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Fifty-five kilometers north of Belize City and just 9km from the sea
is the impressive Maya site of Altun Ha (daily 8am-4pm;
US$5), which was occupied for around twelve hundred years until
abandoned around 900 AD. Its position close to the Caribbean coast
suggests that it was sustained as much by trade as by agriculture -
a theory upheld by the discovery of trade objects such as obsidian
and jade, neither of which occurs naturally in Belize, though both
were very important in Maya ceremony. The jade would have come from
the Motagua valley in Guatemala and much of it would probably have
been shipped onwards to the north.
The core of Altun Ha is clustered around two Classic period plazas,
both dotted with palm trees. Entering from the road, you come first
to Plaza A. Large temples enclose it on all four sides, and a
magnificent tomb has been discovered beneath Temple A-1, the
Temple of the Green Tomb. Dating from 550 AD, this yielded a
total of three hundred pieces, including jade, jewelry, stingray
spines, skin, flints and the remains of a Maya book.
The adjacent
Plaza B is dominated by the site's largest temple, the Temple of
the Masonry Altars. Several tombs have been uncovered within the
main structure, though only two were found intact. In one,
archeologists discovered a carved jade head of Kinich Ahau, the Maya
sun god. Standing just under 15cm high, it is the largest carved
jade to be found anywhere in the Maya world; today it's kept hidden
away in the vaults of the Belize Bank.
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 Belize
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Outside these two main plazas are several other areas of interest,
though little else has yet been restored. A short trail leads south
to Rockstone Pond, which was dammed in Maya times (and is
today home to a large crocodile), at the eastern edge of which
stands another mid-sized temple. Built in the second century AD,
this contained offerings from the great city of Teotihuacán in the
Valley of Mexico.
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