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<< Other Photo Pages >> Tak'alik Ab'aj - Ancient Village or Settlement in Guatemala

Submitted by bat400 on Sunday, 09 February 2014  Page Views: 4462

Multi-periodSite Name: Tak'alik Ab'aj Alternative Name: Abaj Takalik, Kooja
Country: Guatemala
NOTE: This site is 13.481 km away from the location you searched for.

Type: Ancient Village or Settlement
Nearest Town: Retalhuleu  Nearest Village: El Asintal
Latitude: 14.637000N  Longitude: 91.734W
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
no data Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
no data Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
no data Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
3
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Tak'alik Ab'aj
Tak'alik Ab'aj submitted by bat400_photo : Abaj Takalik, Site in Guatemala Ahora se llama Takalik Abaj, se encuentra ubicado a 15 minutos de Retalhuleu, camino hacia Coatepeque.Image copyright: Fernando Reyes Palencia (Fernando Reyes Palencia), hosted on Flickr and displayed under the terms of their API. (Vote or comment on this photo)
Ancient Town in Guatemala.
Tak'alik Ab'aj was occupied from 900 BC through 1000 AD and has both Olmec and Mayan features. The latest structures are representative of the the Preclassical and Classic Periods (200BC - 200 AD, and 200 AD - 1000 AD.)

The site includes monumental structures arranged around a dozen separate plazas. Two ballcourts, an early Maya royal tomb, Maya hieroglyphic inscriptions on monuments, and are among the many finds. Clay and stone lined canals drain the area, protecting the foundations of buildings and terraces.

The central area of major buildings and structures covers 2 by 4 kilometers. The full extent of residential ares has not yet been determined.

Excavations at the site have occurred periodically since the 1920's. The current excavations have been ongoing since the late 1980's through the Guatemalan Instituto de Antropología e Historia (IDAEH.) Over two hundred monuments and alters have been discovered.

In 2002 Takalik Abaj was entered on the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative Lists, under the heading of "The Mayan-Olmecan Encounter".

A Wikipedia website includes a list of structures and monumnets and an extensive bibliography.

Note: Guatemala finds grave of king who ushered in Mayan rule from an Olmec origin.
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Nearby Images from Flickr
210101 Desde Takalik Abak
Guatemala
Guatemala
Guatemala
IMG_20170515_091500
IMG_20170515_091219

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Nearby sites listing. In the following links * = Image available
 56.3km E 85° Samabaj Ancient Temple
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Tomb of the Vulture Lord by bat400 on Sunday, 09 February 2014
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A king’s burial reveals a pivotal moment in Maya history.

For 2,500 years, the Vulture Lord’s tomb lay hidden in the rugged highlands of southern Guatemala. In comparison to the soaring pyramids of other sites in the region, his burial monument was a fairly modest, 16-foot-high, grassy platform made of clay and cobblestones. But eight feet below its summit, archaeologists Christa Schieber and Miguel Orrego (Guatemala’s Cultural and Natural Heritage Office) found hundreds of apple-green and blue jade beads. A few feet away were six skillfully made clay female figurines, one of which had a face that was old and wrinkled on one side, and fresh and young on the other side. Nearby, an array of ceramic bowls lay jumbled about, suggesting they had once been piled with food offerings. The most significant of the artifacts was a pendant with an early Maya status symbol—a vulture’s head, in jade, lying exactly where the deceased’s chest would have been. He must have been wearing it when he was buried. Schieber and Orrego named him the Vulture Lord (K’utz Chman in the modern Mayan language), and although his bones had long since rotted away, clusters of precious stones showed exactly where he had worn bracelets, anklets, and a jade-encrusted loincloth. “The artifacts are wonderful, and they’re clearly not the sort of things that people would have used in daily life. This was a royal tomb,” says Schieber.

Known primarily from their cities on the Gulf of Mexico, the Olmec initiated many of the achievements associated with the Maya: written language, ball courts, and perhaps urban planning. But how and why they eventually ceded influence to the Maya remains unclear. Schieber believes Takalik Abaj, and the tomb of the Vulture Lord, offer new insights into how that change might have happened. “This period, around 500 B.C., was a period of transition,” says Schieber.

According to Schieber and Orrego, the Vulture Lord’s tomb is a bridge between the two styles, with the Olmec becoming obsolete in his time. “He was a very rich ruler who still had Olmec traditions,” she says. “But he was already showing Maya stylistic influences in the things he took to the grave.” For example, while the vulture and the ceramic women look Maya—that tattoo is an exact match to a mural pattern at the early Maya site of San Bartolo, says Schieber—the jade ornaments on the deceased’s body closely resemble those on a ruler depicted in stone at the Olmec city of La Venta.

The tomb’s discovery comes as scholars of Mesoamerican history are revising the idea of the Olmec as the “mother culture” that begat the Maya. Instead, a more nuanced view holds sway these days. “I think the Olmec stylistic influence was created through a broad interaction between elites over a very large area,” says archaeologist Michael Love (California State University, Northridge,) who excavated at Takalik Abaj in the 1980s. “I don’t see the Olmec style as a one-way flow from the Gulf Coast of Mexico.”

And as for the tomb, some researchers, including archaeologist Stephen Houston of Brown University, see little connection to the Olmec in the tomb’s offerings. Houston maintains that elite tastes had completely shifted to the Maya by the time of the burial, or that they had never been Olmec at all.

Eventually, conservators on Schieber and Orrego’s team will be stringing the Vulture Lord’s jade necklaces and putting his other body jewelry back together, but it’s not just the beauty of these artifacts that captivates them. “To find the Olmec and Maya artistic styles side by side is a very rare occurrence,” says Schieber. “We’re seeing the beginning of the Maya before our eyes.”

Since excavation began there in 1976, Takalik Abaj, “Place of the Standing Stones,” has attracted archaeologists with its carefully laid out early Maya urban environment—there are at least 83 structures and more than 300 sculpted stone monuments. Although few tombs

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Guatemala finds grave of king who ushered in Mayan rule by bat400 on Monday, 29 October 2012
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Researchers from Guatemala uncovered the grave of King K'utz Chman, a priest who is believed to have reigned around 700 B.C., at the Tak'alik Ab'aj dig in Retalhuleu in western Guatemala.

Packed with jade jewels and other artifacts, K'utz Chman's grave is the most ancient royal Mayan burial ground found to date, investigators said. "He was the big chief," archeologist Miguel Orrego told Reuters. "The ruler who bridged the gaps between Olmec and Mayan cultures and initiated the slow transition to Mayan rule."

Historians believe that K'utz Chman was the first leader to introduce elements that would go on to define Mayan culture, such as building pyramids instead of square structures and carving sculptures that profiled royal families.

Scientists found the grave in June, but it has taken until now for experts to verify it belonged to K'utz Chman. Although no human remains were found at the site, the carbon dated artifacts suggest that the king was buried between 770-510 B.C.

Inside the grave, the team found glistening jade jewels including a necklace with a pendant carved in the shape of a vulture's head, a symbol that represented power and high economic status and that was given to respected elder men.

"The richness of the artifacts tells us he was an important and powerful religious leader," archeologist Christa Schieber told Reuters. "He was very likely the person who began to make the changes in the system and transition into the Mayan world."

For more, see Reuters.
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