1517 Francisco Hernández de Córdoba sails from Cuba in search of slaves to replace the native Cubans who had been dying in great numbers. It was the first intentional landing by Europeans on the coast of present-day Mexico. The Spaniards were surprised to see stone cities along the coast of Yucatán. Córdoba landed at several towns; some greeted the Spanish with friendship and offered to trade goods with them. The Spaniards acquired a few pieces of gold ornaments this way.
When the Spaniards landed at Cape Cotoche they were attacked. To Córboda and his men, it was an ambush with some 80 Spaniards being wounded by the first volley of stones, arrows, and darts. The Spanish soon learned that the Mayan arrows, while not attaining any distinct force behind them, tended to shatter on impact leading to a slow and painful death.
Despite these shortcomings, the failed attempts to gather water and repair the casks that were issued ultimately caused Córdoba to distribute his remaining sailors and abandon his smallest ship, a brigantine paid for on credit. The expedition returned to Cuba to report on the discovery of this new land. +Trails: Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba 'the Coast of the Disastrous Battle' Caribbean Sea Conquistadors Conquistadores New Spain Yucatan
1519 Hernán Cortés begins exploring Yucatán. The arrival of Cortés on the Gulf of Mexico marks the beginning of Spanish conquest of indigenous people in Mesoamerica (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Conquistadors Conquistadores Cortes Yucatan
1519 The smallpox plague arrives in the Petén Basin, preceding by several years the first Europeans to visit the region. Hernán Cortés led the first expedition to pass through Petén, in 1524 to 1525, and reported that the region mostly had small hamlets separated by thick forest, with Tayasal being the only sizable inhabited city they observed.
After Cortés' expedition, the Spanish largely tried to conquer Petén, with several attempts mainly from Belize and Alta Verapaz, for generations until an expedition from Yucatán, Belize and Cobán in Alta Verapaz, succeeded in conquering the last independent Maya polities around 1697, such as Zacpeten (capital of the Ko'woj Maya), the Itza Maya center of Tayasal, and other towns in the Lake Petén Itzá region such as Quexil (modern Spanish name; in Maya, Ek'ixil) and Yalain.
By 1600, Smallpox, influenza and measles killed 90 per cent of Mesoamerica's native populations. +Trails: Conquistadors Conquistadores Guatemala Lake Peten Itza
1521 August 13 Spanish conqueror Hernando Cortez and his men capture present-day Mexico City from the Aztecs (Mexica). +Trails: Conquistadors Conquistadores New Spain
1524 Cortés meets the Itzá people, the last of the Maya peoples to remain unconquered. The Spanish leave the Itzá alone until the seventeenth century. +Trails: Conquistadors Conquistadores Cortes New Spain
1524 Iximché is taken over by the Spanish conquistador Pedro de Alvarado. At that time, the Kaqchikels were the enemies of the neighboring K'iche' (Quiché) Kingdom, and helped the Spaniards to conquer it. The first colonial capital of Guatemala, Tecpán Guatemala, was founded near Iximché on July 25, 1524.
Pedro de Alvarado was initially well received in the city in 1524 and the Kaqchikel kings provided the Spanish with native allies to assist in the conquest of the other highland Maya kingdoms. Iximche was declared the first capital of the Audiencia y Cancillería Real de Santiago de Guatemala (Kingdom of Guatemala) in the same year. Due to excessive Spanish demands for tribute the Kaqchikel soon broke the alliance and deserted their capital, which was burned two years later by Spanish deserters (Schele & Mathews 1999).
When the Spanish conquistadors had first arrived in Mexico, the Aztec emperor sent messengers to warn the Kaqchikel (Polo Sifontes 1986). After the surrender of the Aztecs to Hernán Cortés, Iximche sent its own messengers to offer a Kaqchikel alliance with the Spanish. Smallpox decimated the population of Iximche before the physical arrival of the Europeans (Schele & Mathews 1999).
Today, the Kaqchikel language, a member of the Quichean–Mamean branch of the Mayan languages family, is spoken by the indigenous Kaqchikel people in central Guatemala. It is closely related to the K'iche' (Quiché) and Tz'utujil languages, and is spoken by approximately 400,000 people. They subsist agriculturally, and their culture reflects a fusion of Maya and Spanish influences. +Trails: Cakchiquel Chaquiel Caqchikel Cachiquel Conquistadors Conquistadores Iximche Kakchiquel Quiche New Spain Tecpan
1524 The K'iche' Maya are conquered by the conquistador Pedro de Alvarado in 1524. Their last military commander, Tecún Umán, led the K'iche' armies against the combined forces of Pedro de Alvarado and their Kaqchikel allies, in an epic battle in the valley of Xelaju (Quetzaltenango).
The K'iche' armies were defeated, and close to 10,000 K'iche' died, including Tecún Umán, who has since lived on as a legendary figure in the K'iche' oral tradition. After the battle, the K'iche' surrendered and invited Alvarado to their capital, Q'umarkaj. However, Alvarado suspected an ambush and had the city burned. The ruins of the city can still be seen, just a short distance from Santa Cruz del Quiché.
In Pre-Columbian times, the K'iche' Kingdom of Q'umarkaj was one of the most powerful states in the region. K’iche' was an independent state that existed after the decline of the Maya Civilization with the Classic collapse. K'iche' lay in a highland mountain valley of Guatemala, and during this time they were also founded in parts of El Salvador. The Spanish conquerors have described the splendid towns such as Q'umarkaj (Utatlan), the capital of K'iche'.[2] They bordered the Kaqchikel. +Trails: Conquistadors Conquistadores Kiche K'iche New Spain Quiche
1525 Hernan Cortés travels up the Usumacinta River to the Petén Basin, where he meets Ajaw Kan Ek, Itza ruler of Nojpeten (Tayasal), and continues his travels to Gracias a Dios Falls on the Sarstoon River (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Conquistadors Conquistadores Kiche K'iche Maya Peten
1527 November 22 After several Kaqchikel uprisings, Tecpán, the first colonial capital of Guatemala is moved to Ciudad Vieja, near Antigua Guatemala. Ciudad Vieja is a municipality in the present day Guatemalan department of Sacatepéquez. The capital of Guatemala moved several times during the first decade of its existence.
San Miguel Escobar is the modern name for the district that contains the ruins of the second colonial capital of the Guatamala region. The Spaniards founded their capital here in 1527, after their previous capital at Tecpán Guatemala became untenable. +Trails: Cakchiquel Chaquiel Caqchikel Cachiquel Conquistadors Conquistadores Iximche Kakchiquel Quiche New Spain Tecpan
1528 The Spanish under Francisco de Montejo begin their conquest of the northern Maya. The Maya fight back keeping the Spanish at bay for several years. Fransisco de Montejo and Alonso Davila travel by sea along the east coast of the Yucatan and battle with the Maya at Chetumal (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Conquistadors Conquistadores New Spain
1531 Alonso Davila establishes Villa Real at Chetumal, but is driven away by the Maya within a year (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Conquistadors Conquistadores
1538 Estevanico, a black explorer leads an expedition from Mexico into the territory of the American Southwest and is credited with the discovery of what are now the states of Arizona and New Mexico. +Trails: Conquistadors Conquistadores New Spain
1540 The city of Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala is founded in 1540 after Ciudad Vieja was abandoned due to its vulnerability to attack. However, this second settlement was destroyed in 1542 by a volcanic flood, and the new capital of Antigua Guatemala, was founded to replace the old capital.
Santiago de los Caballeros was destroyed by a catastrophic lahar, a type of mudflow or debris flow composed of a slurry composed of pyroclastic material, rocky debris, and water from Volcán de Agua in 1541. The material flows down from a volcano, typically along a river valley, and the survivors had no choice but to abandon the site.
