Cotzumalhuapa

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Santa Lucía Cotzumalhuapa (or Cotzumalguapa) is the name of a pre-Columbian Maya archaeological zone dating to the late Preclassic period in Mesoamerican chronology. It is located on the Pacific rim of Guatemala, in the department of Escuintla.

In the Middle to Late Classic period, Cotzumalhuapa was an important power in Mesoamerica and is known for its "Cotzumalhuapa style" artifacts and Maya hieroglyphs, the latter featuring as yet undeciphered combinations of numerals and figurative signs.^[1] Cotzumalhuapan style artifacts have been found up and down the Pacific coast of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua, and even as far as the western coast of Chiapas, Mexico, attesting to the city's importance and its widespread trading connections. Cotzumalhuapa is particularly known for ceramic figurines with a high level of realism, often depicting women or animals. This style was also often rendered in basalt stone.

Cotzumalhuapa covers over ten square kilometers and includes the smaller archeological sites El Baúl, Bilbao, and El Castillo. The famous Stela 1 from El Baúl has one of the earliest inscriptions in Mesoamerica, with the earliest legible hieroglyphic Long Count date in Guatemala: March 37 AD.

[edit] Footnotes

[edit] References

• Chinchilla Mazariegos, Oswaldo (2000), "Cotzumalhuapa style" in Evans, Susan , Archaeology of Ancient Mexico and Central America, Taylor & Francis.
• Parsons, Lee 1969 "The Pacific Coast Cotzumalhuapa Region and Middle American Culture History" In: Verhandlungen des XXXVIII: internationalen Amerikanistenkongresses, München: K. Renner.
• Website of the Cotzumalhuapa Archaeology Project