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Recent research is shedding light on the long and precocious urban tradition of the Pacific coastal rim of southeastern Mesoamerica, from eastern Soconusco, Mexico, to Escuintla, Guatemala. The available data provide a basis to discuss variations in urban shape and functions, and to a lesser extent, urban life and meaning at Formative and Classic cities, plus brief mention of Late Postclassic cities. Pacific coastal cities are larger and earlier than previously thought, and their investigation is relevant for comparative studies that aim to understand the variability of ancient urban societies in Mesoamerica and beyond.

Archeological finds from Mesoamerica and elsewhere in the New World have yielded intriguing yet inconclusive evidence for an early appreciation of magnetism among Native American peoples. Here we use scanning and handheld magnetometers to map the distribution of magnetization on eleven basalt potbelly sculptures from the Monte Alto site, now housed in La Democracia, Guatemala, dating from second half of the first millennium BCE. Our 1 cm resolution magnetic scans, performed on four sculptures, reveal for the first time that they were originally magnetized by lightning strikes pre-dating the carving process. We quantify the area and morphology of the magnetic anomalies, demonstrating that the correspondence between magnetic anomalies on the sculptures and specific anatomical features is non-random at the P = 0.01 level, which is consistent with the qualitative conclusion of an early study by Malmstrom (1976). The apparently intentional colocation of carved anatomical features and pre-existing magnetized regions implies that the sculptors were able to detect the presence of anomalous magnetic fields, which may have been facilitated by lodestones similar to iron oxide artifacts and iron-ore mirrors. Our observations strengthen the case for an awareness of magnetism in the ancient New World.

Despite the high degree of technological sophistication visible in other aspects of urban engineering, the archaeology of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica has revealed curiously few examples of bridges or formal, permanent water-crossing structures. The ancient city of Cotzumalhuapa, where at least five such structures have been identified, is a notable exception. The author reviews the archaeological and historical evidence for these bridges, and reflects upon the diversity of engineering technologies that they reveal. Although it remains unclear why bridges are absent at many other contemporaneous sites, these examples offer a fascinating glimpse into the urban planning of structured mobility in Mesoamerica.

This article traces a century of efforts to create a National Museum in Guatemala City. Political instability and natural disasters thwarted these efforts, which nevertheless formed a significant chapter in the country's museum history. The contents of the laws and decrees that ordered the formation of museums provide indications about their political context and aims, while travellers’ reports and museum publications provide a hint at the collections and exhibitions of the first and second national museums, which functioned at the Sociedad Economica de Amigos del Pais (1866–1881) and the Palacio de La Reforma (1898–1917). In addition to local politics, both the country's participation in international expositions and foreign involvement in archaeological research and collecting played a role in museum formation and demise. Special attention is given to the laws and initiatives of the 1920s, which led to the opening of a National Museum in 1930, with a critique of previous work on this important period of...

This article explores the sacrificial symbolism of cacao (Theobromasp.) on the Pacific coast of Guatemala, manifest in the iconography of ceramic objects and stone sculptures from the Classic period, in textual references from the colonial period, and in contemporary ethnographic data from the southern highlands. The iconographic and textual metaphors contained in these sources linked cacao pods with dead warriors, captives, and sacrificial victims. As interpreted in this article, the harvest of cacao was equated with the acquisition of sacrificial victims, and both were conceived as precious sources of nourishment for the gods. Changes in artistic representations are discernible from Early Classic Teotihuacan-style censers to Early Postclassic Plumbate ceramic effigies. Cacao and other fruits from the Pacific coastal piedmont are still related to the symbolism of war and sacrifice in contemporary rituals from the Tz'utujil town of Santiago Atitlán. Data from southern Guatemala may be relevant to understand the sacrificial symbolism of cacao throughout Mesoamerica.

Sexual encounters have received little attention in previous studies of the Popol Vuh. This article is a study of sexual connotations conveyed through figures of speech in four passages of the k’iche’ text. The figures of speech include metaphors, allusions, and double entendres, whose meanings are not evident at first glance. The present analysis is based on studies of the lexicon, combined with comparisons with parallel passages in other myths from Mesoamerica, and comparisons with ethnographic data compiled in modern communities. As noted in multiple studies around the world, literary figures in the Popol Vuh are based primarily on the links between sexuality with food. The identification of sexual contents in these passages opens a new perspective in the study of the Popol Vuh. Sixteenth-century Maya myths are consistent with other Mesoamerican myths, in which the primordial creative processes often involve genesic themes and sexual transgressions.

Human sacrifice in ancient Mesoamerica was strongly linked with ritual behaviour and mythical beliefs. Yet it is rarely possible to explain the mythical associations of archaeological deposits derived from human sacrifice. In this article, we integrate archaeological, taphonomic and isotopic analysis to reconstruct the ritual behaviour that resulted in the formation of a partially cremated primary burial at the Lowland Maya city of Tikal. Taphonomic reconstruction reveals details about the form of death and combustion of two males, while isotopic studies hint at their probable geographic origin. To explain this ritual, we assess the relevance of widespread Mesoamerican mythical beliefs about the origin of the sun and the moon, and discuss the theoretical and methodological issues involved in this comparison. The burial's association with an E-Group compound makes it significant for the interpretation of these specialized architectural arrangements in southern Mesoamerica. It also pertains to a critical period in Tikal's history, marked by intensified cultural and political interaction with the highland Mexican city of Teotihuacan, manifest in this burial by the presence of imported green obsidian spear points. We propose that this unique context resulted from a sacrificial reenactment of the mythological birth of the sun and the moon.

