El Baúl (Guatemala)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Stela 1: Priest King (right) and long count date (left)

El Baúl is an archaeological site in southwest Guatemala . Together with other sites in the area ( Bilbao , El Castillo and several smaller sites) it is assigned to the Cotzumalhuapa culture .

location

The Finca El Baul , after the archaeological site is named, the village is located approximately 4 km north of Santa Lucía Cotzumalguapa in Escuintla Department at an altitude of approximately 550  m . The area of ​​the finca, covered by extensive sugar cane fields , is about 50 km (as the crow flies) from the Pacific coast.

history

Like Bilbao, the archaeological site of El Baúl is also classified in the late classical period (approx. 600 to 1000 AD). The centers of both sites were connected by cobbled streets. A wooden bridge with partly still existing stone foundations crossed the river Santiago; it was part of the link between El Baúl and El Castillo.

Some steles of the archaeological site of Bilbao were discovered and described in the middle of the 19th century. Through drawings by the Austrian traveler Dr. Habel from 1862 came across some monuments to the then director of the Berlin Ethnological Museum Adolf Bastian (1826–1905), who acquired them for the museum on a trip in 1876. In 1881 they were shipped to Stettin, from where they were transported to Berlin, where they can be seen today in the Ethnological Museum .

Monuments

Column 5: Two ball players

In the 1990s, the artefacts, which had been poorly kept in a large metal cage at the finca, were housed in a small, walled open-air museum. The stelae and smaller stone sculptures that have remained at the site probably belong to the period AD 600 to 1000; all but one of them are undated. They differ from the Mayan steles of the same time in the range of topics, the formal design of the representations and the lack of dates and inscriptions.

  • The so-called stele 1 bears a partially flaked date in the Maya Long Count . Some archaeologists date this - despite the damage - to March 2 or 6, 37 AD, and thus consider it to be one of the oldest known dates in this counting method. The stele shows a priest king with a richly decorated headdress and a flame-like curved ceremonial knife in his right hand. A rich cloud decoration unfolds above his head, in which glyph-like structures can also be seen.
  • Stele no. 5 is - a rarity among the Mesoamerican steles - framed and probably shows two ball players - one standing with a bare upper body, his face covered by a coyote mask , his hands on his hips and spitting on his opponent (?); the other lying on his back. Both figures hold balls in their hands, which are padded with mittens. The hip of the standing figure is of a U-shaped Jochstein ( Yugo surrounded), which is tied on the left side of the ball player with ribbons. The glyphs in the left part of the stele are round and thus also remind of balls; Above this, a small figure of a god from a cloud serpent descends a kind of trophy, with which the neck and chest of the standing figure seem to have already been adorned. Below the main scene is a row of 6 smaller figures sitting cross-legged and arms crossed in front of their chests.
  • The sculpture of a seated jaguar or puma , whose clawed paws are raised , is expressive and perfectly crafted as well as artistically . The predator's mouth and eyes are wide open.
  • Other steles present rulers or heads as well as strange hybrid creatures and skulls. One stele shows a highly abstracted geometric head with “cockades” on the sides; both the shape of the head and the cockades could refer to the Mexican rain god Tlaloc .
  • Some monuments, including an expressive monumental head of an old man (or god) with a wrinkled face and hooked nose, still revered by the Indians, are still in the middle of the sugar cane fields.

photos

  • Sitting jaguar or puma

  • Ruler sitting cross-legged with arms crossed in front of his chest

  • Rulers with rich headdresses

  • Ruler's mask, two female (?) Accompanying figures and braided ribbon jewelry

  • Skull stone

  • Geometric mask with big eyes, open mouth with two rows of teeth and tongue hanging out ( Tlaloc (?))

See also

literature

  • Oswaldo Chinchilla Mazariegos: El Baúl: Un sitio defensivo en la zona nuclear de Cotzumalguapa. In: XI Simposio de Investigaciones Arqueológicas en Guatemala, 1997 Guatemala: Museo Nacional de Arqueología y Etnología 1998, pp. 512-522. [1] (PDF; 895 kB)
  • Joyce Kelly: An Archaeological Guide to Northern Central America: Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. Norman, University of Oklahoma Press 1996, ISBN 0-8061-2858-5 . OCLC 34658843.
  • Wolfgang Gockel : Guatemala, Belize, Honduras and El Salvador. Mayan cities and colonial architecture in Central America. DuMont, Cologne 1999, pp. 177ff, ISBN 3-7701-4732-4

Web links

Commons : El Baúl  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 14 ° 21 '30 "  N , 91 ° 1' 20"  W.