Volcán de Agua is a stratovolcano located in the department of Sacatepéquez in Guatemala. It has been inactive since the mid 16th century. At 3,760 metres, Agua Volcano towers more than 3,500 metres above the Pacific coastal plain to the south and 2,000 metres above the Guatemalan highlands to the north. It dominates the local landscape except when hidden by cloud cover. +Trails: Conquistadors Conquistadores New Spain Volcan de Agua
1541 The Spanish Conquistadores are finally able to put an end to Maya resistance, at least for a while. Revolt continues to plague the Spaniards off and on for the rest of the century. Tayasal in Guatemala becomes the last independent, functioning Maya city, and remained independent until 1697 CE.
In the mid-1800's the Maya will stage a large-scale revolt against Mexican authority and attempted to set up their own independent nation. The will result in what is called the Caste War of Yucatán (1847–1901). +Trails: Conquistadors New Spain War of the Castes Mexico
1542 Spanish Conquistador Francisco de Montejo, known as "el Mozo," establishes a colonial capital city at Mérida, Yucatán (Mayan: T'hó', Tho, Tiho, Ichkanzihóo) in southern Mexico. Mérida is located in the northwestern part of the state of Yucatán, about 35 km (22 miles) from coast of the Gulf of Mexico. The city is also the municipal seat of the Municipality of Mérida, which includes the city and the local area surrounding it.
Mérida was built on the site of the Maya city of T'ho (also known as Ichcaanzihó or "city of the five hills", referring to the city's five pyramids) which had been a center of Mayan culture and activity for centuries. Because of this, some historians consider Mérida the oldest continually occupied city in the Americas.
Carved Maya stones from ancient T'ho were widely used to build the Spanish colonial buildings that are plentiful in downtown Mérida, and are visible, for instance, in the walls of the main cathedral. Much of Mérida's architecture from the colonial period through the 18th century and 19th century is still standing in the centro historico of the city. From colonial times through the mid 19th century, Mérida was a walled city intended to protect the Peninsular and Criollo residents from periodic revolts by the indigenous Maya. Several of the old Spanish city gates survive, but modern Mérida has expanded well beyond the old city walls.
There were three Spanish conquistadors named "Francisco de Montejo" "El Adelantado" (father), Francisco de Montejo y León "el Mozo" (son), and Francisco de Montejo "el sobrino" (nephew). Mérida was founded by Francisco de Montejo "el Mozo." +Trails: Conquistadors Merida New Spain Yucatan
1542 November 20 The Royal Audiencia of Santiago de Guatemala (Audiencia y Cancillería Real de Santiago de Guatemala), simply known as the Audiencia of Guatemala or the Audiencia of Los Confines, was a superior court in area of the New World empire of Spain, known as the Kingdom of Guatemala. It was initially created by decrees of November 20, 1542 and September 13, 1543, and had its seat in Antigua Guatemala (Santiago de Guatemala).
The area it governed included the current territories of Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and the Mexican state of Chiapas. The Audiencia's presiding officer, the president, was the head of the government of the area.
In 1543 establishment of the Audiencia defined the territory of the kingdom, which included most of Central America. It was the first institution to define Central America (with the exception of Panama) as a region within the Spanish Empire. +Trails: Conquistadors Conquistadores New Spain
1543 The capital of Guatemala is again refounded, this time at Antigua Guatemala several miles away from the old capital at Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala. Although the city of Antigua Guatemala became one of the richest of the New World capitals in the subsequent centuries, it was in turn ordered abandoned in 1776, after a series of earthquakes destroyed it.
The fourth capital was the modern-day Guatemala City. +Trails: Conquistadors Conquistadores New Spain
1543-44 Melchor and Alonso Pacheco set out from Merida to conquer the Maya, establishing Salamanca de Bacalar near Corozal and chocolate haciendas at Tipu and elsewhere in what is now Belize (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Conquistadors Conquistadores
1543 Dominican friars found a church at Ocosingo, near the ancient city of Tonina. Fransiscan missionaries establish churches at Tipu and Lamanai in northern Belize, as well as throughout the Yucatan peninsula, and elsewhere in Mexico and Central America (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Conquistadors Conquistadores
1544 The Popol Vuh ("the book of events") is recorded by K'iche' Maya (Quiché) rulers using Roman characters. It is one of the most significant surviving Mesoamerican literary documents and primary sources of knowledge about Maya societal traditions, beliefs and mythological. Its name is "Pop wuj" in proper K'iche'.
This original book in Spanish contains a compilation of mythological and ethno-historical narratives known to these people at that time, which were drawn from earlier pre-Columbian sources (now lost) and also oral traditional storytelling. This narrative includes a telling of their version of the creation myth, relating how the world and humans were created by the gods, the story of the divine brothers (the hero twins), and the history of the K'iche' from their migration into their homeland up to the Spanish conquest. +Trails: Maya K'iche Quiche Religion
1547 The Maya rebel against Spanish incursions in Belize and the Yucatan (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Mayans mexico
1558 Rebellion of native Maya near Tonina lead to their forced resettlement at Ocosingo (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Mayans
1562 Catholic priest Diego de Landa supervises the burning of indigenous Maya books at Mani, Yucatan. Afterward he is recalled to Spain by the Spanish Inquisition (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Catholics Christian Religion
1566 Diego de Landa writes his account of the Maya, Relación de Las Cosas de Yucatan, after having been recalled to Spain by the Spanish Inquisition for having been too harsh with the Maya (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Catholics Christian Religion
1600 Smallpox, influenza and measles kill 90 per cent of Mesoamerica's native populations before 1600. Historical records indicate that by 1600, some 900,000 slaves had been brought to Latin America. In the next century, 2,750,000 more are added to that total. Slave revolts in the sixteenth century were reported in Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, Panama, Cuba, and Mexico. +Trails: Hispanics New Spain Spanish America
1605 The Annals of Cakchiquels (Kaqchikels) are written in the Kaqchikel language. They are similar in content to the Popol Vuh.+Trails: Cakchiquels Guatemala
1616 Orbita travels with Fray Bartolome de Fuensalida to Tipu and Tayasal (Nojpeten) (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Mayans
1624 Maya revolt at the Spanish town of Sakalum (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Mayans
1695 The ruins of Tikal are discovered by Spanish priest Father Avedaño and his companions, who had become lost in the jungle. +Trails: Conquistadors Conquistadores New Spain
1697 Tayasal (Nojpeten), the capital of one of the last unconquered and independent Maya polities, is captured by the Spanish after many long years of resistance. Afterwards, its people were quicky subdued by the Spanish conquistadores and colonizers. Tayasa, along with Zacpeten (the capital of the Ko'woj Maya) and other towns in the Lake Petén Itzá region such as Quexil (Maya: Ek'ixil) and Yalain, were all in the hands of the Spaniards by 1700.
The Spanish town of Flores was established atop the site of Tayasal, but it remained an isolated backwater throughout the colonial era and after the independence Central America.
When Guatemalan President Rafael Carrera sent a small force to Flores to claim the region for Guatemala in the 1840s, the governments of Mexico and Yucatán decided the region was not worth the trouble of contesting. +Trails: Conquistadors Conquistadores Lake Peten Itza New Spain Yucatan
1712 The Maya of the Chiapas highlands, after years of abuse under the encomienda system, stage an uprising against the government of New Spain. Many people of the region continue their resistance even today.
In the encomienda, the Spanish crown granted a person a specified number of natives for whom they were to take responsibility. In theory, the receiver of the grant was to protect the natives from warring tribes and to instruct them in the Spanish language and in the Catholic faith: in return they could extract tribute from the natives in the form of labor or other products. +Trails: New Spain
1724 The Spanish Crown abolishes the system of encomienda, which had given Spanish land barons (Hacendados) the right to use forced Maya labor, as long as they agreed to convert the Maya to Christianity.
Under the encomienda, the crown granted a person a specified number of natives for whom they were to take responsibility. In theory, the receiver of the grant was to protect the natives from warring tribes and to instruct them in the Spanish language and in the Catholic faith: in return they could extract tribute from the natives in the form of labor, gold or other products. +Trails: Conquistadors Conquistadores New Spain
1739 The Dresden Codex is purchased from a private collection in Vienna for the Royal Library in Dresden, Germany. +Trails: Codicies
1761 November Jacinto Canek (Jacinto Uc de los Santos), a Maya from the town of Cisteil, a village near Sotuta (now located in Yaxcabá Municipality), leads an armed uprising against the Yucatán government, which is quickly put down. Canek's rebellion was in response to the oppressive policies of inequality and prejudice imposed on the native Maya by the Spanish colonial government. Captured insurgents were taken to Mérida, Yucatán, where they were tried and tortured. As a warning to the population against rebellion, Canek was condemned to death, to be "tortured, his body broken, and thereafter burned and the ashes scattered to the wind."
