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NEW INSIGHTS ON THE ACROPOLIS OF
KAMINALJUYU, GUATEMALA
Stephen D. Houston
Zachary X. Nelson
Carlos Chiriboga
Carlos Alvarado
Héctor L. Escobedo
Karl Taube
Keywords: Maya archaeology, Guatemala, Central Altiplano, Kaminaljuyu, Early
Classic period, Late Classic period, talud-tablero style, links with
Teotihuacan, monuments from Kaminaljuyu
Between 1958 and 1962, the Guatemalan archaeologist Gustavo Espinoza
conducted a number of deep excavations at the Acropolis of Kaminaljuyu (Group C-
II-4). At that time, these were the largest excavations conducted by an exclusively
national team, with extensive test pitting and tunnels that delimited the borders of the
talud-tablero type buildings. The evidence of floors defined with the use of trowels,
and test pits with the primary objective of uncovering superimposed buildings, show,
altogether, a much developed sensitivity regarding the archaeological strata.
Espinoza used a method for excavating tunnels opening them in the form of an
arrow (with the tip up) to maintain structural stability, often following the alignment of
some architectural trait detected, to guarantee appropriate safety levels.
It is possible that Espinoza lived one of his earliest field experiences at the Acropolis,
under the supervision of A. Ledyard Smith, who investigated the presumed
“ballcourt” in C-II-4, around the beginning of World War II (Shook and Smith
1942:265). At that time, Smith found an architectural mode affiliated with
Teotihuacan –the talud-tablero feature- at the end of his trench. It is presumed that it
was then when Espinoza initially considered the Acropolis as a future focus of
investigations to be conducted by the National Museum of Archaeology.
Today, the area excavated by Espinoza has become a city park under State control,
used by people as a tourist attraction and focus of indigenous ritual activities as a
sacred place. However, all these cavities and sections, profiles and tunnels, the
origin of nearly 4000 m3 of refill and earth removed by Espinoza, have remained
unpublished –with the exception of a report written by Charles Cheek in 1962, based
on drawings made by Tatiana Proskouriakoff.
Therefore, it was decided to initiate an exhaustive record of Espinoza’s excavations
as part of the Kaminaljuyu Park Project, with the financial support of Brigham Young
University. Several questions come to the minds of all those who visit the Acropolis:
which are the construction and chronologic sequence, the function of buildings, and
above all, the links between the talud-tablero buildings of the Acropolis and the
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analogous architectural traits from Teotihuacan? Each one of these questions have
been responded, with different degrees of confidence, by the investigation conducted
in 2003 (Houston et al. 2003).
The first levels of the Acropolis can be presumably traced back to the Preclassic
period. However, there is no explicit evidence of this dating, and most of the strata
detected in the pits around the Acropolis contain Early Classic sherds (Popenoe de
Hatch, personal communication 2003). That which can be confirmed is that the
earlier levels represent extensive areas in the form of embankments which possibly
reach the margins of the original border of the Acropolis. The only way of defining
the nature of those traits, at least of three of them, one on top of the other, was by
means of tunnels or trenches that approached the deposits from the outside.
The more illustrative construction phases are those showing the talud-tablero style
(Figure 1). The main problem regarding this type of architectural mode, at least as
far as interpretation is concerned, consists in defining its ancient meaning in a variety
of contexts. The findings accomplished by Laporte (1988), and Plunket and Uruñuela
(1998) prove the complexity of the origin of such mode. Although heavily eroded,
there is no doubt that Building F, in fact only a component of Structure A/F, and in
spite of an opinion on the contrary by Proskouriakoff, displayed murals with red
circles on its south panel. Similar designs may be observed in Substructure 3 of the
Temple of the Feathered Snails (Miller 1973: 33-34, Figs. 58 to 62). In this case, the
panel may have worked as a place for exhibition, with designs –including textiles-
protected from the elements by the structural eave. Unfortunately, the proportions of
the talud-tablero samples do not provide much information, as the laying of the
additional floors, as was the case with Buildings E and A, reduced the size of the
sloping panel, while the measures of the horizontal portion became equivalent.
Figure 1. View of the building with talud-tablero features.
