El Mirador

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This article is about the archaeological site. For the mountain, see Mount Tlaloc.

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El Mirador is a large pre-Columbian site of the Maya civilization, located in the north of the modern department of El Petén, Guatemala.

"El Tigre Complex", in El Mirador

The site was first discovered in 1926, and was photographed from the air in 1930, but the remote site deep in the jungle had little more attention paid to it until Ian Graham spent 10 days here making the first map in 1962. A detailed investigation was begun in 1978 with an archaeological project under the direction of Bruce Dahlin (Catholic University of Washington) and Ray Matheny (Brigham Young University). To the surprise of the archaeologists, it was found that a large amount of construction was not contemporary with the large Maya classic cities of the area like Tikal and Uaxactun, but rather from centuries earlier in the Pre-Classic era (see: Mesoamerican chronology). El Mirador flourished from about the 6th century BC, reaching its height from the 3rd century BC to the 1st century AD, with a peak population of perhaps 80,000 people. They then experienced a hiatus of construction and perhaps abandonment for generations, followed by re-occupation and further construction in the late classic era, and a final abandonment about the end of the 9th century. The site covers some 10 square miles (26 km²). There are a number of "triadic" structures (around 30 structures), consisting of a large low artificial platform topped with a set of 3 step-pyramids. The most notable such structures are three huge complexes; one is nicknamed "El Tigre", with height 55.8 metres (183 ft); the other is called "La Danta" (or Danta) temple, is also the name of the largest Maya temple. The temple get up to 79 metres (259 ft) high^[1], and with a volume of 2,800,000 cubic meters, maybe making it the one of the largest pyramid in the world^[2], and including the large platform the pyramid is set upon, an artificially-built base covering some 18,000 square meters of ground, the largest in the world, Also the "Los Monos" complex is very large although not as famous. Most of the structures were originally faced with cut stone which was then decorated with large stucco faces depicting the deities of Maya mythology. Carlos Morales-Aguilar, a Guatemalan archaeologist, suggests the existence of an extraordinary alignment between the architectural groups, main temples and carved monuments, related to the trajectory of the sun and the moon. The study reflects an importance of urban planning and sacred spaces since the first settlers.

Although containing striking examples of Pre-Classic Maya civilization, the remote location of El Mirador has prevented it from becoming a popular tourist site.

Structure 34 in El Mirador, painting by Tatiana Prouskouriakoff

In the late Classic c700 AD, at least part of the site was reoccupied and enclosed by a wall which reused some stone from earlier structures, and become the only known source of the "Codex style Ceramic", a particularly fine painted ceramic.

The site is the center of a series of ancient sacbeob {meaning "white road"}, a raised stone pedestrian causeways, up to 4 mts. above the Jungle level, and 40 mts. wide, one linking it to the site of Nakbe some 12 km away. Dr. Richard D. Hansen, a distinguished archaeologist from Idaho State University, is the current director of the Mirador Basin Project, and according to his discoveries here, he thinks that the more than 27 sites in El Mirador Basin, may have formed the earliest well-defined political state in the Maya lowlands.