maya work of historiography and mythology, the Popol Vuh. Other highland kingdoms included the Mam based at Huehuetenango, the Kaqchikels based at Iximché, the Chajomá based at Mixco Viejo and the Chuj, based at San Mateo Ixtatán.
Colonial period
Shortly after their first expeditions to the region, the Spanish initiated a number of attempts to subjugate the Maya and establish a colonial presence in the Maya territories of the Yucatán Peninsula and the Guatemalan highlands. This campaign, sometimes termed “The Spanish Conquest of Yucatán,” would prove to be a lengthy and dangerous exercise for the conquistadores from the outset, and it would take some 170 years before the Spanish established substantive control over all Maya lands.
Unlike the Aztec and Inca Empires, there was no single Maya political center that, once overthrown, would hasten the end of collective resistance from the indigenous peoples. Instead, the conquistador forces needed to subdue the numerous independent Maya polities almost one by one, many of which kept up a fierce resistance. Most of the conquistadores were motivated by the prospects of the great wealth to be had from the seizure of precious metal resources such as gold or silver; however, the Maya lands themselves were poor in these resources. This would become another factor in forestalling Spanish designs of conquest, as they instead were initially attracted to the reports of great riches in central Mexico or Peru.
The Spanish Church and government officials destroyed Maya texts and with them the knowledge of Maya writing, but by chance three of the pre-Columbian books dated to the post classic period have been preserved. The last Maya states, the Itza polity of Tayasal and the Ko’woj city of Zacpeten, were continuously occupied and remained independent of the Spanish until late in the 17th century. They were finally subdued by the Spanish in 1697.
Political structures
A typical Classic Maya polity was a small hierarchical state (ajawil, ajawlel, or ajawlil) headed by a hereditary ruler known as an ajaw (later k’uhul ajaw). Such kingdoms were usually no more than a capital city with its neighborhood and several lesser towns, although there were greater kingdoms, which controlled larger territories and extended patronage over smaller polities. Each kingdom had a name that did not necessarily correspond to any locality within its territory. Its identity was that of a political unit associated with a particular ruling dynasty. For instance, the archaeological site of Naranjo was the capital of the kingdom of Saal. The land (chan ch’e’n) of the kingdom and its capital were called Wakab’nal or Maxam and were part of a larger geographical entity known as Huk Tsuk. Interestingly, despite constant warfare and eventual shifts in regional power, most kingdoms never disappeared from the political landscape until the collapse of the whole system in the 9th century AD. In this respect, Classic Maya kingdoms are highly similar to late Post Classic polities encountered by the Spaniards in Yucatán and Central Mexico: some polities could be subordinated to hegemonic rulers through conquests or dynastic unions and yet even then they persisted as distinct entities.
Mayanists have been increasingly accepting a “court paradigm” of Classic Maya societies which puts the emphasis on the centrality of the royal household and especially the person of the king. This approach focuses on Maya monumental spaces as the embodiment of the diverse activities of the royal household. It considers the role of places and spaces (including dwellings of royalty and nobles, throne rooms, temples, halls and plazas for public ceremonies) in establishing power and social hierarchy, and also in projecting aesthetic and moral values to define the wider social realm.
Spanish sources invariably describe even the largest Maya settlements as dispersed collections of dwellings grouped around the temples and palaces of the ruling dynasty and lesser nobles. None of the Classic Maya cities shows evidence of economic specialization and commerce of the scale of Mexican Tenochtitlan. Instead, Maya cities could be seen as enormous royal households, the locales of the administrative and ritual activities of the royal court. They were the places where privileged nobles could approach the holy ruler, where aesthetic values of the high culture were formulated and disseminated, where aesthetic items were consumed. They were the self-proclaimed centers and the sources of social, moral, and cosmic order. The fall of a royal court as in the well-documented cases of Piedras Negras or Copan would cause the inevitable “death” of the associated settlement.