No doubt, the first building with a talud-tablero was Building E, a structure that
according to Ellen Spensley (Houston et al. 2003:55) evidenced a crucial change
regarding construction materials, which switched from the clay of the presumed
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Preclassic levels to a pumice and clay matrix with signs of burnishing. The floor
around the final stage of the building showed clear evidence of a perimeter of
missing posts or sculptures, traces of which were observed in Buildings G and K,
with something similar in Structure A-2 excavated by the project run by the Carnegie
Institution of Washington (Kidder et al. 1946: Fig. 106b). Probably, Acropolis Building
E may have been connected with a two-terrace platform now hidden behind Building
G, implying that the latter was never exposed as a complete building but merely as a
façade. An additional interesting feature of Building E is the presence of a
construction stage that failed as a consequence of instability of the horizontal panel,
in a way that the architects of antiquity added other stages, at times with vestiges of
blue, yellow and red colors. Finally, it should be observed that the final orientation of
Building E, in relation to Building A/F, is very similar to the “altars” in the sectors of
Atelelco, the West Plaza Group, Tetitla and Yayahuala in Teotihuacan.
Consequently, we do not concur with Geoffrey Braswell (2003b:121, Fig. 4.2), who
suggests a considerable difference between the ground plans from buildings of
Central Mexico and those featuring a “Teotihuacan” style at Kaminaljuyu. In fact,
recent information about the Acropolis stresses the risk of comparing superficial
traits, because in general, the architectural attributes that are visible date to the Late
Classic period.
A test unit conducted in Building A/F by Espinoza, which has remained unpublished,
was drawn in 2004 by Carlos Alvarado. The internal sequence confirms that this
assemblage with two talud-tablero components corresponds to the same
construction event. While examining the upper portion of Building A/F it was clear
that the structure still had another level, this time with a half-tablero, that is, without
its lower feature. This talud-tablero was severely damaged by a leveling event
occurred at a later date. Therefore, an inversed entasis effect, a sort of exaggerated
perspective, could be considered. Each level displayed, before the public attending
the plaza, the effect of a progressively more reduced size, until the lower feature of
the tablero, at the third level, became no longer necessary; in other words, the
functional accent was decisively decreased to the view or the sight of those
observed upwards, from the plaza. On the contrary, the visual effect in the Amatle
phase (Late Classic period), distinguished itself for the emphasis placed on the
horizontal perspectives of the plazas, perhaps for ceremonies of a more civic nature,
such as dances or processions.
Building G shows an enigmatic trait that presents an additional and so far unknown
aspect of the talud-tablero buildings from Kaminaljuyu (Houston et al. 2003: Fig. 6).
A pit excavated by Espinoza contained a box of mortar and stones that worked as
the container for a post of at least 0.30 m in diameter. It is probable that a parallel
post, destroyed by the subsequent construction of a drainage made in part with slabs
taken from a horizontal panel, was placed symmetrically at the other side of Building
G. George Cowgill (personal communication 2003) reported that a trait with identical
attributes was excavated at the Abutting Platform of the Temple of the Feathered
Serpent in Teotihuacan.
Within such context, the much distinctive mode of talud-tablero construction at the
Acropolis is often mentioned. Without exception, its refills include some charcoal
fragments and scarce ceramic evidence, as if they were deposits thrown down on
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purpose or retrieved from new sources of construction materials. In addition,
surfaces were made with a special type of sticky concrete, perhaps, because of its
red appearance, “fired” before its application and formed by moldings, like in the
modern technology of construction. As a support, the horizontal panels have several
bifacial stones carved with an amazing precision, without deviating not a single
centimeter in the alignment. Another surprising attribute was the method used for
applying the concrete vertically: the overlapping pattern makes it possible to
distinguish “work tasks”, each one with some 3 to 4 cm in length, placed on a
counter-clockwise direction, beginning at the stairway’s axis and ending right at the
same place after the process of covering the talud-tablero with its thin layer of
pumice and gravel.
In interpreting this information it is advisable to re-examine the “absolute” dates
taken from this talud-tablero buildings. For now, the only chronometric dates are
derived from Daniel Wolfman’s work based on archaeomagnetic methodology
(Wolfman 1973, 1990; Braswell 2003a:91). The dates are concentrated on AD 490-
525, and AD 500-520 (Building A), and AD 585-610 (Building D), with the
presumption that all these structures can be traced back to a time prior to AD 610.
