Exploring the Maya Ruins of Quiriguá, Guatemala

The Mexico Gallery showcases objects from the ancient cultures of Mexico—Mexica-Aztec, Maya, Olmec, and Zapotec. Among the Maya objects are beautifully carved Yaxchilan lintels depicting rulers and their wives and containing hieroglyphic texts. 

In this display cabinet, you can see some smaller ancient Maya objects, including parts of necklaces, other jewellery, and adornments that were sewn onto clothing. They are made from shells or jade, a rare bright green stone, and carved with intricate details. 

The lintels date from the mid-7th century AD. In the adjacent staircase, you can see plaster casts of more Maya monuments made by the British explorer Alfred Maudslay in the 1880s in Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico.

About 1,300 years ago, Maya artists in Yaxchilan, Mexico, made incredible carvings like this lintel, which sat above a door. This lintel shows a Maya king holding a flaming torch while his wife uses a thorny rope to draw blood from her tongue. 

Blood was the most important sacrifice for the ancient Maya, who practiced rituals of blood-letting in which they pierced their lips, tongues, ears and other parts of the body. They delivered the blood to the gods by burning it or rubbing it into the ground. 

The British Museum in London showcases objects from around the world, representing the whole of human history. You can find some great examples of ancient Maya objects in the staircase between the Mexico and the Enlightenment Galleries.

The Maya erected stelae in their plazas. These tall sculpted stone slabs were covered in images and hieroglyphics telling the stories of Maya rulers. This stela is about 3.5m high and shows Waxaklajuun Ub’aah K’aawiil, the king of Copan, who was beheaded by the ruler of Quiriguá.

Although it covers an area of 34 hectares, the modern-day Archaeological Park and Ruins of Quiriguá contains only the centre of the ancient city—there are many more buildings buried in the surrounding banana plantations. 

Erected in AD766, Stela D is about 6 metres (about 20 feet) high. Carvings on the stela show the ruler K’ahk’ Tiliw Chan Yopaat. This is the man who beheaded the ruler of Copan and who is shown on the cast of Stela H you saw earlier.

Quiriguá lies in subtropical lowlands. Temperatures are usually between 20 and 30 degrees Celsius, and during the wet season, it rains nearly every day. In these extremely fertile conditions, both jungle and farmland have destroyed many Maya ruins. 

Across the Gran Plaza towards the south is a large staircase that was reconstructed by archaeologists. From the top of this platform you can look onto a smaller and more enclosed plaza. 

This an ‘acropolis’—a cluster of structures used by the elite as residences and the administrative and religious centre of a Maya site. It is possible that one of the 5 structures surrounding the plaza was the palace—and bedchamber!—of the king of Quiriguá.

Before archaeologists excavated these buildings, they looked like the jungle-covered mound visible in the Great Plaza. This structure is similar to what you would find underneath that mound: a platform with steps up to a small building. Unfortunately the roofs of the buildings did not survive.

This building has a step up into an ante-room. The inner room beyond has doorways on the left and right that lead to side-rooms. The house was once covered in stucco and brightly painted, and it had a stone roof.

Quiriguá is famous for its huge, intricately carved monuments. The Great Plaza contains some of the tallest stelae from the ancient Maya world. Here you can see another large carved stone—Zoomorph P, created in 795 ad. It is 2 metres tall and 3.5 metres wide and weighs 20 tons—as much as 20 full-grown polar bears!

This flat carved stone altar was created at the same time as the much larger zoomorph behind you. What looks a bit like crossword squares on top is Maya hieroglyphic writing. The glyphs are surrounded by carvings of figures on the top and sides of the altar. 

Zoomorph P is covered in carvings and hieroglyphs. Sky Xul, who had the carving made and who was most likely the son of Kahk’ Tiliw Chan Yopaat, sits in the jaws of a mystical beast. He is finely dressed and holds a sceptre. It is 2 metres tall and 3.5 metres wide and about 80% of the glyphs.

Today, Quiriguá is not only an archaeological site, but also a nature reserve. You can walk in the jungle, where the many different species of trees give welcome shade after the time you’ve spent in the hot open plazas of the ancient Maya city.

Animals had special significance in Maya mythology. If you have good eyes, you might spot amphibians such as toads, reptiles such as crocodiles, and a wide variety of birds. 

Ceiba trees are often the tallest species in the area, growing up to 70 metres high. Some ceiba trees in Guatemala are several hundred years old. The Maya refer to the ceiba as the ‘World Tree’—it connects the spirit realm with our terrestrial world. 

One problem for researchers looking for ancient Maya sites today is that only overgrown ruins are left. What would look to most people like dense vegetation might actually be a mound—an ancient structure that could only be revealed through careful excavation. 

Park rangers intentionally left this decaying tree stump in place on the side of the path. The stump is part of a functioning ecosystem and provides food and shelter for a variety of animals, such as termites, ants, or wasps. These insects in turn are a good food source for birds and small mammals.