Exploring the Maya Ruins of Quiriguá, Guatemala

Discover the Maya civilisation on this tour that takes you from the British Museum in London, to the ancient site in Quirigua, Guatemala.

Photo of mould-making at Quiriguá, Guatemala. (c. 1881-1884) by A.P. MaudslayBritish Museum

The ancient Maya civilisation flourished in Mesoamerica, in what is now Guatemala, Belize, southern Mexico, and northern Honduras. On this tour you will see some of the Maya objects at the British Museum and then travel to Guatemala to explore the archaeological site of Quiriguá, one of these ancient Maya cities that has been uncovered and preserved.

Yaxchilan Lintel 24 (723/726)British Museum

The Maya are most famous for the large cities and the art and writing they produced during the so-called ‘Classic Period’ from AD250 to AD950.

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The Mexico Gallery at the British Museum

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. 

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Small treasures

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. 

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Lintels

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.

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Yaxchilan lintel

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. 

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Blood sacrifice

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. 

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The Ancient Maya at the British Museum

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.

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Maize God

This stone bust from the 8th century ad shows the youthful Maize God. It decorated an important pyramidal structure in the city of Copan, Honduras. Maize was the most important food for the Maya along with beans, squash and chillies.

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Stela H, Copan

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.

Photograph of Copán taken by A.P. Maudslay (1881/1894) by Alfred Percival MaudslayBritish Museum

Copan in 1885

Over 130 years ago, travelling through Central America was quite an adventure. An early British explorer of ancient Maya cities was Alfred Percival Maudslay (1850-1931).

Photograph of Copán taken by A.P. Maudslay (1881/1894) by Alfred Percival MaudslayBritish Museum

Capturing the past

 He took many photographs that show us how the sites and monuments looked at the time. This is what Stela H looked like in 1885.

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Quiriguá – Gran Plaza

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. 

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Public space

You are standing on the north side of the Great Plaza as it looks today. This large open area was probably a public space. The park is also a nature reserve, so you can see an amazing variety of trees, flowers, butterflies, birds, snakes, and lizards here.

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Stela D

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.

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Mound (Str. 1A-3)

What looks like a small hill with trees is the remains of an ancient Maya structure. About 1,300 years ago, this mound was probably a stone platform supporting several buildings. Only archaeological excavation can tell us how it looked that long ago.

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Overgrowth

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. 

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The Acropolis of Quiriguá

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. 

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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.

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Under the Mound

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.

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A Maya house

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.

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A Maya roof?

This is not the original Maya roof. Like the thatched structures covering carved monuments you see around the park, it was built after excavation to protect the building and the statue of a Maya god inside from frequent rains.

Reconstruction (2018-11-05) by The British Museum, Google Arts & CultureBritish Museum

Reconstruction







This is a computer model that an architect made from looking at the archaeological remains. So from where you are standing, this might have been what the ruler of Quirigua would have seen in ca. 750 AD.

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The Zoomorphs of Quiriguá

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!

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Altar P’

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. 

Hieroglyphics (2018-11-05) by The British Museum, Google Arts & CultureBritish Museum

Hieroglyphics

Maya writing looks very complicated compared to the alphabet we’re used to. The Maya system of writing resembles the Japanese writing system, which uses symbols representing syllables or whole words. 

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Zoomorph P

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.

Drawing of Sky Xul (2018-11-05) by The British Museum, Google Arts & CultureBritish Museum

Drawing of Sky Xul







This drawing makes it easier to see the Sky Xul with his big headdress, large jewellery and serious face. Most monuments show Maya rulers in elaborate costumes for special ceremonies. 

Photograph of Quiriguá taken by A.P. Maudslay (1881/1894) by Alfred Percival MaudslayBritish Museum







Although probably quite richly dressed in everyday life, they would not have  worn a heavy headdress all the time.

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Nature and archaeology

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.

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Significant animals

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. 

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Ceiba tree

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. 

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Mound

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. 

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Natural ecosystem

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.

Flying above Quirigua (2018-11-05) by The British Museum, Google Arts & CultureBritish Museum

Flying above Quirigua

Here you can see the archaeological park surrounded by banana plantations. The plantation owners agreed not to farm 30 hectares around the site, to preserve the monuments and forest. The rest of the ancient city is under the plantations, mostly destroyed through farming.

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The Wider Landscape

The centre of Quiriguá lies in a floodplain—low-lying land next to a big river—but the ancient city was once much larger than the archaeological site of today. Here you are standing on higher ground, a hillside about 2 kilometres away from the centre. Remains of some larger buildings and  stelae have been found here, giving us a good idea about ancient Maya settlement patterns.

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Mountains in the Distance

These mountains lie across the Motagua River, which forms the border between Guatemala and Honduras. They are part of the Cerro Azul (Blue Mountain) Motagua National Park, which is home to many species of birds and an endangered species of frog.

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Mound

This mound is an ancient Maya structure that formed part of a residential settlement. Looters dug a big trench in its side in search of ancient artefacts. Fortunately, the two stelae that were here had already been transported to a safe place.

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Copan

Behind some of the larger mountains on the horizon is the ancient Maya city of Copan. The Mayas would have travelled between Quiriguá and Copan on foot. Transport of goods was also done by humans, since there were no pack animals before the arrival of Europeans.

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