Art
Many consider Maya art of their Classic Era (c. 250 to 900 AD) to be the most sophisticated and beautiful of the ancient New World. The carvings and the reliefs made of stucco at Palenque and the statuary of Copán are especially fine, showing a grace and accurate observation of the human form that reminded early archaeologists of Classical civilizations of the Old World, hence the name bestowed on this era. We have only hints of the advanced painting of the classic Maya; mostly what have survived are funerary pottery and other Maya ceramics, and a building at Bonampak holds ancient murals that survived by chance. A beautiful turquoise blue color that has survived through the centuries due to its unique chemical characteristics is known as Maya Blue or Azul maya, and it is present in Bonampak, Tajín Cacaxtla, Jaina, and even in some Colonial Convents. The use of Maya Blue survived until the 16th century when the technique was lost. Some Pre Classic murals have been recently discovered at San Bartolo, and are by far the finest in style and iconography, regarded as the Sistine Chapel of the Maya. With the decipherment of the Maya script it was discovered that the Maya were one of the few civilizations where artists attached their name to their work.
Architecture
Maya architecture spans many thousands of years; yet, often the most dramatic and easily recognizable as Maya are the stepped pyramids from the Terminal Pre-classic period and beyond. There are also cave sites that are important to the Maya. These cave sites include Jolja Cave, the cave site at Naj Tunich, the Candelaria Caves, and the Cave of the Witch. There are also cave-origin myths among the Maya. Some cave sites are still used by the modern Maya in the Chiapas highlands.
It has been suggested that temples and pyramids were remodeled and rebuilt every fifty-two years in synchrony with the Maya Long Count Calendar. It appears now that the rebuilding process was often instigated by a new ruler or for political matters, as opposed to matching the calendar cycle. However, the process of rebuilding on top of old structures is indeed a common one. Most notably, the North Acropolis at Tikal seems to be the sum total of 1,500 years of architectural modifications. In Tikal and Yaxhá, there are the Twin Pyramid complexes (seven in Tikal and one in Yaxhá, that commemorate the end of a Baktún). Through observation of the numerous consistent elements and stylistic distinctions, remnants of Maya architecture have become an important key to understanding the evolution of their ancient civilization.
Urban design
As Maya cities spread throughout the varied geography of Mesoamerica, site planning appears to have been minimal. Maya architecture tended to integrate a great degree of natural features, and their cities were built somewhat haphazardly as dictated by the topography of each independent location. For instance, some cities on the flat limestone plains of the northern Yucatán grew into great sprawling municipalities, while others built in the hills of Usumacinta utilized the natural loft of the topography to raise their towers and temples to impressive heights. However, some semblance of order, as required in any large city, still prevailed.
Classic Era Maya urban design could easily be described as the division of space by great monuments and causeways. Open public plazas were the gathering places for people and the focus of urban design, while interior space was entirely secondary. Only in the Late Post-Classic era did the great Maya cities develop into more fortress-like defensive structures that lacked, for the most part, the large and numerous plazas of the Classic.
At the onset of large-scale construction during the Classic Era, a predetermined axis was typically established in a cardinal direction. Depending on the location of natural resources such as fresh-water wells, or cenotes, the city grew by using sacbeob (causeways) to connect great plazas with the numerous platforms that created the sub-structure for nearly all Maya buildings. As more structures were added and existing structures re-built or remodeled, the great Maya cities seemed to take on an almost random identity that contrasted sharply with other great Mesoamerican cities such as Teotihuacan and its rigid grid-like construction.
At the heart of the Maya city were large plazas surrounded by the most important governmental and religious buildings, such as the royal acropolis, great pyramid temples and occasionally ball-courts. Though city layouts evolved as nature dictated, careful attention was placed on the directional orientation of temples and observatories so that they were constructed in accordance with Maya interpretation of the orbits of the heavenly bodies. Immediately outside of this ritual center were the structures of lesser nobles, smaller temples, and individual shrines; the less sacred and less important structures had a greater degree of privacy. Outside of the constantly evolving urban core were the less permanent and more modest homes of the common people.
