Xultún is a Classic Period (200-900 AD) Maya site located in the northeast portion of the Petén region of Guatemala, in an area of the Maya Lowlands occupied by seasonally inundated swamps, called "bajos". Xultún is about 36 kilometers (~22.5 miles) southeast of Rio Azul, and very near the site of San Bartolo: in fact scholars often refer to the sites together as the Xultún-San Bartolo zone. Archaeologists working in the region consider San Bartolo as the earlier, Late Preclassic (300 BC-AD 200/250) period capital of the area, while Xultún was most intensively occupied during the classic period and likely replaced San Bartolo as capital during this time.
Xultún is mostly known for its numerous stelae decorated with an unusual motif, known as the jaguar cub theme, and for its polychrome vessels. The core of the site covers an area of at least 16 km² (4 acres). The tallest pyramid of the site, Structure A1, rises to a height of 35 m (115 feet). In May of 2012, scholars reported the discovery of a series of glyphs which appear to represent a calendar for tracking the moon and Venus.
- Read more about the Classic Maya Astronomy at Xultun
Emblem Glyph at Xultún
More than 20 known stelae and a large number of decorated vases containing the emblem glyph of Xultún are known from the site. Emblem glyphs were identified in the 1950s by Heinrich Berlin, who was able to connect specific glyphs to specific dynastic lineages. Researcher Stephen Houston identified the glyph for Xultún as one with a prefix representing a flint or a centipede jaw, the cauac or witz (hill) glyph and, occasionally, the ajaw (lord) glyph. The earliest expression of this glyph appears on Stela 18, dating to the early classic or possibly the very early late classic period. This glyph includes the text with the name Turtle Shell, a possible reference to an early ruler of Xultún.
Growth of Xultún
Recent studies have shown that powerful dynasties emerged at Xultún at the beginning of the Classic period, in part because of its vicinity to at least five large watering places, which provided its rulers with the capacity to cope with drastic environmental changes, such as the persistent drought which occurred at the end of the Preclassic period.
The growth of Xultún into an important capital during the Early Classic (AD 300-600) is witnessed not only by large number of stelae and monumental architecture dated to this period, but also by the strong political relations with the paramount Maya centers of Tikal and Caracol. Xultún continued to grow well into the Late Classic until the end of the 9th century, with its last known inscription dated to AD 889, well after the decline and abandonment of many major Maya capitals.
Scholars suggest that its favorable environmental position allowed the population of Xultún and of its surrounding area to better cope with the climatic instability which affected this sector of the Maya region during the Terminal Classic (AD 900-1000). Recent archaeological work in a residential area outside the monumental core identified a mural that is shedding new light onto the astronomical and calendric knowledge of the Classic Maya.
Archaeological Research
The ruins of Xultún were first reported at the beginning of the 20th century by groups of chicleros (rubber harvesters) working in the surrounding forest. In the 1920s, the Carnegie Institution of Washington organized a series of expeditions led by the famous archaeologist and epigrapher Sylvanus Morley, who discovered and registered most of the inscriptions at the site.
In the 1970s, the Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscription Project worked again at Xultún and recovered and recorded more monuments, publishing a complete catalogue of its stelae. More recently, Stephen Houston worked on the decipherment of the emblem glyph and calendric series recorded on the monuments. Systematic investigations at Xultún began in 2008, under the direction of William Saturno at Boston University and David Stuart at University of Texas at Austin.
Sources
This glossary entry is a part of the About.com guide to Maya Civilization, and the Dictionary of Archaeology.
Chase AF. 1983. Troubled Times: The Archaeology and Iconography of the Terminal Classic Southern Lowland Maya. In: Fields VM, editor. Fifth Palenque Round Table, 1983. Palenque, Chiapas, Mexico: Pre-Columbian Art Research Institute. p 103-114.
Garrison TG, and Dunning NP. 2009. Settlement, Environment, and Politics in the San Bartolo-Xultún Territory, El Peten, Guatemala. Latin American Antiquity 20(4):525-552.
Garrison TG, and Stuart D. 2004. Un análisis preliminar de las inscripciones que se relacionan con Xultún, Petén, Guatemala. In: Laporte JP, Arroyo B, Escobedo HL, and Mejía H, editors. XVII Simposio de Investigaciones Arqueológicas en Guatemala, 2003: Museo Nacional de Arqueología y Etnología. p 829-842.
Houston SD. 1986. Problematic Emblem Glyphs: Examples from Altar de Sacrificios, El Chorro, Río Azul, and Xultún: Center for Maya Research Washington, DC.
Park C, and Chung H. 2011. Identification of Postclassic Maya Constellations from the Venus Pages of the Dresden Codex. Estudios de Cultura Maya 35:33-62.
Saturno WA, Stuart D, Aveni AF, and Rossi F. 2012. Ancient Maya astronomical tables from Xultún, Guatemala. Science 336:714 - 717.