Thanks to several charcoal fragments detected in the profiles, it was possible to
retrieve samples for a process of regular radiocarbon chronology and AMS (Figure
2). Originated right on top of Building E, the oldest talud-tablero in stratigraphic
terms, revealed a calibrated date of 1520 +/- 35 BP (AA55657), and in the layer on
top of the final level of the talud-tablero time span, a calibrated date of 1475 +/-30
(AA57656). With the help of Ian Robertson, Stanford University, these dates were
calibrated together with other dates obtained from talud-tablero contexts in the
Acropolis, to the first decades after 500 AD, in other words, in full concordance with
Wolfman’s approach.
Figure 2. A.M.S. dates related to talud-tablero buildings.
The deposit that covers these levels, in the upper part of a tunnel behind the summit
of Building F, provided a dating to AD 770 (between AD 620 and AD 920 [A-13080,
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1180 +/- 150, n.b., not calibrated), obviously of the Amatle phase. The most
impressive of these dates is their internal consistency and the evidence that the
interval between the first and the last buildings that show the talud-tablero style at
the Acropolis statistically comprise one single event, with rapid construction
occurrences. Such observation brings forward two implications:
• That the dates are later than the presumed “entrance” of Teotihuacán’s in
Tikal in AD 378 and than the acts related to the foundation of the Copan
dynasty in Honduras.
• That at the Acropolis, this event may be considered as a very restricted period
of contact with other places.
One possibility is that the technology of the talud-tablero buildings, an architectural
mode obviously introduced, though probably not from Teotihuacan, was the result of
a very small group of foreign specialists; in other words, it has nothing to do with an
event represented by the intrusion of a group of “warriors” or “pochtecas”, or of
sovereigns from Central Mexico, but rather, with a highly limited historic process
which was supervised by the Kaminaljuyu rulers themselves. Therefore, this
guideline seems to become quite separated from the observations made by Bove
and Medrano for the South Coast of Guatemala, where there is evidence of direct
contact with Teotihuacan (Bove and Medrano 2003: 72-73).
The new data are consistent with several recent models that emphasize the
autonomous behavior of Kaminaljuyu in matters of contact with Teotihuacan
(Braswell 2003, ed., passim). For example, according to Marion Popenoe de Hatch
and Zachary Hruby, only a few sherds of a Teotihuacan character were recovered
during the excavations carried out by this project at Kaminaljuyu, as well as an
extremely scarce amount of green obsidian from Pachuca. It is suspected that the
use of concrete may reflect some more intense contacts with the Mexican Gulf
Coast. Nevertheless, this speculation does not invalidate the fact that the present
understanding of the Kaminaljuyu polity during the Esperanza phase is practically
null, given the absence of hieroglyphic texts that did in fact exist in earlier times.
Besides, although the foreign contact may have a strong side, it seems to have been
limited to the highest ranks of the urban society at the site. The data available at
Kaminaljuyu do not allow for refuting characters such as Sihyaj K’ahk’ from Tikal, or
Yax K’uk’ Mo’ from Copan.
The sculpture at the Acropolis represents an additional problem of interpretation. The
studies accomplished at Kaminaljuyu have led to the development of some kind of
dogma, courageously confronted by Federico Fahsen among others, by which there
is little or none sculptural works of the Esperanza phase at Kaminaljuyu (see though
Parsons 1986: 81-83). No doubt, the “architects” of the talud-tablero buildings in
Kaminaljuyu did in fact incorporate sculptures of the Verbena or Arenal phases, a
good example of which is represented by the so far unrecognized talud-tablero
building located across the street, behind La Palangana (Figure 3).
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Figure 3. Talud-tablero building outside the limits of the Kaminaljuyu Park.
There, Monuments 42 and 43 are still in place –the second being a representation of
a headdress- on a platform, just like Cheek found them in the excavations he
conducted at the plaza in La Palangana. It is rather surprising that the two sculptures
presently found at the Acropolis, a jaguar (a tenoned sculpture) and a skull (with a
censer function and signs of its base in the first terrace of the talud-tablero, Building
G), were not previously described by other authors (Figure 4). Clearly, the jaguar
represents this feline in a purely, almost metropolitan Teotihuacan style, as is the
case of the serpent-shaped tenon found at Cobá, Quintana Roo (Benavides 1981:
Fig. 28). Another monument from Kaminaljuyu, Stela 13 (Parsons 1986: Fig. 188), of
unknown provenience, probably functioned as part of a beam of a pure Teotihuacan
style (see photo in Kerr #8037). An additional sculpture, Stela 23 (Parsona 1986:
Fig. 190), seems to include a day sign, but again, in the form of an individual from
the city of Teotihuacan.
