Sak Tz’i’ was effectively erased from memory. Although descendants still live in the region, the vagaries of nature buckled temple walls, the tomb robbers disassembled pyramids and a thickening jungle canopy concealed plazas and causeways. The dynasty flourished during the Classic period of Maya culture, from 250 to 900 A.D., when the civilization counted its greatest achievements in architecture, engineering, astronomy and mathematics.įor reasons that are still unclear, Sak Tz’i’ and hundreds of other settlements were abandoned and entire regions were left deserted during the ninth century. Small and scrappy, Sak Tz’i’ - White Dog, in the language of ancient Mayan inscriptions - was the sometime ally, sometime vassal, sometime foe of several of the largest and most powerful regional players, including Piedras Negras in what is now Guatemala and Bonampak, Palenque, Tonina and Yaxchilan in present-day Chiapas. Golden noted that the entrance to the pyramid had probably featured a line of free-standing relief sculptures, called stelae, most of which were now buried in the debris or had been hacked off and carried away by thieves. Where the pyramid and several elite residences once stood were toppled walls of cut stone. ![]() In its prime, it was dominated by a 45-foot-high pyramid in which members of the royal family might have been entombed. Spread across 100 acres of tangled vines and lumpy earth were reminders of lost grandeur: giant heaps of rock and rubble that had once been temples, plazas, reception halls and a towering, terraced palace.ĭirectly ahead were the remains of a complex of platforms that had formed the acropolis. Golden approached a barbed wire fence enclosing a pasture, then limboed under it and surveyed the vista beyond: the crumbling ruins of Sak Tz’i’, a Maya settlement at least 2,500 years old. ![]() “We’re coming to what’s left of the Sak Tz’i’ dynasty,” Dr. ![]() Only the raucous half-roar, half-bark of howler monkeys pierced the ceaseless mating call of cicadas. CHIAPAS, Mexico - On a bright, buggy morning in early summer, Charles Golden, an anthropologist at Brandeis University, slashed through the knee-high grass of a cattle ranch deep in the Valle de Santo Domingo, a sparsely populated region of thick brush and almost impenetrable jungle.
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