Canek was said to have burned alive and covered with salt. The sentence was carried out in the main plaza of Mérida on December 14, 1761, less than a month after the uprising began. Eight of his confederates were hanged, and during the following days, sentences of 200 lashes and mutilation (loss of an ear) were carried out against 200 other participants.
This abortive rebellion was not of great consequence to the colonial regime, but it marked the history of the peninsula and clearly delineated anti-colonial tensions in the region. The uprising was a precursor to the social upheaval that would explode less than a century later, as the Caste War. The Canek rebellion is remembered today as a symbol of the racial and social conflict that predominated for centuries in the Spanish colonies. +Trails: Yucatan
1810 September 16 Mexico begins its revolt against Spanish rule. +Trails: Mexico
1810 Alexander Von Humbolt publishes five pages of the Dresden Codex. +Trails: Archaeologists Mexico
1821 February 24 Mexico declares its independence and becomes independent from Spain. +Trails: Mexico
1822 Antonío del Río's explorations of Palenque is published in London. The book raises interest in exploration of the so-called "lost" Maya civilization. First publication of Maya hieroglyphs carved in stone, part of a tablet from the Temple of the Cross at Palenque (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Archaeologists Mexico
1823 July 1 With the exception of Chiapas, the United Provinces of Central America (later known as the Federal Republic of Central America) peacefully seceds and gains independence from Mexico.
This new sovereign state, consisted of the territories of the former Captaincy General of Guatemala (Capitanía General de Guatemala), an administrative division in Spanish America which covered much of Central America, including what are now the nations of Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador Guatemala, and the Mexican state of Chiapas.
The Federal Republic of Central America existed as a politically cohesive republican democracy until 1841, but regional forces pulled the individual provinces apart by 1842. +Trails: Mexico
1829 James McCulloch of Baltimore notes that the hieroglyphs in the Dresden Codex and from Palenque are in the same language (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Archaeologists Maya Mayan Mexico
1839 John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood begin their explorations into Maya regions. +Trails: Mexico
1841 Widespread attention is drawn to Maya cities following the publication by John Lloyd Stephens of Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan. The book stirs widespread interest in the ancient Maya ruins by people in Europe and North America. The success of Stephen's book was due in large part to the beautiful illustrations by Frederick Catherwood. (Stephens 1969)
Misconceptions about the rise and fall of the Maya civilization developed in part from the difficulty of carrying out archaeological fieldwork in the rainforest landscape of of Guatemala, Belize and parts of Mexico, Honduras, and El Salvador, where the ancient Maya civilization developed. (McKillop 2004) +Trails: Artists Explorers Mexico
1842 The manuscript of what later became known as the Paris Codex is purchased by a Parisian library. (McKillop 2004) +Trails: Archaeologists Mexico Paris France
1846 January 1 Yucatán declares its independence from Mexico and establishes Mérida as its capital, Mérida at the time is one of the most cultured and prosperous cities in all of Spanish America. +Trails: Merida Yucatan Yucatecos
1847 The Caste War of Yucatán (1847–1901) begins with the revolt of native Maya people in Yucatán, Mexico against the population of European descent, called Yucatecos, who held political and economic control of the region. The rebellion is so successful that the Maya almost manage to take over the entire Yucatán peninsula, and a lengthy war ensued between the Yucateco forces in the northwest of the Yucatán and the independent Maya in the southeast.
The Caste War would not come to an end officially until the southeastern Maya capital of Chan Santa Cruz (Felipe Carrillo Puerto, Quintana Roo) was forcibly occupied by the Mexican army in 1901, and even then, skirmishes with villages and small settlements that refused to acknowledge Mexican control continued for more than a decade. +Trails: War of the Castes Yucatan
1850 The capital of the independent Maya in the southeast of Yucatán, Noh Kah Balam Nah Chan Santa Cruz (Felipe Carrillo Puerto, Quintana Roo), was founded in about 1850 near a sacred cenote, a natural well providing a year round source of holy water, where the locals claimed the "Talking Cross" continued to speak.
Soon afterward, the "Talking Cross" of Santa Cruz predicts a holy war against the whites, and with arms supplied by the British in neighboring Belize, the Maya declare war. (Reed 1964, Villa Rojas 1945) +Trails: War of the Castes Yucatan
1860 The Yucatán Maya rebel again. +Trails: Mexico
1861 Etienne Brasseur de Bourbourg copies and translates the Popol Vuh, a sixteenth-century Quiche Maya text. +Trails: Archaeologists Mexico
1864 Etienne Brasseur de Bourbourg finds Diego de Landa’s manuscript Relación de las Cosas de Yucatan in the collections of the Royal Academy of History in Madrid and publishes the manuscript. +Trails: Archaeologists Mexico
1864 A jade plaque inscribed with a date of 320 CE. discovered by workers on the Caribbean coast of Guatemala. +Trails: Mexico
1869 The first known report on an Olmec artifact, a colossal head found by a farmer in Hueyapan in the State of Veracruz, was by José Maria Melgar y Serrano, a Mexican Explorer. He published his discovery along with illustrations in an 1869 issue of the Seminario Ilustrado.
In 1906 the German explorer Eduard Seler visited the head, which was then lost to the archaeological record until Albert Weyerstall described it again in 1932. +Trails: Archaeologists Mexico
1869 Etienne Brasseur de Bourbourg finds part of the Madrid Codex in a private collection in Spain and calls it the Codex Troano. +Trails: Archaeologists Mexico
1875 Missing portion of Madrid Codex is found. +Trails: Codicies Mexico
1877 Teoberto Maler visits Palenque, beginning a long career of photographing, exploring, and recording Maya sites. +Trails: Archaeologists Mexico Teobert Maler
1880 The Mexican government attempts to force the Maya to become virtual slave laborers on the plantations of Yucatán and Chiapas. During the late 19th century and early 20th Century, the wealthy landowners and rich merchants in the area surrounding Mérida prospered from large scale production of henequén fiber, and for a brief period, around the turn of the 20th century, Mérida was said to house more millionaires than any other city in the world.
The city is also located within the Chicxulub crater and has a very flat topography and is only 30 feet (9 m) above sea level. The land outside of Mérida is covered with smaller scrub trees and former henequen fields. Almost no surface water exists, but there are numerous freshwater cenotes (underground springs and rivers) found across the state.
Henequen (Agave fourcroydes Lem.) is an agave whose leaves yield a fiber also called henequen which is suitable for rope and twine, but not of as high a quality as sisal. Alternative spellings are Henequin and Heniquen. It is the major plantation fiber agave of eastern Mexico, being grown extensively in Yucatán, Veracruz, and southern Tamaulipas. It is also used to make Licor del henequén, a traditional Mexican alcoholic drink. Enormous fortunes made in the fields of Yucatán and the labor costs were minimal.
The result of this concentration of wealth can still be seen today. Many large and elaborate old mansions line the main avenue of Paseo de Montejo, though few today are occupied by individual families. Many of these homes have been restored and now serve as office buildings for banks and insurance companies.