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Figure 4. Sculptures from the Acropolis of Cobá, at the lower left, and from Kaminaljuyu, at
right.
In the final construction stages of the Acropolis of Kaminaljuyu there is evidence we
cannot discuss in detail in this report. After the talud-tablero epoch, there is an
uninterrupted phase of use, with constructions built with some kind of adobe
(talpetate blocks covered by thin layers of daub). In the final stage, the Amatle
phase, there is a crucial change in the construction process of buildings within the
Acropolis. Instead of the highly specialized method of the talud-tablero, and as
opposed to the age of the red painted talpetate, with traces of a continued exhibition
of samples of the talud-tablero mode, all previous buildings were covered with deep
layers of mud, with foundations and cobble alignments possibly extracted from a
ravine, considering their forms modeled by the movements of water.
It is now important to refer to the subject of the specialization of those buildings that
corresponded to the very much extended Amatle phase, as they occupied the entire
superficial area visible today, they represented huge energy investments with
implications in the social organization, but with construction forms so simple that they
could be reproduced by any peasant. It is evident that the time of architectural
specialization was over, and Kaminaljuyu would soon begin the long journey to its
present urban decay.
REFERENCES
Benavides C., Antonio
1981 Coba: Una ciudd prehispánica de Quintana Roo. Instituto Nacional de
Antropología e Historia, México.
Bove, Frederick J., and Sonia Medrano Busto
2003 Teotihuacan, Militarism and Pacific Guatemala. In The Maya and
Teotihuacan: Reinterpreting Early Classic Interaction (edited by G.
Braswell), pp. 45-79. University of Texas Press, Austin.
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Braswell, Geoffrey E.
2003a Dating Early Classic Interaction between Kaminaljuyu and Central Mexico.
In The Maya and Teotihuacan: Reinterpreting Early Classic Interaction
(edited by G. Braswell), pp. 81-104. University of Texas Press, Austin.
2003b Understanding Early Classic Interaction between Kaminaljuyu and Central
Mexico. In The Maya and Teotihuacán: Reinterpreting Early Classic
Interaction (edited by G. Braswell), pp. 105-142. University of Texas
Press, Austin.
Braswell, Geoffrey E. (ed)
2003 The Maya and Teotihuacan: Reinterpreting Early Classic Interaction.
University of Texas Press, Austin.
Houston, Stephen D., Zachary Nelson, Carlos Chiriboga, and Ellen Spensley
2003 The Acropolis of Kaminaljuyu, Guatemala: Recovering a “Lost Excavation”.
Mayab 16: 49-64. Madrid.
Kidder, Alfred V., Jesse D. Jennings, and Edwin M. Shook
1946 Excavations at Kaminaljuyu, Guatemala. Carnegie Institution of
Washington Publication 561. Washington, D.C.
Laporte, Juan Pedro
1988 Arquitectura Clásica Temprana de Tikal y el modo talud-tablero.
Antropología e Historia de Guatemala 7: 1-48. Guatemala.
Miller, Arthur G.
1973 The Mural Painting of Teotihuacan. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C.
Parsons, Lee A.
1986 The Origins of Maya Art: Monumental Stone Sculpture of Kaminaljuyu,
Guatemala, and the Southern Pacific Coast. Dumbarton Oaks,
Washington, D.C.
Plunket, Patricia, and Gabriela Uruñuela
1998 Preclassic Household Patterns Preserved Under Volcanic Ash at Tetimpa,
Puebla, Mexico. Latin American Antiquity 9: 287-309. Washington, D.C.
Shook, Edwin M., and A. Ledyard Smith
1942 Guatemala: Kaminaljuyu. Carnegie Institution of Washington Yearbook
1941: 263-267. Washington, D.C.
Wolfman, Daniel
1973 Re-Evaluation of Mesoamerican Chronology: A.D. 1-1200. Ph.D.
Dissertation, University of Colorado, Boulder.
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Archaeomagnetic Dating (edited by J.L. Eighmy and R.S. Sternberg), pp.
261-308. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.
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Figure 1 Perspective of the talud-tablero buildings
Figure 2 A.M.S. dating related to talud-tablero buildings
Figure 3 Talud-tablero building outside the limits of Kaminaljuyu Park
Figure 4 Sculptures from the Acropolis of Coba, at the lower left, and from
Kaminaljuyu, at right
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