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| Kaminaljuyu is an actual Mayan archaeological site, right in the city of Guatemala City |
I had only one full day scheduled for Guatemala City. So I hired a guide to show me the best sights to see in Guate (as the locals supposed call it) (but I've not heard anyone call it that) (except on google). Off we went at 9:00 a.m. sharp. First stop: Guatemala's renowned National Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography, or Museo de Arqueología y Etnología.
The museum houses and excellent collection of Mayan artifacts found elsewhere in Guatemala. The building is beautiful. It also was closed.
This is going to be a theme. Museum closed. Museum closed. Church locked tight. I'm not complaining. First, no matter how many museums or churches are closed, I'm still on vacation. Second, well, do you need a second? I'm still on vacation! What was strange was that my guide called ahead yesterday and was assured that it would be open. Google Maps says it still open. But it wasn't. I guess I will just have to see the Mayan artifacts in their natural state at Tikal in the Petén.
Or we can go to the authentic, genuine, Mayan archaeological site right within the city limits of Guatemala City: Kaminaljuyu.
At one point, one Mayan tribe ended up in the city limits of the city of Guatemala City.
You can tell the stela (Mayan stone column that tells a story) pictured above is a replica. You can read it! The real ones are over a thousand years old and a barely legible. In case you are unfamiliar with the word "stela" -- don't feel guilty, I was too until I was researching this trip -- stela is defined as "an upright stone slab or column typically bearing a commemorative inscription or relief design." A tombstone is a modern American stela, for example.
Big green expanse at Kaminaljuyu. It also has a small -- very small -- museum on premises.
The collection largely consists of replicas, but there are some authentic pieces with a full certificate of authenticity, such as:
That, to me, based on my extensive research of three weeks, looks like a throne stone. The throne on which Mayan leaders sat was a flat stone that looked, sort of, use your imagination, a stone ottoman. I'm calling that a throne stone unless you've got better information on what it could be.
There are a couple of active archaeological digs on premises.
What is fascinating is that the City of Guatemala City was built on top of these ruins ... without anyone knowing those ruins were there.
This was an important city in the Mayan years. The section that is preserved in this parks dates back to the Mayan "classic" period, which was (roughly) AD 250 to 900.
And here is an American tourist in his very own personal "classic" period.
He looks like a man quite happy to not be at work today.
The Maya are still around, you know. They didn't "disappear." The civilizational structure did. But the Maya people are the people of Guatemala (and Chiapas and the Yucatan in Mexico). Mayan languages still are spoken. Mayan religion is still practiced. Right here in the Kaminaljuyu archaeological site, por ejemplo:
These stones are for ceremonial fires. There was one such ceremony going on when we were there, at the next stone over. I don't take pictures of private religious ceremonies like that. It's one of my random arbitrary rules. And right behind those ceremonial stones are ordinary city streets. We could see the fire from the nearby ceremony still blazing after we left Kaminaljuyu headed for our next destination of the day.
But there was more Kaminaljuyu to see. Let's climb up to see what there is to see:
Off to one side are the urban neighborhoods that were built over top of the rest of Kaminaljuyu:
In other direction, more greenspace:
Which leads to the next active archaeological site in the park:
This one is not walk-in-able. Even though there are walkways and a guard nearby.
This stela you can tell is the real deal.
Why? You can barely see anything on it except at the very bottom. And these stelae have been eroded into almost nothing:
Authentic Maya stelae!
And authentic Maya archaeology. Right in the middle of an international capital. Or, to be more precise, right underneath the middle of an international capital.
That will conclude the Maya portion of the city tour of Guatemala City. There's a lot to see and I've only got a day. Why so little time for a city I'm obviously enjoying? I scheduled a one-day safety cushion in Guatemala City, before I head off to Tikal in the North, just in case I had problems with my flight. I thought one day would be more than enough because I had heard so many bad things about Guatemala City. These were mostly along the lines of "You will be robbed. Then you will be killed. Then your corpse will be violated." Well, not one of those three things has happened to me. Yet!
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