Mérida has one of the largest centro historico districts in the Americas (surpassed only by Mexico City and Havana, Cuba). Colonial homes line the city streets to this day, in various states of disrepair and renovation; the historical center of Mérida is currently undergoing a minor renaissance as more and more people are moving into the old buildings and reviving their former glory. +Trails: Merida Slaves Slavery Yucatan
1881 Alfred Maudslay begins important research, photographing and recording Maya ruins (1881–1894). +Trails: Archaeologists Maya Mayans
1887 Leon de Rosny publishes a twenty-two-page fragment of the Paris Codex. +Trails: Archaeologists Maya
1889 George Kunz publishes an article on a jade axe of unknown origin. The ceremonial jade axe portraying what Stirling called a were-jaguar is now commonly associated with the Olmec culture. Known as the Kunz axe, it is in the collection of the American Museum of Natural History. +Trails: Archaeologists Olmecs
1890 Altar de Sacrificios is rediscovered in the 1890s by Teoberto Maler (Drew 1999). Sylvanus Morley described the hieroglyphic inscriptions of Altar de Sacrificios in his 1938 work The Inscriptions of Peten (Valdés 1996). The site was investigated by archaeologists A. Ledyard Smith and Gordon Willey of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology from 1958 to 1963 (Sharer & Traxler 2006).
Altar de Sacrificios is located on the Guatemalan side of the international border with Mexico, which follows the Salinas and Usumacinta rivers. It is 80 kilometere (50 miles) upriver from the important Classic period Maya city of Yaxchilán and 60 kilometres (37 mi) west of Seibal. The site is located on a small island located among seasonal swamps along the south bank of the Pasión River near where it joins the Salinas River (Chixoy River).
The island measures approximately 700 metres (2,300 ft) from east to west, with the ceremonial architecture located on the higher eastern end and the residential groups on the lower western end (Matthews & Willey 1991). +Trails: Archaeologists Guatemala Teobert Maler
1901 The Caste War of Yucatán (1847–1901) officially ends with the occupation of the Maya capital of Chan Santa Cruz (Felipe Carrillo Puerto, Quintana Roo) by the Mexican army in 1901, although skirmishes with villages and small settlements that refused to acknowledge Mexican control continued for more than a decade. The town was known to the Maya as U Noh Kah Balam Nah Chan Santa Cruz. +Trails: War of the Castes Yucatan
1902 While plowing the field near San Andres Tuxtla in Veracruz in 1902, a farmer finds a small jadeite statue (Tuxtla figurine). Also known as the Tuxtla Statuette it represents a man wearing a duckbill mask and a cloak, etched with multiple rows of hieroglyphs. W.H. Holmes, curator of Anthropology and Chief of the Bureau of American Ethnology at the Smithsonian Institution, described the artifact in American Anthropologist in 1907. Since very little was known about the people that inhabited that region of Mexico at the time, he thought the object was Maya or possibly Huastec. It later proved to be Olmec.
The Tuxtla figurine, carved of jadeite diopside, bears columns of incised glyphs corresponding to 162 A.D. The statuette was found by a farmhand while plowing on an hacienda in Hueyapan in Veracruz. The figurine is wearing a duck bill mask. Incised glyphs decorate all sides of the figure which is clothed in a cape.
The Tuxtla Statuette is particularly notable in that its glyphs include the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar date of March 162 CE, which in 1902 was the oldest Long Count date discovered. A product of the final century of the Epi-Olmec culture, the statuette is from the same region and period as La Mojarra Stela 1 and may refer to the same events or persons. Similarities between the Tuxtla Statuette and Cerro de las Mesas Monument 5, a boulder carved to represent a semi-nude figure with a duckbill-like buccal mask, have also been noted (Pool 2007). +Trails: Archaeologists Olmecs
1904 Archaeologist Edward H. Thompson dredges the Sacred Cenote (Cenote Sagrado) at Chichén Itzá, and reports finding a thick layer of bright blue silt, 4.5-5 meters in thickness, settled at the bottom of the well, remnants of the Maya blue pigment used as part of the rituals at Chichén Itzá. Although Thompson didn't recognize that the substance was Maya Blue, recent investigations suggest that producing Maya Blue was part of the ritual of sacrifice at the Sacred Cenote.
Thompson is most famous for dredging the Cenote Sagrado (Sacred Cenote) from 1904 to 1910, where he recovered artifacts of gold, copper and carved jade, as well as the first-ever examples of what were believed to be pre-Columbian Maya cloth and wooden weapons. Thompson shipped the bulk of the artifacts to the Peabody Museum. In 1926, the Mexican government seized Thompson's plantation, charging he had removed the artifacts illegally. The Mexican Supreme Court in 1944 ruled in Thompson's favor. Thompson, however, had died in Plainfield, New Jersey in 1935, so the Hacienda Chichen reverted to his heirs. These materials shipped to the Peabody Museum were repatriated to Mexico in the 1980s.
Thompson had purchased the plantation that included the site of Chichén Itzá in 1894. He rebuilt the hacienda, which had been destroyed in the Caste War of Yucatán, and for 30 years explored the site on behalf of the Field Columbian Museum, the American Antiquarian Society, the Peabody Museum at Harvard University and others. His discoveries included the earliest dated carving upon a lintel in the Temple of the Tables and the excavation of several graves in the Ossario (High Priest’s Temple).
See: 30 photographs of Uxmal, Kabah, Sayil, and Labná from the 1888-91 Thompson/Peabody Museum expedition. +Trails: Archaeologists Chichen Itza Maya Blue Ritual Mayan Mayans
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1905 American newspaperman, Joseph Goodman, publishes the first correlation of the Maya calendar with the Christian calendar. +Trails: Archaeologists Calendars Mayans
1906 Ernst Förstemann deciphers much of the Maya calendar and counting system portrayed in the Dresden Codex. +Trails: Archaeologists Calendars Codicies Mayans
1910 Political conditions in the State of Yucatán mirrored national conditions. The state’s economy and political situation were under the control of Olegario Molina, a merchant and henequen millionaire. He was also a former governor and a past cabinet minister in the Porfirio Díaz government. Molina controlled the governor’s office from 1906 to 1910 through his handpicked successor, Enrique Muñoz Arístegui, with Díaz’s full support. In the 1909 elections for Yucatán’s governor, Díaz did not respect the results of the election and announced that Muñoz Arístegui would continue as governor.
In Valladolid, political opponents of Aristegui began to discuss a rebellion against the state government supported by Díaz. Retired military Captain Luis Felipe de Regil had been appointed Political Chief of the Department of Valladolid and was sent to maintain order and strict control. Regil was an ill-tempered man with a violent nature. He was intimidating and possessed an apparent need to humiliate the citizens of Valladolid. He forced many poor people to work on projects without pay, conscripted some into military service against their will and levied new taxes. Regil was a constant reminder of the Díaz government’s lack of concern for the common citizen.
Local political leaders began discussions of how to bring justice and freedom to the Yucatán. Merchants, landowners, artisans, lawyers and Maya leaders participated. The Dzelkoop Plan resolved that the current Arístegui government in Mérida was destroying the state and was no longer fit to govern.
It also stated that a small group of individuals had gained immense wealth and power while contributing to the suffering of the people. The government of Enrique Muñoz Arístegui was declared illegal and a proposal to remove Arístegui and replace him with a seven-member governing board was suggested.
The Dzelkoop Plan was signed on May 10, 1910, and preparations for a rebellion were initiated. +Trails: Mexian Revolution Mexicans Mexico Porfirio Diaz Yucatan
1910 June 4 The Dzelkoop Plan - The Mexican Revolution is sparked by a rebellion at Valladolid, Yucatán. Locally, the rebellion is referred to as La Chispa, or “the spark” for the 1910 Mexican Revolution. Near midnight on June 3, 1910, Rebel leader Miguel Ruz Ponce gathered his forces of approximately 1,500 men (many of them Maya) in front of the Church of Santa Lucía. At 3:00 AM on the morning of June 4th, the rebels attacked the city.
Colonel Miguel Ruz Ponce and Lieutenant José E. Kantun led a group to the Valladolid Police Station, where the night security guard, Liborio Albornoz, was killed. Additional policemen at the station were taken prisoners. Claudio Alcocer and Atilano Albertos headed the attack on the state’s National Guard quarters. Facundo Gil, the Sergeant of the Guard was killed.
Meanwhile, the hated Political Chief, Captain Luis Felipe de Regil, was aroused from his sleep by the shots and came out of his house brandishing two pistols. According to undocumented reports, Claudio Alcocer cut him down with a shotgun blast before others fell on him with their machetes. He was left dead in the street. By dawn on June 4, 1910, the rebels controlled the city.
