Uaxactun
Coordinates: 17 ° 23 '36.8 " N , 89 ° 38' 4.3" W.
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Uaxactún is a Mayan ruin site in the north of the Peten department in what is now Guatemala . The city was the first Mayan site to be found from a pre- Classical era .
location
The city is about 23 km north of Tikal . The name with reference to the Mayan numeral waxak was given by Sylvanus Morley because he found an inscription from Baktun 8 of the Mayan era here. Uaxactun was integrated into the Tikal National Park in 1982 along with the Mayan sites of El Zotz and Yaxha .
history
Uaxactún is - next to Nakbé - one of the earliest historical sites of the Maya and has been inhabited since the middle pre-classical period (around 1000 to 350 BC). Like many other important centers of the pre-classical period, Uaxactún was abandoned towards the end of the pre-classical period (around 200 AD) and soon afterwards was repopulated. The city flourished in the following years, but always remained in the shadow of its large neighbor Tikal . According to an inscription found there, there was armed conflict between Tikal and Uaxatún, which was ended in 378 by the installation of King Siyaj K'ak ' , who probably came from Teotihuacán in central Mexico ; henceforth the two Mayan cities formed a political and cultural unit for almost 200 years, which however began to dissolve with the decline of Teotihuacán and Tikal in the 6th century. In the years 554 to 711 no more steles were erected and profound cultural upheavals began, which only came to an end with the collapse of the great Maya centers of the Classical period in the 8th and 9th centuries. Uaxactun was not spared from the collapse either; the last inscription dates from 889.
Uaxactún was rediscovered by Sylvanus Morley in 1916 and named after the oldest Mayan date of the Long Count . The site has been archaeologically explored since the 1920s.
buildings
Several temple pyramids were discovered in Uaxactún , of which the structure E-VII-Sub was freed from later superstructures - an older pyramid with 4 staircases, which are lined with large stucco masks , came to light ; The substructures of the temple can be seen on a small platform in the upper area of the pyramid. Other buildings in complex E (E-1 to E-3) were built in a straight line and are optically connected to structure E-VII-Sub; Archaeologists suspect an astronomical orientation with references to the summer and winter solstice (see web link).
Paintings
Some wall paintings in structure B-XIII are extremely well preserved . They show u. a. the meeting of two rulers , only one of whom carries a weapon (?) in his raised left hand. The other holds his bent right arm in front of his chest; it is unclear whether this is a greeting or a gesture of submission.
Others
In 1966, the Italian composer Giacinto Scelsi was inspired by the Maya city of Uaxuctún to write a work for choir and orchestra, which he named Uaxuctum .
See also
literature
- Nikolai Grube (Ed.): Maya. God kings in the rainforest . Könemann-Verlag, Cologne 2000, ISBN 3-8290-1564-X
- Harry Evelyn Dorr Pollock : Uaxactun, Guatemala. Group E - 1926-1931 , Carnegie institution of Washington , 1937