Building materials
A surprising aspect of the great Maya structures is their lack of many advanced technologies seemingly necessary for such constructions. Lacking draft animals necessary for wheel-based modes of transportation, metal tools and even pulleys, Maya architecture required abundant manpower. Yet, beyond this enormous requirement, the remaining materials seem to have been readily available. All stone for Maya structures appears to have been taken from local quarries. They most often used limestone which remained pliable enough to be worked with stone tools while being quarried and only hardened once removed from its bed. In addition to the structural use of limestone, much of their mortar consisted of crushed, burnt and mixed limestone that mimicked the properties of cement and was used as widely for stucco finishing as it was for mortar. Later improvements in quarrying techniques reduced the necessity for this limestone-stucco as the stones began to fit quite perfectly, yet it remained a crucial element in some post and lintel roofs. In the case of the common Maya houses, wooden poles, adobe and thatch were the primary materials; however, instances of what appear to be common houses of limestone have been discovered as well. Also notable throughout Maya architecture is the corbel arch (also known as a “false arch”), which allowed for more open-aired entrances. The corbelled arch improved upon pier/post and lintel doorways by directing the weight off of the lintel and onto the supporting posts.
Notable constructions
Writing and literacy
Writing system
The Maya writing system (often called hieroglyphs from a superficial resemblance to the Ancient Egyptian writing) was a combination of phonetic symbols and logograms. It is most often classified as a logographic or (more properly) a logosyllabic writing system, in which syllabic signs play a significant role. It is the only writing system of the Pre-Columbian New World which is known to completely represent the spoken language of its community. In total, the script has more than a thousand different glyphs, although a few are variations of the same sign or meaning, and many appear only rarely or are confined to particular localities. At any one time, no more than around 500 glyphs were in use, some 200 of which (including variations) had a phonetic or syllabic interpretation.
The earliest inscriptions in an identifiably-Maya script date back to 200–300 BC.[19] However, this is preceded by several other writing systems which had developed in Mesoamerica, most notably that of the Zapotecs, and (following the 2006 publication of research on the recently-discovered Cascajal Block), the Olmecs. There is a pre-Maya writing known as “Epi-Olmec script” (post Olmec) which some researchers believe may represent a transitional script between Olmec and Maya writing, but the relationships between these remain unclear and the matter is unsettled. On January 5, 2006, National Geographic published the findings of Maya writings that could be as old as 400 BC, suggesting that the Maya writing system is nearly as old as the oldest Mesoamerican writing known at that time, Zapotec. In the succeeding centuries the Maya developed their script into a form which was far more complete and complex than any other that has yet been found in the Americas.
Since its inception, the Maya script was in use up to the arrival of the Europeans, peaking during the Maya Classical Period (c. 200 to 900). Although many Maya centers went into decline (or were completely abandoned) during or after this period, the skill and knowledge of Maya writing persisted amongst segments of the population, and the early Spanish conquistadors knew of individuals who could still read and write the script. Unfortunately, the Spanish displayed little interest in it, and as a result of the dire impacts the conquest had on Maya societies, the knowledge was subsequently lost, probably within only a few generations.
At a rough estimate, in excess of 10,000 individual texts have so far been recovered, mostly inscribed on stone monuments, lintels, stelae and ceramic pottery. The Maya also produced texts painted on a form of paper manufactured from processed tree-bark, in particular from several species of strangler fig trees such as Ficus cotinifolia and Ficus padifolia.[22] This paper, common throughout Mesoamerica and generally now known by its Nahuatl-language name amatl, was typically bound as a single continuous sheet that was folded into pages of equal width, concertina-style, to produce a codex that could be written on both sides. Shortly after the conquest, all of the codices which could be found were ordered to be burnt and destroyed by zealous Spanish priests, notably Bishop Diego de Landa. Only three reasonably intact examples of Maya codices are known to have survived through to the present day. These are now known as the Madrid, Dresden, and Paris codices. A few pages survive from a fourth, the Grolier codex, whose authenticity is sometimes disputed, but mostly is held to be genuine. Further archaeology conducted at Maya sites often reveals other fragments, rectangular lumps of plaster and paint chips which formerly were codices; these tantalizing remains are, however, too severely damaged for any inscriptions to have survived, most of the organic material having decayed.