Leaders of the rebellion were Miguel Ruz Ponce, a former schoolteacher and accountant, who was the movement’s chief tactical strategist; Maximiliano Ramírez Bonilla, a 45-year old merchant and political activist; and Claudio Alcocer, overseer of Hacienda Kantó, who helped recruit Maya workers to participate in the rebellion. +Trails: Dzelkoop Plan La Chispa Mexian Revolution Mexicans Mexico Porfirio Diaz Yucatan
1910 June 5-8 Yucatán governor Enrique Muñoz Arístegui and President Díaz respond to the rebellion at Valladolid immediately. Arístegui appointed Colonel Ignacio Lara Political Chief of Valladolid to replace Regil and ordered him to organize a combat exercise against the rebels. Colonel Lara left Mérida quickly with 75 professional troops and 300 new rifles. On the way to Valladolid, he conscripted local peasants. By the time he reached Tinum, 12 kilometers (8 miles) from Valladolid, his forces numbered 600.
Meanwhile, President Díaz sent 600 well-armed troops of the 10th Federal Battalion from Veracruz under the command of Colonel Ignacio Luque. These troops joined the state troops of Colonel Lara in Tinum on June 8, 1910. An attack was planned for the next morning. +Trails: Mexian Revolution Mexicans Mexico Porfirio Diaz La Chispa Yucatan
1910 June 9 Mexican state and federal troops attack the rebels at Valladolid at 8:00 AM. By 1:00 PM, the battle is over. The rebels fought bravely, but with inferior weapons and without trained military training or leadership, it was an unfair match. Altogether, 30 government troops were killed in the skirmish and 60 were wounded.
After the dust had settled, more than 200 rebels were dead, 500 wounded, and 600 prisoners taken. A few rebels including Claudio Alcocer and Miguel Ruz Ponce escaped into the jungles of Quintana Roo where they sought protection from disenchanted Maya tribes. +Trails: Mexian Revolution Mexicans Mexico Porfirio Diaz La Chispa Yucatan
1910 June 25 For taking part in the Valladolid rebellion, Colonel Maximiliano Ramírez Bonilla, Major Atilano Albertos, and Lieutenant José E. Kantun are executed by a 20-member military firing squad in the courtyard of the Ex-Convento San Roque. That same courtyard where their lives were ended in pursuit of liberty is now the Heroes Park in Valladolid, Yucatán.
Colonel Miguel Ruz Ponce stayed hidden with the Maya until Francisco Madero became president. He then traveled to Mexico City to offer his services to the government, but was never given a significant position. Alcocer stayed in the jungles of Quintana Roo, but was eventually murdered by the Maya because they did not trust him to protect their secret locations. +Trails: Dzelkoop Plan La Chispa Mexian Revolution Mexicans Mexico Porfirio Diaz Yucatan
1911 Most historians mark the end of the Porfiriato of President Porfirio Díaz in 1911 as the beginning of the Mexican Revolution, but the Revolution was preceeded by a number of socialist, liberal, anarchist, populist, and agrarianist movements, all wanting and demanding changes. At that time no peasant or farmer could claim the land he occupied without formal legal title, which few of them had or could get. Thousands of helpless and angry small farmers, the Maya among them, felt a change of government and leadership was necessary.
When it came to land reform, 95% of Mexico's land was owned by only 5% of the Mexican population. This unfair distribution of land went on for years and angered many of the lower class. This corrupt system only allowed the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer. Many of the workers on these Hacienda farms were beaten like slaves and were constantly being put into debt from their previous generations. Porfirio Díaz had allowed this corrupt behavior to continue for his entire time in power (1876-1911).
For this reason, many leaders including Francisco I. Madero, Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata launched a rebellion against Díaz, which escalated into the eventual Mexican Revolution. Madero's vague promises of agrarian reforms attracted many of the peasants throughout Mexico, and he gained support from them that he needed to remove Díaz from power. +Trails: Dzelkoop Plan La Chispa Mexian Revolution Mexicans Mexico Porfirio Diaz
1911 May 21 The Treaty of Ciudad Juárez is signed between the then President of Mexico, Porfirio Díaz, and the revolutionary Francisco Madero on May 21, 1911. The treaty put an end to the fighting between forces supporting Madero and those of Díaz and thus concluded the initial phase of the Mexican Revolution. The years in which Díaz ruled Mexico are referred to as the Porfiriato.
Although the treaty stated that Díaz would abdicate his rule and be replaced by Madero, Madero insisted on holding a new election, and won overwhelmingly. Without the support of the mostly peasant Indians, it is unlikely that Madero's army would have had much success against Porfirio Díaz 's professional army. Madero officially succeeded Díaz and took office in November 1911. Most historians mark the end of the Porfiriato in 1911 as the beginning of the Mexican Revolution.
Some supporters criticized Madero for appearing weak by not assuming the presidency and failing to pass immediate reforms. But Madero established a liberal democracy and received support from the United States and popular leaders such as Orozco, Villa, and Zapata. Yet, Madero proved to be a weak leader and quickly lost much of his support. He angered both the more radical revolutionists and the conservative counter-revolutionists, and was forced to resign in 1913. He and vice president José María Pino Suárez were both assassinated less than a week later.
The murder of Madero ruptured the country, but he became honored as a martyr of the revolution. The Mexican Revolution is generally considered to have lasted until 1920, although the country continued to have sporadic, but comparatively minor, outbreaks of warfare well into the 1920s. The Cristero War of 1926 to 1929 was the most significant relapse of bloodshed. +Trails: Portfirio Diaz Mexian Revolution Mexicans Mexico Treaty of Ciudad Juarez
1913 Herbert Spinden publishes A History of Maya Art, which still remains an important reference for understanding ancient Maya art styles and motifs (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Archaeologists Mayan
1916 May The city of Uaxactun (Waxaktun) is rediscoverered by archeologist Sylvanus Morley, who coined its name from the Maya words Waxac and Tun, to mean "Eight Stones". Morley stated that the reason for the name was to commemorate it as the first site where an inscription dating from the 8th Baktún of the Maya calendar was discovered (making it then the earliest known Maya date). With recent achievements in the decipherment of the ancient Maya writing system, it has been determined that the ancient name for this site was something like Siaan K'aan or "Born in Heaven."
Morley's initial investigation of the site mostly focused on the hieroglyphic inscriptions, after this Uaxactun was not visited again until 1924, when Frans Blom made a more detailed investigation of the structures and mapped the site. The Carnegie Institution conducted archeological excavations here from 1926 through 1937, led by Oliver Ricketson. The excavations added greatly to knowledge of the early Classic and pre-Classic Maya. The remains of several badly ruined late Classic era temple-pyramids were removed, revealing well preserved earlier temples underneath them.
The site is located in the Petén Basin region of the Maya lowlands, in the present-day department of Petén, Guatemala. The site lies some 12 miles (19 km) north of the major center of Tikal. The name is sometimes spelled as Waxaktun. +Trails: Archaeologists Waxaktun
1923 January 24 The Aztec Ruins National Monument is established in New Mexico. The buildings date back to the 11th to 13th centuries, and the misnomer attributing them to the Aztec civilization can be traced back to early settlers in the mid-19th century. Archaeologists believe the actual construction was by the ancestral Puebloans, the Anasazi. Yet, still today, some non-professionals suspect this area may have been the mythical Atzlán, legendary homeland of the Aztec (Mexica) people.
Archaeologists still debate exactly when the distinct Puebloan culture emerged. The current consensus, based on terminology defined by the Pecos Classification, suggests the Puebloan emergence around the 12th century BCE, during the archaeologically designated Basketmaker II Era. Modern Pueblo people claim these ancient people as their ancestors. +Trails: Atzlan Aztecs Chicomoztoc
1924 Carnegie Institution of Washington (CIW) begins research at Uaxactun (Waxaktun) under direction of Oliver Ricketson, with fieldwork continuing until 1938 (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Archaeologists Maya Mayan Waxaktun
1925 The Middle American Research Institute (MARI) is established at Tulane University under the direction of William Gates, assisted by Frans Blom (McKillop 2004). That same year, Blom and Oliver La Farge, both anthropologists from Tulane, who were primarily interested in the Maya, began searching for a site that had been described by Bernal Diaz del Castillo, when he passed through it in 1519.
