Ecobreves – GUATEMALA: Mayan Relics Discovered

By IPS Correspondents and - - Reprint | | Print |

GUATEMALA CITY, Aug 15 2005 (IPS) - Archeologists led by Jonathan Kaplan, of the United States, discovered on Guatemala's southern coast a statue and a building with a 400-meter front — part of a Mayan city corresponding to the late pre-classic period, 300 to 200 years B.C. Juan Pablo Herrera, assistant of the Chocolá Archeological Project, told Tierramérica that in the facade they also found ceramic objects that “indicate the importance of the building,” located on the property of the same name, in the municipality of San Pablo Jocopilas, Suchitepéquez, 180 km south of the capital.

They also found canals, walls and stairways that are evidence of the engineering and urbanization feats of that Mayan society.

Chocolá belonged to the Spaniard José Guardiola, who sold it in 1890 to some Germans. During World War II it was expropriated by the government, and in 1980 given over to rural farmers who turned it into a village run by the Chocolá Peasant Farmer Association.