Casa Blanca (El Salvador)
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Casa Blanca (White House) is the Spanish name of a pre-Columbian ruins of the Maya in the department of Santa Ana in El Salvador .
location
The ruins are located about one kilometer north of the Maya site of Tazumal in the northeast of the city of Chalchuapa at an altitude of about 700 m above sea level. d. It is almost 80 km (driving distance) in a south-easterly direction to the capital San Salvador . The Maya city of Copán in today's Honduras is about 300 km (driving distance) or 200 km (air line) away.
history
According to previous knowledge, the site was already settled in pre-classical times (approx. 500 BC to approx. 250 AD); According to the current state of research, it would therefore be older than the neighboring Tazumal. In its heyday, the place may have been trading and cultural exchanges with Copán and Tikal - in any case, ceramics have been found that could indicate this. The end of the settlement is likely to come close to that of Tazumal and San Andrés (approx. 1200 AD). But even after that there are signs that Casa Blanca will continue to live as a local or regional place of worship.
Ruin site
The complex, which is roughly comparable to Tazumal in its size of around six hectares, has only been restored or reconstructed a little. The archaeological zone contains three temple pyramids and a few other structures. It is noteworthy that the pyramids are horizontally divided into two parts - in addition to the usual smaller gradations - a characteristic that can also be found in San Andres and to some extent in Tazumal.
In front of pyramid no. 5 there is an approximately one meter high basaltic stele with a square floor plan, which, together with a stone slab lying on the floor or only slightly raised, has formed a so-called "altar-stele complex" - otherwise none were in Casa Blanca Steles discovered.
museum
The local museum primarily offers a large number of jugs, bowls, vases, etc., which were found as grave goods and are mostly dated to the pre-classical period (approx. 250 BC to 250 AD). There are also exhibits from the archaeological zone of El Trapiche to the north . Immediately next to the museum is a 15 m deep shaft - dug by archaeologists - which reveals a geological sectional profile through various cultural horizons and volcanic ash layers.
literature
- Robert J. Sharer: The Prehistory of Chalchuapa, El Salvador. The University Museum, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia 1978.
- Akira Ichikawa, Shione Shibata, Masakage Murano: El Preclásico Tardío en Chalchuapa: Resultados de las investigaciones de la Estructura 5 en el Parque Arqueológico Casa Blanca In: The Late Preclassic in Chalchuapa: Results of the excavations of Structure 5 in the Casa Blanca Archaeological Park (PDF). XXII Simposio de Investigaciones Arqueológicas en Guatemala, 2008 (Ed. By JP Laporte, B. Arroyo and H. Mejía) Guatemala: Museo Nacional de Arqueología y Etnología 2009, pp. 502-515. [1] (PDF; 1.9 MB)