A local guide led them to a site called La Venta where they found stelae, altars and a colossal stone head. They described these finds in Tribes and Temples in 1926, but as they were unfamiliar with the Olmec style, they erroneously ascribed them to the Maya instead. +Trails: Archaeologists Olmecs Mayans
1926 The British Museum sends an expedition to southern British Honduras (Belize) to work at Wild Cane Cay and Lubaantun. That same year J. Eric S. Thompson began his career in Maya archaeology at Chichen Itza and Frans Blom was appointed acting director and later head of MARI (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Archaeologists Maya Mayan Middle American Research Institute Eric Thompson
1926 Juan Martinez Hernandez modifies Goodman’s calendar correlation (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Archaeologists Calendars
1927 J. Eric S. Thompson modifies Goodman’s and Hernandez’s Maya calendar correlation and publishes the GMT (Goodman-Martinez-Thompson) correlation, which became the most widely accepted Maya calendar correlation.
That same year Thompson joined the second British Museum expedition to British Honduras, under the direction of Thomas Joyce, working at Lubaantun and Pusilha (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Archaeologists Belize Calendars Eric Thompson
1927 Anna Mitchell-Hedges discovers a crystal skull at Lubaantun, Belize, but the circumstances of the discovery on her sixteenth birthday and accompanied by her father, Frederick Mitchell-Hedges, and the medical officer of health for then British Honduras (Belize), and the fact there are no other “Maya” crystal skulls, indicate to archaeologists that it was likely placed at Lubaantun for her discovery (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Archaeologists
1929 Marshall Saville, an archaeologist at Columbia University, writes two articles on votive axes from Mexico. Stylistically, the axes seemed related to other carved artifacts found in Veracruz and Tabasco, a region inhabited in post-colonial times by a group of people called Olmec.
While scholars at the time still did not know who had produced the axes and other artifacts, Saville applied the name Olmec to the style of those objects. He was the first to do so, despite the fact that it may be confusing since there is no association with the historic Olmec, but the name seems to have stuck, none the less. +Trails: Archaeologists Olmecs
1929 J. Eric S. Thompson’s fieldwork at Tzimin Kax in the Maya Mountains of Belize lays the foundation for his definition of the plazuela group (plaza group) as the basic architectural unit of ancient Maya household and community planning (McKillop 2004).
The University of Pennsylvania begins research at Piedras Negras under direction of J. Alden Mason. +Trails: Archaeologists Eric Thompson
1931 December 29 The city of Calakmul is rediscovered from the air by biologist Cyrus L. Lundell of the Mexican Exploitation Chicle Company in southern Campeche, Mexico. The find was reported to Sylvanus G. Morley of the Carnegie Institute at Chichen Itza in March 1932. According to Lundell, who named the site, "In Maya, 'ca' means 'two', 'lak' means 'adjacent', and 'mul' signifies any artificial mound or pyramid, so 'Calakmul' is the 'City of the Two Adjacent Pyramids.'
From the time of its discovery, the size and the number of its monuments indicated its importance, and more recent advances in our understanding have revealed that it was one of the most significant and powerful of Maya polities. During the Late Classic, in the sixth and seventh centuries CE, it outshone even its mighty rival Tikal (Martin and Grube 2008).
At that time the rulers of Calakmul bore the emblem glyph of the Kaan ("Snake") kingdom, but on present evidence the snake-head emblem is not associated with Calakmul before the Late Classic (Martin and Grube 2008). And the Snake lords rise to ascendency was well underway before this time, apparently from a base at some other site.
This is by no means to say that Calakmul was not a significant kingdom in its own right before the Late Classic. Indeed, it was a substantial site as early as the Preclassic, as attested by the fact that the highest point of the massive Structure 2 is the summit of a Preclassic pyramid embedded within later construction (Martin and Grube 2008).
This Preclassic temple platform, which bears comparison in its scale with grandiose El Mirador, was first augmented in the Early Classic. Clearly, while other Preclassic centers fell by the wayside, Calakmul continued to prosper. Recent excavations at the site have revealed a magnificent stucco facade on one of the Preclassic buildings buried beneath Structure 2 (Martin and Grube 2008).
A strong candidate for the early Kaan center is Dzibanche, far to the northeast of Calakmul. A carved "captive stairway" from this site names the Snake ruler Yuknoom Ch'een I, who seems to be credited with the captures (albeit with a degree of ambiguity arising from an imperfect understanding of the texts). The dates are not clear, but two may be as early as the fifth centur. Kings of neighboring El Resbalón were apparently under the authority of Kaan in the early sixth century (Martin and Grube 2008).
Thus it might well have been from somewhere other than Calakmul that the army of Kaan ruler Uneh Chan (Scroll Serpent, 579-611+ CE) set out to attack far-distant Palenque in 611. Retrospective references on Late Classic Stelae 8 and 33 have Scroll Serpent celebrating the 9.8.0.0.0 (AD 593) k'atun ending at a named location, but it is not known whether this was somewhere within Calakmul or at another site altogether. If it was Dzibanche, the distance covered in the attack on Palenque was all the greater (Martin and Grube 2008).
For more information on Calakmul, check-out the MESOWEB website. +Trails: Kalakmul Kingdom of the Snake
1932 Albert Weyerstall, a banana planter and amateur archaeologist in Veracruz, after visiting the colossal Olmec head in Hueyapan, first described by Melgar y Serrano in 1869, along with several other monuments, publishes a report by Tulane University. In the 1920s and 1930s, Weyerstall had explored ancient many ancient ruins in the vicinity. +Trails: Olmecs
1932 Holmul ceramic report is published by Robert Merwin and George Vaillant describing distinctive Protoclassic pottery. The initial work by Merwin at Holmul (later expanded by George Vaillant) produced the first stratigraphic ceramic sequence to be defined at a Maya region site (McKillop 2004). However, the results of this Peabody Museum expedition were not formally published until some twenty years afterwards, and subsequently the site remained relatively little-studied.
Holmul, as a city, began its existence at around 800 B.C., and was abandoned by 900 A.D., at around the time that the Maya civilization collapsed due to unknown causes. This made the city one of the longest occupied by the Maya.
Holmul reached the height of its power at between 750 and 900 A.D., and may have had a considerable social influence over the many communities located in the compact area around it. The region likely influenced by Holmul is sometimes referred to as the Holmul Domain. +Trails: Archaeologists
1934 The city of Becán is rediscovered by archaeologists Karl Ruppert and John Denison on an expedition sponsored by the Carnegie Institution of Washington. What makes Becán so interesting is that it's an excellent example of Maya fortification. Between CE 100 and 250, a conspicuous defensive ditch (or moat) was dug surrounding almost the entire ceremonial city and reservoirs. The archaelogists named the city "Becan" because of this unusual ditch; the ancient name of the site is unknown.
The area was originally settled as early as 2000-1000 BCE. The dirt from the ditch was piled up to create a fortified wall around the city. Originally much deeper, the moat is now about 4 meters deep and 15 meters across. It was dug in the early decades of the city, and it appears to have been partially filled in about 700 CE.
