Chiapa de Corzo is an

archaeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology an ...

pre-Columbian In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era spans from the original settlement of North and South America in the Upper Paleolithic period through European colonization, which began with Christopher Columbus's voyage of 1492. Usually, th ...

Mesoamerica Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area in southern North America and most of Central America. It extends from approximately central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica. W ...

located near the small town of

Chiapa de Corzo, Chiapas Chiapa de Corzo () is a small city and municipality situated in the west-central part of the Mexican state of Chiapas. Located in the Grijalva River valley of the Chiapas highlands, Chiapa de Corzo lies some 15 km (9.3 mi) to the east o ...

. It rose to prominence around 700-500 BC, during the Middle Formative period, becoming a regional center. By then, its public precinct had reached 18-20 ha in size, with total settlement approaching 70 ha. Because of its position near the

Grijalva River Grijalva River, formerly known as ''Tabasco River'', ( es, Río Grijalva, known locally also as Río Grande de Chiapas, Río Grande and Mezcalapa River) is a long river in southeastern Mexico."Grijalva." ''Merriam-Webster's Geographical Diction ...

in the Central Depression of Chiapas, it controlled the local trade routes. The modern township of

, 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. CA or ca may refer to: Businesses and organizations Companies * Air China (IATA airline code CA) * CA Technologies, a U.S. software company * Cayman Airways, a Cayman Islands airline * Channel America, a defunct U.S. television network * Classi ...

1200

BCE Common Era (CE) and Before the Common Era (BCE) are year notations for the Gregorian calendar (and its predecessor, the Julian calendar), the world's most widely used calendar era. Common Era and Before the Common Era are alternatives to the or ...

). The mounds and plazas at the site, however, date to approximately 700 BCE with temples and palaces constructed at the end of the Late Formative or Protoclassic period, between 100 BCE and 200 CE. In 2008, archaeologists discovered a massive Middle Formative

Olmec The Olmecs () were the earliest known major Mesoamerican civilization. Following a progressive development in Soconusco, they occupied the tropical lowlands of the modern-day Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco. It has been speculated that t ...

axe deposit at the base of Chiapa de Corzo's Mound 11 pyramid. This deposit dates to around 700 BCE and is the second one of its kind found in Chiapas after nearby San Isidro. It is associated with one of the earliest

E-Group E-Groups are unique architectural complexes found among a number of ancient Maya settlements. They are central components to the settlement organization of Maya sites and, like many other civic and ceremonial buildings, could have served for astr ...

astronomical complexes in Mesoamerica. In April 2010, archaeologists discovered the 2,700-year-old tomb of a dignitary within Mound 11 that is the oldest pyramidal tomb yet discovered in Mesoamerica. According to archaeologist Bruce Bachand, the tomb exhibits Olmec rather than Maya affinities. This tomb predates by 600 years any other such tomb found in Mesoamerica, such as those at

Tikal Tikal () (''Tik’al'' in modern Mayan orthography) is the ruin of an ancient city, which was likely to have been called Yax Mutal, found in a rainforest in Guatemala. It is one of the largest archeological sites and urban centers of the pre-Co ...

, and at

Kaminaljuyu Kaminaljuyu (pronounced ) is a Pre-Columbian site of the Maya civilization that was primarily occupied from 1500 BC to AD 1200. Kaminaljuyu has been described as one of the greatest of all archaeological sites in the New World by Michael Coe ...

Cultural affiliation

The site is believed to have been settled by Mixe–Zoquean speakers, bearers of the

culture that populated the Gulf and Pacific Coasts of southern Mexico. Chiapa de Corzo and a half dozen other western Depression centers appear to have coalesced into a distinct Zoque civilization by 700 BCE, an archaeological culture that became the conduit between late Gulf Olmec society and the early

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 ...

. Certain Mesoamerican traits such as planned cities, earthen pyramids,

commemorative complexes, cloudy-resist waxy pottery, incensarios, and early logographic writing may have originated in the Zoque region.

