Petexbatún is a small lake formed by a river of the same name, which is a tributary of the '' La Pasion'' river. It is near

Sayaxché Sayaxché () is a municipality in the El Petén department of Guatemala, on the Río La Pasión river. It covers an area of , and had 55,578 inhabitants at the 2002 Census; the latest official estimate (as at mid-2012) was 114,781 inhabitants. Th ...

, located in the southern area of the

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 ...

department Department may refer to: * Departmentalization, division of a larger organization into parts with specific responsibility Government and military *Department (administrative division), a geographical and administrative division within a country, ...

of Petén. LagunaPetexbatun

In winter, as the La Pasión River rises, the direction of the Petexbatún River is reversed. It moves south with the current of the La Pasión River and the water level of the Petexbatún Lake increases.The Petexbatún eco-system
(in Spanish) Retrieved 30 January 2021. Archaeologists gave the name of ''Petexbatún State'' to a group of cities during the

Classic period Mesoamerican chronology divides the history of prehispanic Mesoamerica into several periods: the Paleo-Indian (first human habitation until 3500 BCE); the Archaic (before 2600 BCE), the Preclassic or Formative (2500 BCE – ...

of the Maya Civilization that include Seibal, Itzan, Dos Pilas,

Aguateca Aguateca is a Maya site located in northern Guatemala's Petexbatun Basin, in the department of Petén. The first settlements at Aguateca date to the Late Preclassic period (300 BC - AD 350). The center was occupied from about 200 B.C. until ...

Tamarindito Tamarindito is an archaeological site of the Maya civilization located along an escarpment in the Petén department of Guatemala. The city was the capital of the Petexbatún region of the southwestern Petén during the Early Classic period but ...

Punta de Chimino Punta de Chimino is a Maya archaeological site in the Petexbatún region of the department of Petén in Guatemala. Occupation at the site dates to the Preclassic and Classic periods of Mesoamerican chronology.Demarest 2006, p.124. Punta de Chim ...

, Nacimiento, and others. This State was the first to be abandoned in the Late Classic, when the

Maya Collapse In archaeology, the classic Maya collapse is the decline of the Classic Maya civilization and the abandonment of Maya cities in the southern Maya lowlands of Mesoamerica between the 7th and 9th centuries. At Ceibal, the Preclassic Maya e ...

occurred in a south to north pattern, although Seibal, may have been reoccupied by a foreign group, possibly the Putún Maya, according to the style of the Stelas in this period. The archaeological findings here have given a lot of information about the Collapse of the Classic Maya Civilization.

Notes

References

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External links

Aguateca and the Petexbatún State, History and Galleries
{{DEFAULTSORT:Petexbatun Lakes of Guatemala Geography of the Petén Department Geography of Mesoamerica Archaeological sites in Guatemala Maya Classic Period Usumacinta River