Guaytán is an archaeological site of the

Maya civilization The Maya civilization () of the Mesoamerican people is known by its ancient temples and glyphs. Its Maya script is the most sophisticated and highly developed writing system in the pre-Columbian Americas. It is also noted for its art, a ...

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 ...

San Agustín Acasaguastlán San Agustín Acasaguastlán () is a town, with a population of 17,728 (2018 census),Citypopulation.de
Populatio ...

, in the department of

El Progreso El Progreso () is a city, with a population of 119,260 (2020 calculation), and a municipality located in the Honduran department of Yoro. Ramón Villeda Morales International Airport of San Pedro Sula is located west of the city. To the eas ...

, in Guatemala. It is the most important

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, ...

archaeological site of the middle drainage of the

Motagua River The Motagua River () is a river in Guatemala. It rises in the western highlands of Guatemala where it is also called Río Grande, and runs in an easterly direction to the Gulf of Honduras. The final few kilometres of the river form part of the ...

.Romero 2016, p. 15. The site is located south of San Agustín Acasaguastlán, and to the north of the Motagua River, built on both banks of the Lato River. The site was inhabited from the Late Preclassic Period (c. 250 BC – 250 AD) to the Late Classic Period (c. 300 – 900 AD).Arroyave Prera 2012, p. 603. The city controlled an important source of jadeite.

Description

The site is distributed in a number of groups on both sides of the Lato River, but hasn't been completely mapped. The principal groups include the Acropolis,Arroyave Prera 2012, p. 601. El Castillo, Carrillo,Romero 2016, p. 16. La Escuela,Romero 2016, p. 17. and La Estela. Guaytán features an unusual Late to Terminal Classic

ballcourt A Mesoamerican ballcourt ( nah, tlachtli) is a large masonry structure of a type used in Mesoamerica for over 2,700 years to play the Mesoamerican ballgame, particularly the hip-ball version of the ballgame. More than 1,300 ballcourts have been i ...

with an attached temple. Fragments of Classic period

codices The codex (plural codices ) was the historical ancestor of the modern book. Instead of being composed of sheets of paper, it used sheets of vellum, papyrus, or other materials. The term ''codex'' is often used for ancient manuscript books, with ...

have been recovered from tombs at the site.

Sculptures

A number of zoomorphic sculptures have been recovered from Guaytán; five of these are believed to represent the heads of snakes and have been labelled as Monuments 1 through to 5. Although they have been described as ballcourt markers, they may have been set into the corners of buildings. Monument 6 represents a seated monkey with its arms curving around its front, with its left leg behind them. Only the right eye has been carved into the monument.

Burials

Guaytán features a number of large

cist A cist ( or ; also kist ; from grc-gre, κίστη, Middle Welsh ''Kist'' or Germanic ''Kiste'') is a small stone-built coffin-like box or ossuary used to hold the bodies of the dead. Examples can be found across Europe and in the Middle Ea ...

s and extensive crypts containing multiple burials. Most were found under the remains of large structures that formed closed plazas. The crypts were built with large slabs of stone to form chambers that measured approximately high.Romero 2000, p. 659. The largest slabs were set to form vaulted roofs to the chambers. A tomb under Structure 24 features small niches that contained vessels left as funerary offerings. Some of the crypts contained an antechamber used for additional burials.Romero 2000, p. 660. Tomb 3 has a chamber that measures wide by long, accessed by a long passage with a width of and a height of .Romero 2000, pp. 659–660.

Site history

During the Late Preclassic, Guaytán was densely populated, although buildings were generally of perishable materials. At the time, the site had contacts with the

Guatemalan Highlands The Guatemalan Highlands is an upland region in southern Guatemala, lying between the Sierra Madre de Chiapas to the south and the Petén lowlands to the north. Description The highlands are made up of a series of high valleys enclosed by mou ...

and with the Pacific coastal lowlands. Guaytán was one of two sites (the other being La Vega de Cobán, in

Zacapa Zacapa () is the departmental capital municipality of Zacapa Department, one of the 22 Departments of Guatemala. It is located approximately from Guatemala City. Sports Football club Deportivo Zacapa competes in Guatemala's top division and p ...

) that controlled most of the

trade Trade involves the transfer of goods and services from one person or entity to another, often in exchange for money. Economists refer to a system or network that allows trade as a market. An early form of trade, barter, saw the direct excha ...

passing along the Motagua River. In the Early Classic, the city underwent a population explosion and there was contact with the great metropolis of

Teotihuacan Teotihuacan (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 known today as t ...

, in the distant

Valley of Mexico The Valley of Mexico ( es, Valle de México) is a highlands plateau in central Mexico roughly coterminous with present-day Mexico City and the eastern half of the State of Mexico. Surrounded by mountains and volcanoes, the Valley of Mexico w ...

. By the Late Classic, contacts extended to the Petén lowlands, the

Yucatán Peninsula The Yucatán Peninsula (, also , ; es, Península de Yucatán ) is a large peninsula in southeastern Mexico and adjacent portions of Belize and Guatemala. The peninsula extends towards the northeast, separating the Gulf of Mexico to the north ...

, and the western portions of Honduras and El Salvador.

Modern history

The site was first reported in 1926 by archaeologist Gustavo Espinoza, although no serious investigations were undertaken until 1943. Projects to partially map the site were undertaken in 2001 and 2013.

Notes

References

*Arroyave Prera, Ana Lucia (2012).
Recordando a Guaytán, una propuesta de restauración en la acrópolis y en el Juego de Pelota B2
' (in Spanish). XXV Simposio de Investigaciones Arqueológicas en Guatemala, 2011 (edited by B. Arroyo, L. Paiz, and H. Mejía), pp. 601–610. Guatemala City, Guatemala: Ministerio de Cultura y Deportes, Instituto de Antropología e Historia and Asociación Tikal. Retrieved 2016-10-29. Archived fro
the original
on 2016-05-15. *Fox, John W. (1991). "The Lords of Light Versus the Lords of Dark: The Postclassic Highland Maya Ballgame". In Vernon Scarborough and David R. Wilcox (eds.). ''The Mesoamerican Ballgame''. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. pp. 213–238. . . *López Garzona, Sergio (2015).
Esculturas zoomorfas del Motagua Medio
' (in Spanish). XXVIII Simposio de Investigaciones Arqueológicas en Guatemala, 2014 (edited by B. Arroyo, L. Méndez Salinas and L. Paiz), pp. 759–772. Guatemala City, Guatemala: Museo Nacional de Arqueología y Etnología. *Romero, Luis A. (2000).
Sistema de enterramiento en la cuenca media del río Motagua: El caso de La Reforma Huité, Zacapa
' (in Spanish). XIII Simposio de Investigaciones Arqueológicas en Guatemala, 1999 (edited by J.P. Laporte, H. Escobedo, B. Arroyo y A. C. de Suasnávar), pp. 659–672. Guatemala City, Guatemala: Museo Nacional de Arqueología y Etnología. *Romero, Luis Alberto (2016).
Registro y clasificación los sitios arqueológicos de San Agustín Acasaguastlán
' (in Spanish). Estudios Digital, Year 4, no. 8, March 2016. . Accessed on 2 May 2017. *Sharer, Robert J.; Loa P. Traxler (2006). ''The Ancient Maya'' (6th (fully revised) ed.). Stanford, California, US: Stanford University Press. . .