At one time Becán was the dominant center of the Rio Bec area. The oldest permanent structures have been dated to ca. 550 BCE, and you can still see evidence of buildings built in the Late Preclassic, after 50 BCE. Near the entrance to Becán, you can enter a tunnel that goes under part of the building around the courtyard; this tunnel is a good example of Maya arch construction. +Trails: Becan Rio Bec Culture Maya arches
1936 J. Eric S. Thompson joins the Carnegie Institution of Washington (CIW) and continues his fieldwork at San Jose, Belize (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Archaeologists Eric Thompson
1938 J. Eric S. Thompson carries out fieldwork at Xunantunich, then called Benque Viejo (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Archaeologists Eric Thompson
1939 The 1939 Smithsonian Institution and National Geographic Society Archaeological Expedition to Mexico is the first scientifically organized effort aimed at exploring the Olmec site. Although travelers and archaeologists in the 19th and early 20th century had described several unusual monuments and artifacts at that time, nothing was known about the culture or people who had produced these objects. +Trails: Olmecs
1940 Clyde Klukhohn publishes a scathing criticism of Maya archaeology as merely descriptive and not interpretive or explanatory in “The Conceptual Structure in Middle American Studies.” That same year, the Carnegie Institution of Washington (CIW) closes its Chichen Itza project (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Archaeologists
1946 American Giles Healey becomes the first non-Maya ever to see Bonampak. Prior to Healey's discovery of Bonampak's vivid murals dated to around 790 CE, most Mayanists had contended that the Classic Maya knew little of war and bloodshed and did not practice bloody sacrifices (Teotihuacan: Wonders of Man, Karl E. Meier 1973).
The Temple of the Murals (Structure 1) at Bonampak is a long narrow building with 3 rooms atop a low-stepped pyramid base. The interior walls preserve the finest examples of classic Maya painting, otherwise known only from pottery and occasional small faded fragments. Through a fortunate accident, rainwater seeped into the plaster of the roof in such a way as to cover the interior walls with a layer of slightly transparent calcium carbonate.
The paintings were made as frescos, with no seams in the plaster indicating that each room was painted in a single session during the short time that the plaster was moist. They show the hand of a master artist with several competent assistants. The three rooms show a series of actual events with great realism, possibly depicting Chaan Muan and his family engaged in ritual bloodletting.
The first room shows robing of priests and nobles, a ceremony to mark a child as a noble heir, an orchestra playing wooden trumpets, drums, and other instruments, and nobles conferring in discussion. The second room shows a war scene, with prisoners taken, and then the prisoners, with ritually bleeding fingers, seated before a richly-attired Chaan Muwaan II, the Yaxchilano "governor" of Bonampak.
It is usually presumed that the prisoners are being prepared for human sacrifice, though this is not actually shown in the murals. The third room shows a ceremony with dancers in fine costumes wearing masks of gods, and the ruler and his family stick needles into their tongues in ritual bloodletting. The accompanying hieroglyphic text dates the scene and gives the names of the principal participants.
Shortly after Healy's discovery the Carnegie Institution sent an expedition to Bonampak. The walls were painted with kerosene which made the layer over the paintings temporarily transparent, then the murals were extensively and completely photographed and duplicate paintings were made by two different artists.
Giles Healey (1901-1980) moved to Mexico in 1944 and over the years discovered 28 ruins. He is best remembered for his photography of the murals at Bonampak. He recorded his discoveries with still photographs and on movie film, and produced the motion picture “Maya Through the Ages,” based on footage shot during the 10 years he spent in Guatemala and the Yucatán Peninsula. +Trails: Mayan Murals Paintings
1946 Russian scholar Yuri Knorozov discovers that Mayan hieroglyphs are phonetic contrasted with the popular view that the Mayan hieroglyphs were based on picture writing (logographs). As a result, tremendous strides were made in decipherment and the tracing of modern Mayan languages to ancestral Classic Chol Mayan (Houston, Mazariegos, and Stuart 2001; Matthews 2003).
Knorozov's key insight was to treat the Maya glyphs represented in Bishop de Landa's alphabet not as an alphabet, but rather as a syllabary. He was perhaps not the first to propose a syllabic basis for the script, but his arguments and evidence were the most compelling to date. He maintained that when de Landa had commanded of his informant to write the equivalent of the Spanish letter "b" (for example), the Maya scribe actually produced the glyph which corresponded to the syllable, /be/, as spoken by de Landa. Knorozov did not actually put forward many new transcriptions based on his analysis, nevertheless he maintained that this approach was the key to understanding the script. In effect, the de Landa "alphabet" was to become almost the "Rosetta stone" of Mayan decipherment.
A further critical principle put forward by Knorozov was that of synharmony. According to this, Mayan words or syllables which had the form consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) were often to be represented by two glyphs, each representing a CV-syllable (i.e., CV-CV). In the reading, the vowel of the second was meant to be ignored, leaving the reading (CVC) as intended. The principle also stated that when choosing the second CV glyph, it would be one with an echo vowel that matched the vowel of the first glyph syllable. Later analysis has proved this to be largely correct. +Trails: Mayan Writing Inscriptions
1950 Publication of A. Ledyard Smith’s excavations at Uaxactun, documenting large-scale architectural style of excavation that set a standard for Maya excavations (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Archaeologists
1953-56 Gordon R. Willey conducts a settlement pattern study along the Belize River (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Archaeologists
1955 Publication of Robert E. Smith’s ceramic study of Uaxactun (Waxaktun) (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Archaeologists Waxaktun
1955 University of Pennsylvania project begins at Tikal under direction of Edwin Shook (1955–1961), Robert Dyson (1962), and William Coe (1963– 1969), becoming the largest archaeological project in the Americas (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Archaeologists
1958 End of Carnegie Institution of Washington research on the ancient Maya with closing of Division of Historical Research of the institution (after projects at Uaxactun, Chichen Itza, Mayapan, and Kaminaljuyu), with remaining Maya archaeologists, Proskouriakoff, Shook, and Pollock, moving next door to Harvard’s Peabody Museum (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Archaeologists
1958 Heinrich Berlin publishes study of Maya emblem glyphs as names of Classic Maya cities (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Archaeologists
1958 Yuri Knorozov publishes study that Maya hieroglyphs are phonetic, leading to decipherment of ancient texts based on study of the glyphs as sounds instead of picture writing (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Archaeologists
1958-63 Gordon R. Willey conducts a project at Altar de Sacrificios, Guatemala (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Archaeologists
1960 Tatiana Proskouriakoff publishes a study of hieroglyphs of Piedras Negras site, indicating that glyphs on Maya stelae provide historical information about ancient kings and queens. This is a critical discovery in Maya epigraphy that becomes a catalyst for further research. Proskouriakoff pointed out that the hieroglyphs on the carved stone monuments (stelae) recorded historical information and the military exploits of Classic Maya royalty. This discovery went against popular views of Maya priests being focused on astronomy and fixated on mathematics (McKillop 2004).
Although the Classic Maya were very knowledgeable in these areas, the main use for hieroglyphs was historical. The hieroglyphs and accompanying images also enmeshed the lives of Maya kings and queens into rituals, myths, and stories of creation as told in the Popol Vuh, a historic text (Freidel, Schele, and Parker 1993; Milbrath 1999; Tedlock 1985). +Trails: Mayan Writing Inscriptions
1960 Publication of William Bullard’s regional survey in the Petén Basin (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Archaeologists Peten
1962 Publication of Carnegie Institution of Washington's (CIW) research at Mayapan by Harry Pollock and colleagues (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Archaeologists
1964 Gordon R. Willey initiates a project at Seibal (1964–1968) (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Archaeologists
1964-70 Dr. David M. Pendergast initiates a project at Altun Ha, Belize, under auspices of the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto. Starting in 1965 the archeological team began extensive excavations and restorations of the site, which continued through 1970.
