Tamarindito


Tamarindito is an archaeological site of the Maya civilization located along an escarpment in the Petén department of Guatemala. The city was the capital of the Petexbatún region of the southwestern Petén during the Early Classic period but was displaced by the newly founded conquest state of Dos Pilas. In the 8th century Tamarindito turned on its new overlord and defeated it. After the destruction of the Dos Pilas kingdom the region descended into chaos and suffered rapid population decline. The city was all but abandoned by the 9th century AD.
Tamarindito was the third largest city in the Petexbatún region. The site was one of the earliest cities established in the area of the Pasion River, together with Altar de Sacrificios and Tres Islas. Tamarindito was also the first site in the Petexbatún region to gain the right to use its own Emblem Glyph.
Archaeologists have excavated a Late Classic royal tomb from beneath one of the temples at the site, although the burial had been damaged by the collapse of the vaulted ceiling it still contained one of the richest funerary offerings in the entire Petexbatún region.

Location

Tamarindito is situated on the highest of a series of hills forming an escarpment in the Petexbatún region of the Petén department of northern Guatemala. The hills run westward to Arroyo de Piedra and south to El Escarbado. The highest point of the hill, known as Cerro de Cartografía has a wide view across the local area as far as the Pasión River and the sites of Punta de Chimino and Itzan.
The site is located above three small lakes and two springs, with the lakes bordering the site to the east, northeast and north. These lakes are named Laguna Tamarindito, Laguna El Raicero and Laguna Las Pozas respectively. Tamarindito is located east of the ruins of the Late Classic city of Dos Pilas, its bitter rival. Tamarindito's secondary capital, Arroyo de Piedra, was located to the west of Tamarindito. Tamarindito is northwest of Lake Petexbatún and is north of Aguateca.

Known rulers

Currently, twelve rulers can be identified, but only a few accounts are recorded that refer to their accession. These are indicated in the list, all other dates are anchored by other events attested. If some gaps between kings are closed because of relative proximity, some were surely direct successors. All dates A.D.
NameRuled
Ruler 1ca. 513
Wakoh K'inichca. 534 - ca. 554
Ruler 3ca. 573
Ruler 4- 613
Wakoh Chan K'inicha. 613 -
Aj Ajan Nahca. 660
Aj Ihk' Wolokca. 660 - ca. 702
Ruler 8ca. 705
Ruler 9- ca. 711
Ruler 10- 712
Chak Bin Ahka. 712 - ca. 731
Chanal Balama. 760 - ca. 764

The texts at Tamarindito indicate a long dynastic history, Aj Ihk' Wolok claims to be the 25th ruler in succession, but the count is anchored to a fictional dynastic founder. This implies that the later rulers of Tamarindito considered their royal patriline to have begun many years earlier, in the deep mythical past.

History

Core samples from the nearby Lake Tamarindito indicate that the Petexbatún region was first settled between 2000 and 1000 BC, in the Middle Preclassic.
Tamarindito was a small centre in the Early Classic, even after it underwent a significant increase in population at that time. The Early Classic dynasty at Tamarindito claimed that its royal lineage extended back into the Preclassic. By the 7th century AD Tamarindito was the capital of the Petexbatún region, with a secondary capital at Arroyo de Piedra, but it was displaced when the great city of Tikal established of a new centre at Dos Pilas in order to exert control over the important Pasión River trade route. In the Late Classic Tamarindito experienced a notable growth in population and the city reached its maximum population in the 8th century AD, together with the neighbouring sites of Dos Pilas and Aguateca. King Chanal Balam was enthroned in 760 and on 26 January 761 Tamarindito defeated the city of Dos Pilas, and Chanal Balam either captured K'awiil Chan K'inich, the last king of Dos Pilas, or sent him into exile. This rebellion of Tamarindito and its allies against Dos Pilas left the defeated city all but abandoned and destabilised the entire Petexbatún region, sending it into a spiral of escalating hostilities. Within 50 years of the victory over Dos Pilas the population of Tamarindito had collapsed by almost eighty percent and it is possible that some of the inhabitants moved to Punta de Chimino which had a large Terminal Classic occupation. A ruler from Tamarindito is mentioned at Aguateca in an inscription dating to 790 but at this late time the relationship between the two sites is unclear.
By the Terminal Classic the Petexbatún had been swept by endemic warfare and all the major cities were in ruins. What had begun as struggles for dominance of the Petexbatún degenerated into intense internecine warfare and the situation in the region at the end of the 8th century has been described as a "landscape of fear" with many sites becoming fortified. Population levels at Tamarindito fell and many residential groups were abandoned, with occupation only continuing at a minority of investigated groups to the east of the site core. By the 9th century Tamarindito was reduced to a small hamlet containing a few households located near the springs. This might represent a reoccupation of the site after the period of warfare had passed and the region had become more peaceful after the drastic population reduction of the 8th century.