The decipherment and recovery of the now-lost knowledge of Maya writing has been a long and laborious process. Some elements were first deciphered in the late 19th and early 20th century, mostly the parts having to do with numbers, the Maya calendar, and astronomy. Major breakthroughs came starting in the 1950s to 1970s, and accelerated rapidly thereafter. By the end of the 20th century, scholars were able to read the majority of Maya texts to a large extent, and recent field work continues to further illuminate the content.
In reference to the few extant Maya writings, Michael D. Coe, a prominent linguist and epigrapher at Yale University, stated:
“[O]ur knowledge of ancient Maya thought must represent only a tiny fraction of the whole picture, for of the thousands of books in which the full extent of their learning and ritual was recorded, only four have survived to modern times (as though all that posterity knew of ourselves were to be based upon three prayer books and ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’).” (Michael D. Coe, The Maya, London: Thames and Hudson, 4th ed., 1987, p. 161.)
Most surviving pre-Columbian Maya writing is from stelae and other stone inscriptions from Maya sites, many of which were already abandoned before the Spanish arrived. The inscriptions on the stelae mainly record the dynasties and wars of the sites’ rulers. Also of note are the inscriptions that reveal information about the lives of ancient Maya women. Much of the remainder of Maya hieroglyphics has been found on funeral pottery, most of which describes the afterlife.
Writing tools
Although the archaeological record does not provide examples, Maya art shows that writing was done with brushes made with animal hair and quills. Codex-style writing was usually done in black ink with red highlights, giving rise to the Aztec name for the Maya territory as the “land of red and black”.
Scribes and literacy
Scribes held a prominent position in Maya courts. Maya art often depicts rulers with trappings indicating they were scribes or at least able to write, such as having pen bundles in their headdresses. Additionally, many rulers have been found in conjunction with writing tools such as shell or clay inkpots. Although the number of logograms and syllabic symbols required to fully write the language numbered in the hundreds, literacy was not necessarily widespread beyond the elite classes. Graffiti uncovered in various contexts, including on fired bricks, shows nonsensical attempts to imitate the writing system.
Mathematics
In common with the other Mesoamerican civilizations, the Maya used a base 20 (vigesimal) and base 5 numbering system (see Maya numerals). Also, the preclassic Maya and their neighbors independently developed the concept of zero by 36 BC. Inscriptions show them on occasion working with sums up to the hundreds of millions and dates so large it would take several lines just to represent it. They produced extremely accurate astronomical observations; their charts of the movements of the moon and planets are equal or superior to those of any other civilization working from naked eye observation.
In common with the other Mesoamerican civilizations, the Maya had measured the length of the solar year to a high degree of accuracy, far more accurately than that used in Europe as the basis of the Gregorian Calendar. They did not use this figure for the length of year in their calendars, however; the calendars they used were crude, being based on a year length of exactly 365 days, which means that the calendar falls out of step with the seasons by one day every four years. By comparison, the Julian calendar, used in Europe from Roman times until about the 16th Century, accumulated an error of only one day every 128 years. The modern Gregorian calendar is even more accurate, accumulating only a day’s error in approximately 3257 years.
Astronomy
Uniquely, there is some evidence to suggest the Maya appear to be the only pre-telescopic civilization to demonstrate knowledge of the Orion Nebula as being fuzzy, i.e. not a stellar pin-point. The information which supports this theory comes from a folk tale that deals with the Orion constellation’s area of the sky. Their traditional hearths include in their middle a smudge of glowing fire that corresponds with the Orion Nebula. This is a significant clue to support the idea that the Maya detected a diffuse area of the sky contrary to the pin points of stars before the telescope was invented. Many preclassic sites are oriented with the Pleiades and Eta Draconis, as seen in La Blanca, Ujuxte, Monte Alto, and Takalik Abaj.
The Maya were very interested in zenial passages, the time when the sun passes directly overhead. The latitude of most of their cities being below the Tropic of Cancer, these zenial passages would occur twice a year equidistant from the solstice. To represent this position of the sun overhead, the Maya had a god named Diving God.
