Bejucal is a

Maya Maya may refer to: Civilizations * Maya peoples, of southern Mexico and northern Central America ** Maya civilization, the historical civilization of the Maya peoples ** Maya language, the languages of the Maya peoples * Maya (Ethiopia), a populat ...

archaeological site in the

Petén Department Petén is a department of Guatemala. It is geographically the northernmost department of Guatemala, as well as the largest by area at it accounts for about one third of Guatemala's area. The capital is Flores. The population at the mid-2018 o ...

Guatemala Guatemala ( ; ), officially the Republic of Guatemala ( es, República de Guatemala, links=no), is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico; to the northeast by Belize and the Caribbean; to the east by H ...

. It is located northeast of

El Zotz El Zotz () is a Mesoamerican archaeological site of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization, located in the Petén Basin region around west of the major center of Tikal and approximately west of Uaxactun. It is so called because of the large numb ...

and was subservient to that city. The site is thought to date to the second half of the 4th century AD, in the Early Classic period.

Location

The site is located within the San Miguel La Palotada

biotope A biotope is an area of uniform environmental conditions providing a living place for a specific assemblage of plants and animals. ''Biotope'' is almost synonymous with the term "habitat", which is more commonly used in English-speaking countrie ...

in the

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...

of San José in the department of Petén in northern Guatemala. The biotope is a part of the

Maya Biosphere Reserve The Maya Biosphere Reserve ( es, Reserva de la Biosfera Maya) is a nature reserve in Guatemala managed by Guatemala's National Council of Protected Areas (CONAP). The Maya Biosphere Reserve covers an area of 21,602 km², one-fifth of the c ...

that is bordered on the east by the

Tikal National Park Tikal National Park is a national park located in Guatemala, in the northern region of the Petén Department. Stretching across 57,600 hectares, it contains the ancient Mayan city of Tikal and the surrounding tropical forests, savannas, and wetla ...

and surrounded on all other sides by designated multiple-use zones of the Reserve. Bejucal is situated west of the ruins of Tikal.

History

Bejucal was the original capital of the royal dynasty that later ruled El Zotz, apparently transferring their capital to that city. The

Teotihuacan Teotihuacan (Spanish language, Spanish: ''Teotihuacán'') (; ) is an ancient Mesoamerican city located in a sub-valley of the Valley of Mexico, which is located in the State of Mexico, northeast of modern-day Mexico City. Teotihuacan is ...

-linked general Siyaj K'ak' ("Fire is Born") conquered Bejucal in the 4th century, together with many other sites in Petén, including the great city of Tikal. A text at the site mentions Siyaj K'ak' as overlord of Bejucal in AD 381.

Stela A stele ( ),Anglicized plural steles ( ); Greek plural stelai ( ), from Greek , ''stēlē''. The Greek plural is written , ''stēlai'', but this is only rarely encountered in English. or occasionally stela (plural ''stelas'' or ''stelæ''), whe ...

1 from Bejucal also indicates that Siyaj K'ak' was overlord of nearby El Zotz. From around this time the kings of Bejucal began to refer to themselves as vassals of Tikal, their giant neighbour, using the ''y

ajaw Ajaw or Ahau ('Lord') is a pre-Columbian Maya political title attested from epigraphic inscriptions. It is also the name of the 20th day of the ''tzolkʼin'', the Maya divinatory calendar, on which a ruler's ''kʼatun''-ending rituals would fal ...

'' phrase meaning subordinate lord. Inscriptions at Bejucal all fit within a very short 40-year span in the second half of the 4th century, ending about AD 396. The abrupt cessation of inscriptions at Bejucal is possibly the result of the expansion of the Tikal polity. In the late 1970s

Ian Graham Ian James Alastair Graham OBE (12 November 1923 – 1 August 2017) was a British Mayanist whose explorations of Maya ruins in the jungles of Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize helped establish the ''Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions'' publi ...

visited Bejucal and recorded two

stelae A stele ( ),Anglicized plural steles ( ); Greek plural stelai ( ), from Greek , ''stēlē''. The Greek plural is written , ''stēlai'', but this is only rarely encountered in English. or occasionally stela (plural ''stelas'' or ''stelæ''), whe ...

and a sculpted altar.Houston p.6.

Notes

References

* * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Bejucal (Mesoamerican Site) Maya sites in Petén Department Archaeological sites in Guatemala Former populated places in Guatemala Populated places established in the 4th century 4th-century establishments in the Maya civilization 4th-century disestablishments in Central America