Mayan Monuments of Belize

Wedged against the Caribbean sea between two much larger nations, Belize is a tiny Central American treasure bordered by Mexico to the north and Guatemala to the west. Formerly a European colony known as British Honduras, the small country spans a geographical area of nearly nine thousand square miles, about the size of New Hampshire. Therein lives a mixed population of about three hundred thousand Creole, Maya, Garifuna, and Mestizo residents, with some backgrounds including Chinese or Lebanese ancestry. The Mayan ancestry is best reflected in some of the largest remains from their past, including abandoned villages, temples, and altars spread across the country.

Given a modern Mayan language name that translated to Rockstone Pond, the name of a nearby village, Altun Ha is well-known in Belizean pop culture for the appearance of one of it's pyramids on the country's top-selling brand of beer, Belikin. That fifty-four foot tall pyramid is the largest pyramid on the archaeological site, which covers an area of about five square miles; however, most remains are concentrated on about twenty percent of that area, with several hundred structures appearing in the most densely constructed square mile. Even though it is of massive size, the site was not discovered until 1963, and then only by amateur archaeologist and bush pilot Hal Ball. Within a few years, the Royal Ontario Museum had sent a full excavation team to uncover the historically rich site. Altun Ha had been occupied for about seven hundred years before abandonment around A.D., a period of great mystery and intrigue in Mayan history.

Built near the muddy banks of the Macal River in Cayo District, Cahal Pech's modern name, meaning "place of ticks," was applied with the arrival of the first archaeologists and visitors in the fifties. Nearly three dozen structures are scattered across the pre-Columbian site, which is known to have been the palace of an upper class family more than a dozen centuries ago. The site also includes an evidence of early at-home sports recreation, with the presence of a ball court, among other unique structures. The tallest of the monuments is over eighty feet in height, and is still one of the tallest structures in the area, even with the presence of San Ignacio Town nearby. However, even for its intimate closeness to modern civilization, Cahal Pech features some still jungle-covered ruins, a result of many locals acting in objection to previous attempts to "overly restore" the site.

Lubaantun, located in southern Toledo District, is different from many other Mayan sites in that the stone structures nearby are constructed without mortar. This differs from traditional period buildings in that most structures were constructed with alternating layers of stone and mortar, suggesting a lack of nearby resources. This may have been part of the reason for later abandonment, as the site flourished only for a few centuries before becoming entirely devoid of human habitation by the end of the period. The modern name means "place of falling stones," named so for its strategic military placement; constructed on an artificial platform between two muddy rivers, the site bears some resemblance to a medieval castle in terms of defensive strategy. The site came to the attention of first-world scientists when the word of Mayan descendants reached Dr. Thomas Gann around the turn of the nineteenth century. The first extensive field investigation would not come for nearly two decades, however, when the Peabody Museum of Harvard University completed an extensive survey.

Finally, perhaps the most well-known archaeological site in Belize is Xunantunich, pronounced "Hoo-non-too-nick." Because the ancient name of the site is unknown, modern archaeologists have applied the name of "Stone Woman" in Mayan language. Xunantunich is located within viewing distance of the Guatemalan border, and includes many structures between 1,100 and 1,800 years old, some of which had been damaged by an earthquake. Some have suggested that this may be reason enough for the site's mysterious demise, though others claim that because no record of such a quake was left behind, the tremors must have occurred after abandonment. The one square mile archaeological site is located above the Mopan River, and includes the second tallest monument in Belize -- El Castillo pyramid, which stands forty meters tall.