The Dresden Codex contains the highest concentration of astronomical phenomena observations and calculations of any of the surviving texts (it appears that the data in this codex is primarily or exclusively of an astronomical nature). Examination and analysis of this codex reveals that Venus was the most important astronomical object to the Maya, even more important to them than the sun.
Religion
Like the Aztec and Inca who came to power later, the Maya believed in a cyclical nature of time. The rituals and ceremonies were very closely associated with celestial and terrestrial cycles which they observed and inscribed as separate calendars. The Maya priest had the job of interpreting these cycles and giving a prophetic outlook on the future or past based on the number relations of all their calendars. They also had to determine if the “heavens” or celestial matters were appropriate for performing certain religious ceremonies.
The Maya practiced human sacrifice. In some Maya rituals people were killed by having their arms and legs held while a priest cut the person’s chest open and tore out his heart as an offering. This is depicted on ancient objects such as pictorial texts, known as codices. It is believed that children were often offered as sacrificial victims because they were believed to be pure.
Much of the Maya religious tradition is still not understood by scholars, but it is known that the Maya, like most pre-modern societies, believed that the cosmos has three major planes, the underworld, the sky, and the Earth.
The Maya underworld is reached through caves and ball courts. It was thought to be dominated by the aged Maya gods of death and putrefaction. The Sun (Kinich Ahau) and Itzamna, an aged god, dominated the Maya idea of the sky. Another aged man, god L, was one of the major deities of the underworld.
The night sky was considered a window showing all supernatural doings. The Maya configured constellations of gods and places, saw the unfolding of narratives in their seasonal movements, and believed that the intersection of all possible worlds was in the night sky.
Maya gods were not separate entities like Greek gods. The gods had affinities and aspects that caused them to merge with one another in ways that seem unbounded. There is a massive array of supernatural characters in the Maya religious tradition, only some of which recur with regularity. Good and evil traits are not permanent characteristics of Maya gods, nor is only “good” admirable. What is inappropriate during one season might come to pass in another since much of the Maya religious tradition is based on cycles and not permanence.
The life-cycle of maize lies at the heart of Maya belief. This philosophy is demonstrated on the belief in the Maya maize god as a central religious figure. The Maya bodily ideal is also based on the form of this young deity, which is demonstrated in their artwork. The Maize God was also a model of courtly life for the Classical Maya.
It is sometimes believed that the multiple “gods” represented nothing more than a mathematical explanation of what they observed. Each god was literally just a number or an explanation of the effects observed by a combination of numbers from multiple calendars. Among the many types of Maya calendars which were maintained, the most important included a 260-day cycle, a 365-day cycle which approximated the solar year, a cycle which recorded lunation periods of the Moon, and a cycle which tracked the synodic period of Venus.
Philosophically, the Maya believed that knowing the past meant knowing the cyclical influences that create the present, and by knowing the influences of the present one can see the cyclical influences of the future.
Even in the 19th century, there was Maya influence in the local branch of Christianity followed in Chan Santa Cruz. Among the K’iche’ in the western highlands of Guatemala these same nine months are replicated, until this very day, in the training of the ajk’ij, the keeper of the 260-day-calendar called ch’olk’ij.
Agriculture
The ancient Maya had diverse and sophisticated methods of food production. It was formerly believed that shifting cultivation (swidden) agriculture provided most of their food but it is now thought that permanent raised fields, terracing, forest gardens, managed fallows, and wild harvesting were also crucial to supporting the large populations of the Classic period in some areas. Indeed, evidence of these different agricultural systems persist today: raised fields connected by canals can be seen on aerial photographs, contemporary rainforest species composition has significantly higher abundance of species of economic value to ancient Maya, and pollen records in lake sediments suggest that corn, manioc, sunflower seeds, cotton, and other crops have been cultivated in association with the deforestation in Mesoamerica since at least 2500 BC.