A major debate in the history of the Spanish conquest of Guatemala revolves around Tecum (Tecún Umán), the K'iche' captain who died in confrontation with Pedro de Alvarado, according to sixteenth-century indigenous texts. Analysis of these texts shows that Tecum's death was recast in terms of widespread solar myths that provided an overarching framework to explain the rise and fall of Mesoamerican rulers and cities. His fate was explained as an ineludible outcome that created the conditions for the advent of a new era, marked by the introduction of Christianity and the colonial order. Thus, these texts made the conquest understandable in terms of indigenous historiography and religion. The portents described in these narratives stimulated the growth of Tecum's legendary status, partly explaining his controversial standing in Guatemala's historiography and politics. Modern versions of the Dance of the Conquest perpetuate the mythical motives that first appeared in the sixteenth-century narratives.

The Cotzumalhuapa Nuclear Zone (CNZ) is a Late Classic site consisting of three large architectural compounds linked by a series of stone-paved causeways and bridges. The majority of the site, however, lies beneath layers of recent tephra, leaving the structure of this settlement largely unknown. This study uses ground-penetrating radar (GPR) to map the subsurface near El Baul, one of the main compounds, in order to examine the spatial relationship among urban architectural features. Excavation within areas of the GPR survey provides fine-grain detail of one major architectural feature in the region, the Gavarrete Causeway. The complimentary nature of these data sets characterizes the architectural organization of the settlement at two scales. Spatial patterning between large-scale architectural features supports the hypothesis that the CNZ represents an integrated urban center with evidence of planned community organization characteristic of other Late Classic period centers across Mesoamerica.

Resumen: Las esculturas monumentales conocidas como “barrigones” forman un género distintivo en el arte prehispánico del sur del área maya. En este artículo se explora la procedencia e historia de tres barrigones que se encuentran en museos de Alemania y Francia, y fueron extraídos de la finca Concepción, Escuintla, Guatemala, en el siglo XIX. Por medio del estudio de documentos inéditos, se demuestra que provienen del mismo sitio arqueológico y se corrigen los errores de trabajos anteriores, que los atribuyeron a otros sitios e incluso a otras regiones. Se resumen las actuaciones y motivaciones de tres individuos (un terrateniente, un diplomático y un arqueólogo) que participaron en esa apropiación, que ilustran los procesos económicos, políticos e intelectuales que determinaron la suerte de las esculturas. Estas conclusiones permiten entender mejor la distribución geográfica de los barrigones y forman un aporte a la historia de la arqueología en Guatemala.

An important episode in Mesoamerican mythical narratives involves the abduction or impregnation of a tightly guarded maiden by a disguised god, against the will of her father or mother. This action precipitates major creational events that variously result in the origin of the sun, the moon, and human sustenance. Relying on a comparative analysis of versions recorded throughout Mesoamerica, this paper explores (a) representations of this episode in Maya art, where the suitor sometimes takes the shape of an insect; (b) the magical role of weaving and spinning, a recurrent theme in this mythical sequence; and (c) the relevance of Maya narratives for the interpretation of related passages in central Mexican mythology and ritual. Classic representations evidence the myth's antiquity, while its numerous versions pose methodological problems, addressed in this paper through the analysis of synonymies in narrative, art, and performance.

Exploratory expeditions in 1834, sponsored by the newly independent state of Guatemala, researched on sites such as Copan, Iximche and Utatlan. The political, literary and social climate was such that a pre-Hispanic past was eagerly sought. This paper offers an intriguing insight into early Latin American archaeology.

The historiography of archaeology in Guatemala is still in its infancy. Accounts of Maya archaeology are mostly concerned with the development of ideas in North America and Europe, where strong traditions of Maya research developed since the nineteenth century. Few authors delve into the sociopolitical events that have conditioned the work of foreign scholars in the country, their interaction with Guatemalan students, and the intellectual currents that have influenced the latter. Guatemalan archaeology has also been overlooked in general surveys of Latin American archaeology. This article describes selected stages in the history of Guatemalan archaeology, based on previous overviews.

Las aves representadas en la Estela 25 de Izapa y el juego de pelota de Copán forman el punto de partida para un examen del tema mitológico de la vagina dentada en Mesoamérica, y sus expresiones en el arte y la narrativa. Un amplio conjunto de narraciones mitológicas recopiladas en México y Guatemala sirve como base para un examen de la historia de Siete Guacamayo en el Popol Vuh, la cual se interpreta como una variante de un mito ampliamente difundido, relacionado con el origen del Sol y la Luna. La identificación de asuntos comunes, entre ellos el de la vagina dentada, refuerza la relación entre el mito del Popol Vuh y las representaciones de Izapa y Copán. A la vez, revela detalles poco conocidos sobre el simbolismo sexual presente en los mitos cosmogónicos mesoamericanos.

La zona de Santa Lucia Cotzumalguapa, en la costa pacifica de Guatemala, es celebre desde el siglo xix por sus esculturas, que datan del periodo clasico tardio y quizas se continuaron elaborando hasta inicios del Postclasico (600-1000 d.C.). La mayor concentracion de esculturas se encuentra en la « Zona Nuclear de Cotzumalguapa », un centro urbano que en su apogeo cubria mas de diez kilometros cuadrados. Las investigaciones recientes han demostrado que los sitios tradicionalmente conocidos co...