Abstract
FURTHER particulars of the recently discovered Maya city of Calakmul, in the south of Campeche, Yucatan, dated by its sculptured monuments as belonging to the Old Empire, A.D. 364–551, have been published by the Carnegie Institution of Washington (News Service Bulletin, vol. 2, No. 34). The information is derived from a report by Dr. S. G. Morley on the results of an expedition of the Institution which left Washington for Calakmul in April last. Forty-one additional monuments were discovered, bringing the total number up to 103, the largest number yet found on any Central American site. The dates on 45 monuments have been deciphered. Among the more notable discoveries were the quarry from which the stone was taken with two large blocks side by side, partially quarried, just as they were left by the builders, a huge flat outcrop of limestone in which were sculptured figures of six prisoners with their arms tied behind them by ropes and a large sculptured monument portraying a priest grasping a spear in his right hand, which was erected in A.D. 472. Owing to the luxuriance of the vegetation only a single building has been left standing. A survey map of the central part of the site, the civic and religious centre, has been made. The importance of the site lies in the fact that, lying half way between the earlier cities of northern Guatemala and the later cities of northern Yucatan, it fills in a geographical ‘blind-spot’ and bridges the gap between the two regions. It is within four days' journey by mule from Uaxactun, the oldest city of the Maya civilisation in northern Guatemala. The foundation of the city, or at least its attainment of sufficient economic importance to permit the inhabitants to mark the five year periods by the erection of monuments, would appear to coincide with the later part of the First Period of the Old Empire, when Maya culture was expanding throughout the Yucatan peninsula.
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Calakmul, Yucatan. Nature 130, 992 (1932). https://doi.org/10.1038/130992a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/130992a0