Day 13 June 4
Uaxactún: Town and Ruins




Early in the morning, we drove along a jungle road barely wide enough for our jeep to pass through. The Petén wilderness had never seemed to me more vast and forbidding. Trees more than a hundred feet tall flanked us on both sides. I had a strange feeling of being swallowed up by the endless green, and also wondered what would happen if a bus suddenly appeared in the opposite direction. Roberto matter-of-factly stated that either our jeep or the bus would have to back up all the way to Tikal or Uaxactún. For the unfortunate driver, it could be an unforgettable six-mile detour in reverse gear.

The roar of our jeep's engine surprised a black lizard or bird scavenging in the middle of the road. (From afar, I could not be sure which it was.) The creature had a tail, a long beak or snout, and what appeared to be two small atrophied forelimbs. It looked like a miniature t. rex. Rushing on its hind legs, the beast lost itself in the darkness of the rainforest like a specter fleeing the dawn. Its ominous and sinister appearance made me uneasy for the rest of the ride. Fortunately, with the exception of a fallen branch that momentarily blocked our way, we met with no problems.

We arrived in the small jungle town of Uaxactún, about twelve miles from Tikal. One main dirt road divided the ruins into two sections. At one end of the road, there was a sizeable, pot-holed clearing that was muddy from yesterday's rain. A few makeshift dwellings occupied one side of this space, and faced immense, unbroken jungle at the other side. In front of one hut, a noisy old converted Volkswagen motor was grinding corn or coffee. The scene reminded me of frontier settlements in the Amazon region of Brazil that I had watched on TV. Until now, I had scarcely believed that such places really existed.

We stopped for refreshments at a small store and had a quick chat with the owner, a tired-looking ladino of about forty. He mentioned that one bus leaves from the town for Tikal daily, and-- yes, of course-- Uaxactún even had its own primary school, he added proudly. I wondered what it would be like to grow up in this strange, "underdeveloped", but wildly intriguing, environment-- a place which, in its heyday over a millenium ago, was among the most culturally advanced cities on earth.






After another terrific downpour, it was time to explore again. For the moment at least, as we were the only visitors, the ruins belonged entirely to us. It was easy to imagine ourselves as the first adventurers who had broken the stillness of centuries in this desolate place.





This largely unexcavated archaeological site is famous for its small Pre-Classic pyramids decorated along their sides with simple stucco masks (now badly eroded) representing the sun god or other deities. During the Classic Period, the Maya would replace such abstract representations by realistic portraits of actual rulers who governed as divine kings, e.g., Lamanai in Belize. The modest buildings would give way to the monumental public architecture so characteristic of the Classic, a style reflective of the unity of heavenly and terrestrial space in which kings were also gods.

Uaxactún (which is Maya for "eight stones") was actually settled earlier than Tikal. But it was eventually defeated by its huge neighbor. Recent archaeological studies indicate that Tikal had acquired the spear thrower, a powerful new weapon, from its distant ally Teotihuacán in Mexico. This enabled a warrior to double the range of his projectiles, and was the key to Tikal's ascendancy over the more established Uaxactún.

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Into Guatemala 1989. © 1999 J. L. Pe