Modern History

The site was declared a National Prehispanic Monument by Accord 1210 of the Guatemalan Ministry of Education on 12 June 1970. The site was looted during the 1970s, either by local farmers or by locals from Sayaxché. In 1982 several looters were caught in the act of looting Structure 44 in Group B and were imprisoned for a short time. Looters' trenches have mostly been sunk into the summits of the site's pyramids and many parts of the hieroglyphic stairway were removed to private collections in Guatemala City. By the 1990s looting had been much reduced by the nearby presence of several guerrilla detachments during the later stages of the Guatemalan Civil War.
Tamarindito was first mapped in 1984 by Ian Graham, Merle Greene and Stephen D. Houston, who also uncovered some monuments at the site, including Hieroglyphic Stairway 3. The Petexbatún Regional Archaeological Project started investigations at Tamarindito in 1990, carrying out mapping and test excavations under the direction of Stephen D. Houston and Oswaldo Chinchilla. Investigations continued from 1991-1994 under the direction of Juan Antonio Valdés, excavating the site's palaces.

The site

In the Preclassic period, villages immediately below the Tamarindito escarpment exhausted their agricultural resources and the focus of settlement in the area shifted onto the escarpment itself. Tamarindito was located strategically on the highest part of the range of hills and in the Early Classic it emerged as the most important city in the region. Tamarindito had a secondary capital at the nearby center of Arroyo de Piedra, and both formed one polity, sharing the same emblem glyph.
Tamarindito is thought to have been the capital of a ruling lineage in the Early Classic Petexbatún, it got subjugated in the Late Classic by the new kingdom that had established itself at Dos Pilas. On a stela from Arroyo de Piedra, we can see ruler Chak Bin Ahk designated as a lord subordinate to Dos Pilas. The rivalry between Dos Pilas and Tamarindito may not only have been about regional hegemony, but Tamarindito had close ties to Tikal, the adversary of Dos Pilas, during the Middle Classic. Tamarindito is a moderate sized site with more than 140 structures, six stelae, seven panels, two altars, a ballcourt for the Mesoamerican ballgame and three hieroglyphic staircases; one named the "Prisoner Staircase" that relates the defeat and capture of a ruler of Dos Pilas. This polity had strong links with Machaquilá to the east. The lagoon has been the object of archaeological investigations that have shown traces of occupation from the Middle Preclassic through to the Terminal Classic.
Although Tamarindito was located very close to the hostile Dos Pilas kingdom, it never possessed purpose-built defensive fortifications. The area between Tamarindito and Aguateca includes some of the most agriculturally fertile soils in the Petexbatún region and was intensively cultivated as evidenced by the remains of low boundary walls. The site also features sunken gardens, box terraces, and dams dated to the Late to Terminal Classic that formed part of an intensive agricultural system within the site core. Investigations have revealed that Tamarindito was the most productive agricultural centre in the Petexbatún region. It may have provided much of its agricultural production as tribute to Dos Pilas in the late 7th to early 8th centuries, since Dos Pilas itself had no agricultural production to speak of. The site is divided into two main groups, named as Group A and Group B. Both groups contained sculpture, including 3 stelae, 3 hieroglyphic steps and two carved panels. The palace structures in Groups A and B appear to serve different functions, with those in Group A serving as elite residences and those in Group B appearing to serve administrative and diplomatic uses. The earlier construction phases of some palaces at Tamarindito exhibit different architectural styles and superior construction techniques to palaces at Dos Pilas in the 7th-8th centuries AD. The hillsides to the east of the site core were densely occupied with residential structures.
Tamarindito exhibits some differences from other archaeological sites in the Petexbatún region, such as the lack of defensive walls, the presence of small groups of residential structures clustered around small central courtyards and the long sacbe causeway approaching the ceremonial core of the city. The majority of the structures at Tamarindito only survive as platforms although some still exhibit other architectural features such as stairways and walls.
Stela 5 depicts an Early Classic king holding a stone knife similar to the obsidian knife found in the tomb of king Chan Balam.