Contemporary Maya peoples still practice many of these traditional forms of agriculture, although they are dynamic systems and change with changing population pressures, cultures, economic systems, climate change, and the availability of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides.
Rediscovery of the Pre-Columbian Maya
Spanish clergy and administrators dating to the 16th century were largely familiar with ancient Maya sites, writing and calendar systems. Published writings of 16th century Bishop Diego de Landa and writings of 18th century Spanish officials spurred serious investigations of Maya sites by the late 18th century. In 1839 United States traveler and writer John Lloyd Stephens, familiar with earlier Spanish investigations, visited Copán, Palenque, and other sites with English architect and draftsman Frederick Catherwood. Their illustrated accounts of the ruins sparked strong popular interest in the region and the people, and they have once again regained their position as a vital link in Mesoamerican heritage.
However, in many locations, Maya ruins have been overgrown by the jungle, becoming dense enough to hide structures just a few meters away. To help find ruins, researchers have turned to satellite imagery. The best way to find them is to look at the visible and near-infrared spectra. Due to their limestone construction, the monuments affected the chemical makeup of the soil as they deteriorated. Some moisture-loving plants stayed away, while others were killed off or discolored. The effects of the limestone ruins are still apparent today to some satellite sensors.
Much of the contemporary rural population of the Yucatán Peninsula, Chiapas (both in Mexico), Guatemala and Belize is Maya by descent and primary language.
Maya sites
There are hundreds of significant Maya sites, and thousands of smaller ones. The largest and most historically important include:
See also
Further reading
External links
Related articles by Zemanta
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Tapachula, Chiapas
Tapachula is a municipio (municipality) and city with a hot, humid climate in the Mexican state of Chiapas. It is located in southern part of the state on the Soconusco coastal plain, near the border with Guatemala, at 14.91° N 92.27° W. In the 2005 census the population of the municipality was 282,420 people, whereas the city of Tapachula had a population of 189,991 (more than two-thirds of the municipality’s total). The city and the municipality both rank second in the state in population, behind Tuxtla Gutiérrez.
The city has one of the highest GDP per capita in Mexico, and it is known sometimes as “Perla del Soconusco” (”Pearl of Soconusco”).
Culture
The population mix is culturally diverse. From Native Americans and Mestizos, Spanish, German, Chinese, Japanese, French and several others. The International Fair of Tapachula is celebrated during March with cattle agricultural and commercial exhibition.
Important newspapers are the Tapachultecan “El Orbe” and the Soconuscan “El Diario del Sur”; radio can be received from both Mexico and Guatemala.
Important politicians, scientists, and artists were born in Tapachula, like Fray Matías de Córdova and Amparo Montes. During the history of the city several foreign cultures had influence in the rich history of the city. The Germans came during the coffee boom and created German villages and haciendas where their descendants live today, and haciendas like: Hamburgo, Bremen, Germania, etc. still remind us of the first Saxons of the area. The Japanese and the Chinese also left a strong influence in Tapachula, in the cuisine and architecture. They came to construct railroads and were the first Asian immigrants in Latin America. Italian, French and other expats descendants still live along the Spanish, Mestizo and Indians of the region.
Migration
Tapachula is also known as the point at which the undocumented migrants from Central America begin their trek northward in search of jobs, and a better life. Before Hurricane Stan devastated the Soconusco region, a train system carried large numbers of these migrants weekly to the north.
Metropolitan area
Tapachula has an extensive metropolitan zone that includes several suburbs including beaches like Playa Linda, Puerto Madero, Viva Mexico a downtown Tapachula and even a Cruise Harbor named Puerto Chiapas (2005). The postal code for Tapachula is 30700.
Education
The city is an exemplary cultural hub with strong involvement from the government of Mexico changing trends of literacy around this city. Although there are not that many universities, most majors are offered from law and accounting (UNACH, CEST), to medicine and civil engineering (IESCH, Tecnologico de Tapachula), architecture and system engineer (UVG).
Puerto Madero is a former name of the current Puerto Chiapas.
Notable features
Tapachula’s main attractions are:
Air travel
The city is served by the Tapachula International Airport.
External links
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