Kaminal Juyu, The Maguey Mountain

Kaminal juyu, this will be the first in a series of ancient cities we will post about.

Called by scholars as one of the greatest of all archaeological sites in the New World. Kaminal juyu, on the western margins of modern day Guatemala City is a major Pre Classic site that sat at the crossroads of Maya trade routes connecting the Maya Northern Lowland sites to the Pacific Slope. Its long history of occupation began around 800 BC and continued until AD 850 with cycles of rises and declines but without being abandoned.

The site is located in a valley of the central highlands, part of the Sierra Madre Mountains which runs through most of Central America. It was centered around the rim of now extinct Lake Miraflores, which dried up centuries ago.

Kaminal Juyu or Kaminaljuyú sounds like a Kaqchikel Maya term, whose meaning seems to allude to a 'mound of the dead', that is, a tomb. It was a name assigned to the site in 1936 by José Antonio Villacorta, minister of education at the time. Prior to this, people in the area used to talk about the Miraflores, Arévalo, Providencia, Las Charcas or La Esperanza farms, etc sites, obviously signaling that this area belonged to a single settlement. Today there is much that has been uncovered including a potential real name.

Anthropologist Ruud van Akkeren proposes that the original name of the site was Chikar or Maguey Mountain.The work of Van Akkeren has taken a different approach to Maya Studies. He has concluded that studying the Maya by lineages or clans versus language gives a more clearer understanding of Maya history. Best yet it has connected the lineages still living today to the lineages of the people from these ancient cities.

Van Akkeren says:

“ At first glance, it seems a sheer impossible task to reconstruct its original name. However, we do know that toponyms tend to be very conservative, especially if they represent a ‘place of origin’, as was the case with Kaminal Juyu. Once recognized that its founding people were Poq’om-Maya, a range of disciplines including iconography, epigraphy, ethnohistory, and oral traditions joined to establish that the original name of that city was ‘Maguey Mountain’. As such, one of the ruling families of Kaminal Juyu, the Kaqkoj or Puma lineage, left it recorded in their colonial manuscript produced in the sixteenth century.”

(A toponym is the name by which a geographical place is known)

Though Kaminal Juyu is a Preclassic city, Van Akkreren has found that Two principal lineages were Kaqkoj or Puma and Muun(chu) or Macaw. Present Poq’omchi’ towns are, in fact, named after these principal lineages that settled one and half a millennium later in them. To give some examples: San Cristóbal Verapaz was known as Kaqkoj, Santa Cruz was Muunchu or Menchu. Kaqkoj or Puma must have already been the name of a barrio in Kaminal Juyu, because it’s a toponym that stuck with the valley, today known as Mixco. Mixco is invariably written as Misco in colonial and indigenous documents, derived from Náhuatl mistli, ‘puma’ . These two important lineages or families of Kaminal Juyu can be seen all throughout the city through its artwork.

It is interesting to note that this Macaw lineage has been associated with Wuqub Kakix of the Popol Wuj, which was written thousands of years after Kaminal Juyu. Kaminal Juyu may be the origin of this story. You can see symbolism of this Macaw lineage that includes the number seven on one occasion. As we learned in our last post, Wuqub Kakix means Seven Macaw. This symbol of the celestial bird or macaw seems to be born here, it would last for over thousands of years and be seen throughout the entire Maya world.

One sculpture from Kaminal Juyu, shows a puma stone mask wearing what appears as a Maguey headdress. Maguey is a native plant of meso-camerica, that is more commonly known by its more common name, agave. A clear symbol of the Kaqkoj lineage.

The maguey plant has played a special role for the Kaqkoj lineage since the Preclassic and throughout the course of its history, it has been a source of economic income for San Cristóbal Kaqkoj. The town continues to dedicate itself to rigging crafts, producing nets to carry packages, fishing nets, ropes, ties and clothing. That importance was the basis for the sanctification of the maguey. The elders of San Cristóbal call the plant “ loq'laj saqkiih or 'sacred maguey'. Even more, they consider the white fiber of the maguey as ” rismal nah qamam qati ́”t, 'hair of our grandfathers and grandmothers'.

The importance of Maguey can be seen throughout the artwork of the city. Including in the depiction of the Guardian or deity of the city and the protector of the Kaqkoj lineage. The Poq'omchi's called and still call him Ajwal Yuuq'-K'ixkab or, Lord of the Hills & Valleys. Later in the Maya classic period this Guardian/lord/ “God” would be known as the “god of rain and thunder” Chaak. This connection between the lord of the hills-valleys and Maguey can be summarized by the important drink made of Maguey, better known as Pulque. Given its importance, pulque has a well documented history in which it is a key competent in ceremonial uses and mythologies of many meso-american cultures.

It's important to note that like most meso-american cities, Kaminal juyu was a muti-cultural and multi-linguistic cultural center.

Its position enabled the site to grow and prosper in the Middle PreClassic (800-300 B.C.) in which the site had developed into a sophisticated city with religious and civic centers. It is thought that during the Middle PreClassic Kaminal juyu achieved direct control over the site of El chayal, 12 miles/20 kms to the NE and one of the most important sources of obsidian in all of Mesoamerica. This can be seen with large deposits of obsidian located near the site, and along with jade from the Motagua Valley, and cacao from the coastal plain. This formed the axis of trade between the regions with Kaminal Juyu at its center. This established very important trading relationships with not only other important Maya cities but other Meso-American cultures and cities, most notably Teotihuacan and the Olmec city known as la venta.