Regional centre

Starting around 100 BCE, during its ''Guanacaste phase'', Chiapa de Corzo played the role of the regional capital. The city was linked with other areas across the Maya Lowlands, Maya Highlands, Pacific Coast, and Oaxaca. This is the time when the first hieroglyphic writing appeared on flat stamps, pottery vessels, stelae, and building panels.
span> The Chiapa de Corzo Project chiapadecorzo.byu.edu 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 Common era, CE. It was during this time that the ancient platform mounds were covered with limestone and stucco.

Decline

Big changes occurred in the area during the ''Istmo phase'' (AD 300-400). There was an economic decline, as craft activity diminished and long-distance ties contracted. Chiapa de Corzo and a number of western Depression sites were abandoned by the Late Classic period, a population change that closely coincides with the invasion of a war like group of Manguean-speaking people known as the

Chiapanec Chiapanec is a presumably extinct indigenous Mexican language of the Oto-Manguean language family. The 1990 census reported 17 speakers of the language in southern Chiapas out of an ethnic population of 32, but later investigations failed to find ...

. The Chiapanec chose to occupy the adjacent floodplain of the Grijalva River where the modern town is now located, and they left the Zoque ruin on the nearby plateau untouched. The abandoned city then became a place of pilgrimage.

Modern developments

The site has been heavily encroached upon over the last 70 years with the construction of roads, homes, businesses, utility systems, and a cemetery. The Nestlé company constructed a large milk processing plant in the center of the ruin in the late 1960s, removing Mound 17, one of the major ceremonial mounds at the site. In recent years, the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia ( INAH) has purchased sections of the site from local land owners. INAH officially opened a small portion of the ruin to tourists on December 8, 2009. The site is currently under investigation by a collaborative team of researchers from Brigham Young University, INAH-Chiapas, and Mexico's UNAM (see http://chiapadecorzo.byu.edu/).

Notable finds

The oldest

Mesoamerican Long Count calendar The Mesoamerican Long Count calendar is a non-repeating, vigesimal (base 20) and octodecimal (base 18) calendar used by several pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures, most notably the Maya. For this reason, it is often known as the May ...

date yet discovered, December 36 BCE, was found on Stela 2 (which is not a

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 ...

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 sherd containing what is likely

Epi-Olmec script The Isthmian script is a very early Mesoamerican writing system in use in the area of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec from perhaps 500 BCE to 500 CE, although there is disagreement on these dates. It is also called the La Mojarra script and the Epi-O ...

. Dated to as early as 300 BCE, this sherd would be the oldest instance of that

writing system A writing system is a method of visually representing verbal communication, based on a script and a set of rules regulating its use. While both writing and speech are useful in conveying messages, writing differs in also being a reliable form ...

yet discovered. The site possesses possibly the earliest example of a Mesoamerican palace complex in Mound 5. This palace was constructed in the first century CE and ritually destroyed a couple centuries later. More than 250 Formative period burials have been scientifically excavated at Chiapa de Corzo. Many derive from a unique Late Formative burial ground below the Mound 1 plaza. Chiapa de Corzo has the largest and perhaps the best chronologically subdivided Formative period burial sample in southern Mesoamerica. Chiapa de Corzo has more clay cylinder seals and flat stamps than any other Formative Mesoamerican site, save

Tlatilco Tlatilco was a large pre-Columbian village in the Valley of Mexico situated near the modern-day town of the same name in the Mexican Federal District. It was one of the first chiefdom centers to arise in the Valley, flourishing on the western sho ...

.see Lee 1969 Hieroglyphs appear on examples made around 100 BCE.

Notes

References

* * * * * * * * * *

External links

{{coord, 16, 42, 10.02, N, 93, 00, 14.43, W, region:MX_type:city, display=title Mesoamerican sites Former populated places in Mexico Archaeological sites in Chiapas