Petén Basin

Coordinates: 16°54′N 89°54′W / 16.900°N 89.900°W / 16.900; -89.900
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The Petén Basin is a geographical subregion of the Maya Lowlands, primarily located in northern Guatemala within the Department of El Petén, and into the state of Campeche in southeastern Mexico.

During the Late Preclassic and Classic periods of

pre-Columbian Mesoamerican chronology many major centers of the Maya civilization flourished, such as Tikal and Calakmul.[1] A distinctive Petén-style of Maya architecture and inscriptions arose. The archaeological sites La Sufricaya and Holmul
are also located in this region.

History

Nakbé, El Mirador, Naachtun, San Bartolo and Cival in the Mirador Basin
.

Classic Period

Petén Department
, showing principal settlements and archaeological sites.

Later, Petén became the heartland of the Maya Classic Period (c. 200 – 900 CE). At its height around 750 it is estimated that the Petén Basin was home to several million people, being one of the most

Classic Maya
states of this area. The population is estimated to have dropped by two-thirds between the mid 9th century and the mid 10th century.

Archaeological sites

Archaeological sites preserve important remnants of the Classic Maya in Petén Basin, such as:

Tikal, rising above jungle canopy.

Tikal National Park is one of the only sites to be designated a World Heritage Site for both archaeological and biodiversity reasons.[2] Many thousands of house mounds where worshipers and workers once lived were discovered at Tikal.[3]

Spanish colonial period

Main article: Spanish conquest of Petén

After the Classic Period collapse the population of the area continued to drop dramatically, especially after the introduction of

Tayasal
being the only sizable inhabited city they observed.

After Cortés' expedition, the

Tayasal, and other towns in the Lake Petén Itza region such as Quexil (modern Spanish name, in Maya: Ek'ixil) and Yalain. (see: Spanish conquest of Yucatán
).

The Spanish town of Flores was established atop the site of

Viceroyalty of New Spain era and after Mexican independence. When Guatemalan President Rafael Carrera sent a small force to Flores to claim the region for Guatemala in the 1840s, the governments of Mexico and the state of Yucatán
decided the Petén Basin area was not worth the trouble of contesting.

See also

References

  1. ISSN 0278-4165
    .
  2. ^ "Tikal National Park". UNESCO World Heritage Centre. Retrieved 2018-04-14.
  3. ^ Heider, K. (2014). Tikal. San Francisco: California, USA : Kanopy Streaming. http://library.simmons.edu/record=b2156058~S0.

Further reading

16°54′N 89°54′W / 16.900°N 89.900°W / 16.900; -89.900

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