Xultun

Xultún is a large Maya archaeological site located 40 km northeast of Tikal and 8 km south of the smaller Preclassic site of San Bartolo in northern Guatemala.

Site

The site, which once supported a considerable population, has a 35 m tall pyramid, two ballcourts, 24 stele (the last of which, Stele 10, dates to 889), several plazas, and five large water reservoirs (aguadas). Incompletely charted in the 1970's, it is the largest-known Classic Maya site that has yet to be archaeologically investigated.[1] Nearby sites include Chaj K’e’k Cué, believed to be the residential area of the Xultún elite, containing an 8 meter tall palace; Isla Oasis; and Las Minas. These later sites contain large limestone quarries.

Recent discoveries

Since 2008, excavations in Xultun have revealed several important features. One is a Late-Classic room (labeled 10K2) with murals on three sides, showing three dark seated characters with large mitres (west wall); a kneeling official extending a stylus to the seated king, Yax We'nel Chan K'inich (north wall); and three other characters, together with unique Maya calendar notations chiefly relating to lunar astrology (northeast and east walls). Most of the characters bear hieroglyphic titles, some of these reminiscent of the senior-junior rankings of the traditionalist Maya civil-religious hierarchy.[2] The lunar notations strongly recall much later calculations found in the Dresden Codex.[1][3][4][5]

Another important feature, recently (2014) reported on by William Saturno, [6] is a building complex called 'Los Árboles', dating to the Early Classic. Its front is decorated with complicated stucco imagery relating to the royal cult of the jaguar, also in evidence on several of the stelas. This cult was apparently associated with the dismemberment (imagined or real) of human victims. At the same time, there is a double reference to a place of origins (7 k'an - 9 imix), with the numbers personified by their respective jaguar-related patrons.

History

Up to now (2017), the dynastical history of the important kingdom of Xultun - which has its own emblem glyph[7] - is not well known and can only very partially be reconstructed from information on the site's heavily eroded stelas and from the inscriptions of other kingdoms with which it interacted, such as Caracol, Tikal and Naranjo.[8] A fuller picture is nonetheless possible by taking into account data from the archaeology of the wider Xultun - San Bartolo habitational area.[9] The kingdom's Classic importance is reflected by its role as a center of refined painting 'schools'.[10]

References

  1. 1 2 Vance, Eric (10 May 2012). "Unprecedented Maya Mural Found, Contradicts 2012 "Doomsday" Myth". National Geographic. Retrieved 11 May 2012.
  2. ↑ Saturno et al. 2017
  3. ↑ Zender and Skidmore 2012
  4. ↑ "No hint of world's end in oldest Mayan calendar". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 11 May 2012. Retrieved 11 May 2012.
  5. ↑ William A. Saturno; David Stuart; Anthony F. Aveni; Franco Rossi (11 May 2012). "Ancient Maya Astronomical Tables from Xultun, Guatemala". Science. 336 (6082): 714–717. Bibcode:2012Sci...336..714S. PMID 22582260. doi:10.1126/science.1221444.
  6. ↑ Saturno 2014
  7. ↑ Prager et al. 2010
  8. ↑ Garrison and Stuart 2004; Rossi et al. 2015
  9. ↑ Garrison and Dunning 2009
  10. ↑ Krempel and Matteo 2012

Bibliography


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