Among the discoveries was a large (almost 10 pounds, or 5 kilograms) piece of jade elaborately carved into an image of the head of the Maya sun god, Kinich Ahau. This jade head is considered one of the national treasures of Belize. +Trails: Archaeologists David Pendergast
1969 The Government of Guatemala initiates research at Tikal under direction of Juan Pedro Laporte, focusing on the Lost World Complex (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Archaeologists
1970 Norman Hammond excavates at Lubaantun (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Archaeologists
1970 A five-year project at Altun Ha, led by Dr. David Pendergast of the Royal Ontario Museum, comes to an end. +Trails: Archaeologists
1972 Cozumel Archaeological Project directed by Jeremy Sabloff and William Rathje (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Archaeologists
1974 David Pendergast begins fieldwork at Lamanai, Belize (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Archaeologists
1974 Field work at Cerros, Belize, initiated under direction of David Freidel, found to be primarily Late Preclassic in age (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Archaeologists
1974 Norman Hammond begins excavations at Cuello, defining the earliest Maya settlement in the southern Maya lowlands at 1000 BCE. (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Archaeologists
1975 Elizabeth Graham begins a regional settlement survey of Stann Creek District, Belize (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Archaeologists
1978 Payson Sheets begins excavations at Ceren, a well-preserved Classic Maya community buried by a volcanic eruption about 600 CE (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Archaeologists
1979 Survey and excavation of terraced fields in Maya Mountains of Belize by Paul Healy (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Archaeologists
1979 Excavations of raised fields by Peter Harrison and B. L. Turner at Pulltrouser Swamp, Belize (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Archaeologists
1979 Excavations at Santa Rita Corozal by Diane Chase (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Archaeologists
1979 Excavations at the trading port of Moho Cay, Belize, by Heather McKillop (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Archaeologists
1979 Thomas Hester directs excavations at Colha, Belize, a major stone tool manufacturing community (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Archaeologists
1982 The Universidad Autónoma de Campeche directed by William J. Folan begins work at Calakmul. After the Carnegie Expeditions in the 1930s, work at Calakmul had stopped for 40 years - in part due to the extreme isolation of Calakmul - until this 1982 project. The site has subsequently become famous for a series of magnificent jade funerary masks unearthed by the Campeche project.
As studies continue, it becomes increasingly evident that Calakmul was a major superpower in the region and primary rival to Tikal for dominance of the area. One hundred three carved stelae have been found at this huge site, with dates ranging from 514 A.D. to 830 A.D. the city center of Calakmul probably supported a population of over 50,000, and more than 6,250 structures have been discovered in an area of 25 square kilometers. +Trails: Archaeologists Kalakmul Peten Mexico Writing Inscriptions
1982 Richard “Scotty” MacNeish explores coast and rivers of Belize for preceramic sites (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Archaeologists
1982 Thomas Kelly (1993) discovers Paleoindian spear point at Ladyville, Belize (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Archaeologists
1982 Excavations initiated at Wild Cane Cay by Heather McKillop (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Archaeologists
1982 Major excavations at Nohmul, Belize, by Hammond (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Archaeologists
1983 Fieldwork initiated at Sayil, Yucatan, Mexico, by Jeremy Sabloff and Gair Tourtellot (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Archaeologists
1984 Fieldwork initiated at Ek Balam by George Bey and Bill Ringle (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Archaeologists
1985 Caracol project initiated by Arlen and Diane Chase (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Archaeologists
1986 Freidel begins research at Yaxuna, Yucatan, Mexico (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Archaeologists
1989 Petexbatun project, including work at Aguateca, Dos Pilas, begins under direction of Arthur Demarest (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Archaeologists
1990 At the invitation of Guatemalan President Marco Vinicio Cerezo Arévalo, Yuri Knorozov is granted permission to leave the USSR and finally visit the ancient Maya homelands and archaeological sites in Guatemala and Mexico. As a Soviet academic, Knorozov was subject to the usual restrictions placed on travel outside of the Soviet Union.
This was at a time of improved diplomatic relations between the USSR and Guatemala. Preident Cerezo presented him with an honorary medal, and Knorozov was able to extend his stay in the region, visiting several of the important Maya sites such as Tikal.
Shortly after Vinicio Cerezo left office, Knorozov received threats from suspected right-wing militarist groups who were antagonistic to the indigenous Maya peoples, and was forced to go into hiding and then leave the country.
In his very last years, Knorozov (1922-1999) is also known to have pointed to a place in the United States as the likely location of Chicomoztoc, the ancestral land from which — according to ancient documents and accounts considered mythical by a sizable number of scholars — Indian peoples now living in Mexico are said to have come (Ferreira 2006, p.6). +Trails: Aztlan Aztlán Mayan Writing Inscriptions
1990 Xunantunich fieldwork begun by Richard Leventhal and Wendy Ashmore (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Archaeologists
1992 Excavations begun at La Milpa by Norman Hammond (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Archaeologists
1992 Programme for Belize archaeological research project under the direction of Fred Valdez begins in northwestern Belize (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Archaeologists
1993 T. Patrick Culbert publishes study of Tikal ceramics from University of Pennsylvania project (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Archaeologists
1997-2000 Piedras Negras fieldwork initiated under direction of Stephen Houston (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Archaeologists
1999 Peter Harrison publishes study of architecture of central acropolis at Tikal from University of Pennsylvania project (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Archaeologists
2001 March While exploring in northeastern Guatemala for Harvard's Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, William Saturno discovers the remote archaeological site of San Bartolo and the oldest intact murals ever found in the Maya world.
Saturno has worked extensively in the Southwestern United States, Mexico, Belize, Honduras, and most recently Guatemala. His academic interests include the evolution of complex society, particularly among the Ancient Maya, Mesoamerican religion, iconography and epigraphy, remote sensing and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) applications in archaeology and the role of archaeology in popular culture.
From 1994 to 2000 Saturno was the Field Director of the Río Amarillo Archaeological Project in Western Honduras, examining the ancient sociopolitical relationships between large and small Maya cities around the site of Copán. +Trails: Art Copan Mayan Murals Writing Inscriptions
2003 The government of Belize creates an Institute of Archaeology, part of the National Institute of Culture and History (NICH), and holds the first Belize Archaeology Symposium (McKillop 2004). +Trails: Archaeologists British Honduras
2007 June Mérida moves its city museum into a new building next to the downtown market. The new Museo de la Ciudad de Mérida (Museum of the City of Mérida) houses important artifacts from the city's history, as well as an art gallery. Mérida is the cultural and financial capital of the Yucatán Peninsula, as well as the capital city of the state of Yucatán. Mérida has one of the largest centro historico districts in the Americas (surpassed only by Mexico City and Havana, Cuba)
In recent years, many important science competitions have been held in Mérida, such as the 2005 International Mathematical Olympiad and the 2006 International Olympiad in Informatics. In 2006 Mérida hosted the FITA Final, and in 2007 the International Cosmic Ray Conference. The 40th International Physics Olympiad was held there in 2009.
Merida features a tropical wet and dry climate. The city lies in the trade wind belt close to the Tropic of Cancer, with the prevailing wind from the east. Mérida's climate is hot and humidity is moderate to high, depending on the time of year. The average annual high temperature is 33 °C (91 °F), ranging from 28 °C (82 °F) in January to 36 °C (97 °F) in May, but temperatures often rise above 38 °C (100 °F) in the afternoon in this time.
Low temperatures range between 18 °C (64 °F) in January to 23 °C (73 °F) in May and June. It is most often a few degrees hotter in Mérida than coastal areas due to its inland location and low elevation. The rainy season runs from June through October, associated with the Mexican monsoon which draws warm, moist air landward. Easterly waves and tropical storms also affect the area during this season. +Trails: Merida Yucatab Mayan
2012 December 21 According to archaeologists this is the date of the end of the current era as revealed in the most recent translations of the ancient Mayan Long Count Calendar. Earlier translations had calculated the date as December 24, 2011, and later December 23, 2012. Despite the publicity generated by the 2012 date, there is no record or knowledge that the Maya thought the world would come to an end in 2012.
"For the ancient Maya, it was a huge celebration to make it to the end of a whole cycle," says Sandra Noble, executive director of the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies. To render Dec. 21, 2012, as a doomsday or moment of cosmic shifting, she says, is "a complete fabrication and a chance for a lot of people to cash in." (Susan Milbrath, Curator of Latin American Art and Archaeology, Florida Museum of Natural History, quoted in USA Today, Wednesday, March 28, 2007, p. 11D)
Maya stela occasionally show dates beyond 2012. Most of these are in the form of "distance dates", where a Long Count date is given with a distance date to be added to the Long Count date to arrive at this future date. For example, on Tikal Stela 10 we find the following Long Count date: 9.8.9.13.0 8 Ahau 13 Pop (24th March 603 CE Gregorian) with a distance date of 10.11.10.5.8. The resulting date is given as 1.0.0.0.0.8 5 Lamat 1 Mol, or 21st October 4772 CE – almost 3,000 years into the future.
