Guatemala 2018

Thursday22November

Waking up at the Royal Hotel in Quiriguá with small Christmas mugs filled with orange juice and tomato and onion omelet.  

Opposite the hotel, the large garage where we were able to shelter our car.

This small 8th-century archaeological site differs greatly from Tikal. Here there are no large pyramids but many stelae with bas-reliefs representing animals or other demigods. It is above all a foretaste of what we will visit tomorrow in Copán, on the other side of the border in Honduras. The Quiriguá site has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1981.

Here is the largest of the stelae, over 10 meters tall and weighing about thirty tons. There is no taller one in the Mayan world, which is why it can also be found on 10 centavo coins (quetzal cents).

We find not only stelae but also large stone blocks carved in the shape of animals: zoomorphs. This one represents a toad.

Stela F dates from 761 and depicts a ruler on both sides...

Hurricane Mitch in 1998 managed to tilt the stela!

How do we know the installation date of the stela (768)? It's simply indicated on the sides in Mayan script!

Front side.

As in Tikal, we find an enormous Kapok tree (Ceiba pentandra).

The tree is sacred, and at its feet, there is a recent altar made available for contemporary Mayan rituals.

Stela H stands out with its diamond-shaped hieroglyphs.

Stelae are not necessarily immense. Stela I is smaller, but not lacking in graphics.

Most of the stelae installations were made during the reign of King K'ak Tiliw, also known as Cauac Sky. The latter, a rival of the king of Copán Waxaklajuun Ub'aah K'awiil, managed to get rid of him by having him decapitated... This is what is recounted on Stela J.

This Stela K was the last one erected here in the year 805.

Here we are on the great square of the acropolis.

What remains of the temples.

The stone walls are covered with moss to be as green as the lawn...

I surprise a sunbathing session in its simplest form...   It's a superb black spiny-tailed iguana (Ctenosaura similis).

Zoomorphs only appeared at a later stage. They are rough stone blocks simply sculpted on their surfaces.

Some rulers, like Sky Xul in this case, find themselves entangled in 20 tons of stone and an imbroglio of graphics and hieroglyphs...  

Another form of mineral block. Completely flat, it was used as an altar.

Zoomorphs M and N, built in 731, are the oldest on the site. The first represents the head of a jaguar. The second, a turtle with skulls at each end.

Back towards the site entrance where we had saved Zoomorph B and stelae A, E, and D for the end...

Cauac Sky, another ruler of Quiriguá, managed to keep his red paint for over 1000 years.

Cauac Sky, him again, undoubtedly the most powerful ruler of Quiriguá, but one of his characteristics might have been his teeth...   But instead of breaking his teeth, his nose was targeted by his successors, just to hurt his ego...

Stela C, very similar to Stela A, also tells the story of the birth of the world, which according to their Mayan mythology was born from three stones a little over 5000 years ago...

Our last stela with the unshakeable Cauac Sky. He began his reign in 724 AD and it only ended with his death, 61 years later...

That's it for the Guatemalan stelae that occupied our morning! We're back on the road for more stelae, but Honduran ones this time! Yes, we're going to change countries and head to Honduras to reach the archaeological site of Copán. And the journey won't be complete without a good lunch at the Mesón De La Sierra restaurant in the town of Las Pozas!