Well executed ceramics were produced and developed in these times. The study of the different ceramic styles has been the subject of intensive investigations which have helped to explain the site's evolving history. Trade and political contacts extended throughout the Southern Lowlands to sites such as El Mirador, and down to the Pacific Slope to sites such as Tak’alik Abaj and El Baul. Some of the earliest known carved stelae in the Maya area were produced here at this time.

The city reached its height from the Middle to the Late PreClassic. (800 B.C. – 200 A.D.). In the fourth and fifth century (CE) the great Central Mexican city of Teotihuacan seems to venture out into Maya territories along the Pacific Coast of Guatemala. Around the same time we see Teotihuacan influence in the iconography and architecture of Kaminal Juyu. Tomb goods, ceramics and architectural styles all show Teotihuacan traits, including the famous Teotihuacan architecture style known as talud-tablero.

Kaminal juyu is not the only city that begins to fall under Teotihuacan influence, as you will note in future posts.

There has been a long debate among scholars about the kind of intrusion this was. Interpretations have been made of Teotihuacan conquest and dominance of Kaminal Juyu, to a simple emulation by local Maya lords since teotihuacan then was the largest city of its time.

Once again and based on his findings Ruud van Akkeren proposes an alternative approach which he calls the mercantile model

“It comprises a Mesoamerican trade-network of long-distance merchant guilds protected by castes of warriors, often organized along the lines of lineages or lineage-clusters. Indeed, in the Early Classic they were administered out of Teotihuacan. Merchants and their protectors would enter a city or region for commercial purposes, and establish a barrio with their temples, residences and storing places. This entry may have been facilitated through marriage arrangements with local lords. With these merchants and their warriors came a new set of political, economic and cosmological concepts. Apart from the Pacific Coast and Kaminal Juyu, we see Teotihuacan traders enter other parts of the Maya area, like Tikal and northern Petén, as well as Copan and the Middle Motagua region.

When examining Teotihuacan presence in the Maya area, scholars always visualize this as a one-way direction. Kaminal Juyu’s apogee, however, predated the incipient power of Teotihuacan. I propose in the book that the Kaqkoj or Puma lineage played an important role in establishing initial commercial ties between both cities through its cacao and cotton plantations on the Pacific Coast. Puma iconography is omnipresent in Classic Teotihuacan and it appears that members of that lineage are actually interred in the burials found in the moon pyramid.

As for another Poq’om lineage, the Tukur or Owl, it seems the reverse. Its origin lay in Teotihuacan. A sixteenth century document produced by the Kaqkoj, Testamento y título de los antecesores de los señores de Cagcoh, San Cristóbal Verapaz, explains that Tukur people came much later to Maguey Mountain, and did not speak poq’om at the time.”

This owl lineage can be seen entering the Maya lands in another important ancient Maya city, Tikal. In one of Tikals monuments it is written that a Teotihuacan general by the name of Spear(dart)thrower Owl establishes an allegiance between the two cities. We will cover this more on Tikal’s post.

The importance of this city is undoubtable and unmeasurable and as it appears, Kaminal Juyu was perceived as a Place of Origin by all Maya cities. It was the place where time began. When the Maya say the universe was created by setting out of three hearthstones typical of every Maya household, the center of the house where the food is prepared. This sacred hearts of creation is where the Sun Hero was born and time began to roll. It turns out that these primordial hearthstones had a geographical manifestation, a ritual landscape in the Highlands of Guatemala: the three volcanoes in the Valley of Antigua. This huge natural sanctuary was supervised by Kaminal Juyu, the city’s plan was aligned to the most prominent of the three, el Volcan de Agua (the Water Volcano), not coincidentally known in ancient times as Jun Ajpuh.

Kamina ljuyu experienced a decline at the start of the Early Classic (200-600 A.D.) until around 400 A.D. This same decline was experienced by other established PreClassic sites such as El Mirador, Takalik Abaj and Seibal.

Kamina ljuyu regained its population and political vitality beginning around 400 A.D. with an expansion in building activity which lasted through the Late Classic. (600-900 A.D). The city collapsed around 900 A.D. with only a small remnant population that lasted another hundred years or so.

Although it consisted of several hundred great temple mounds, today all but a handful have been swallowed up by the rapidly expanding real estate developments of the modern capital. The site is currently buried under the sprawling metropolis of Guatemala City. Due to this situation, the true size and scope of the site may never be known. Of the 200-300 mounds that were reported at the beginning of the 20th century, fewer than 35 remain. Most of the remaining portion of the site is located in a small archaeological park within Zone 7, south of Parque Erick Barrondo. Another set of mounds is located within the Miraflores shopping center, next to the Kaminaljuyu Museum. Other isolated mounds are located throughout the capital, including the General Cemetery.

Not much is left of this once great city, and yet so much more to learn from the place where time began for the Maya, where the maguey once grew in abundance, where the founding families and lineages of the Puma changed the course of history for all the Maya.