Dzibanche with Native Choice

After visiting Mexico City, I wrote a little about the difference between Mexica (Aztec), Maya, and other pre-Columbian cultures in Mesoamerica. Today, we’re focusing on the Maya.

"Maya" is a collective term used to describe kingdoms or city-states within the Yucatan Peninsula that shared cultural and linguistic traits. Today, Mayan descendants still live in this region of Mexico, spilling into Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, and El Salvador. Unlike the Mexica, who were largely killed off or assimilated into Spanish culture, the Maya had a bit more space, and native languages and traditions continue to thrive today. Native Choice is a company owned and operated by Mayan people - on the way to Dzibanche, our guide Erick shared with us bits of his culture, from history to cosmology to counting.

Mayan cities first appeared around 750 BCE, with glyphs and large-scale structures appearing by 400 BCE. The Classical period started around 250 CE, when city-states run by kings and queens became closely linked by trade networks. In the Petén lowlands, Tikal and Calakmul became two of the greatest city-states, and rivals.

As I wrote in my earlier post, Dzibanche is thought to have been the 5th and 6th century capital of the dynasty that later ruled Calakmul. The ruling family was called Kaan, and a snake head glyph represented their name, making them the Snake Kingdom. Pretty cool. (This is a great article about how until recently, very little was known about the Snake Kings and their important role in Mayan history.)

As you enter the site, you walk up and over a small hill. You’re crossing the ruins of the defensive walls that once surrounded the city, now buried by earth. The first structure you come to is a lone pyramid surrounded by trees – the Temple of the Lintels. The name Dzibanche means “writing on wood” and comes from this structure, where large quebracho wood posts help shape the vaulted temple on top. 

Eight glyphs were carved in the lintels, which can be traced back to the 7th or 8th century. While the lintels with the decorative carvings have been removed, you can still see the structural wood beams. The body of the pyramid is from an earlier era, the shape possibly inspired by contact with the Teotihuacan culture far to the north. (Tikal allied themselves with Teotihuacan, which affected power struggles across the entire region.) We spent a little time climbing and exploring this pyramid. The climb was steep but doable - Mom joined me! At the top, you could look out small windows to see the jungle beyond.

As an early city-state center, Dzibanche contains temples and government buildings. Walking deeper into the site, we passed an acropolis where complaints were heard. While the Temple of the Lintels stands alone, the rest of the major buildings that have been uncovered at this site make a compact figure-8, with two central plazas created by the shape. First, we stepped into Plaza Gann, named after the British archaeologist who first cataloged the site in 1927.

The grandest building on the plaza is the Temple of the Cormorants, however, our guide Erick drew our attention to the Temple of the Captives first. It’s much smaller, but still has a few carvings and a mask, which probably decorated the other temples at one point as well. The temple was given its name because of the images of prisoners of war carved into the steps.

Here, Erick told us a little more about the particular layout of Dzibanche. For the Mayans, Venus was the most important object in the sky. They believed it had aspects of creator and destroyer (similar to the Mexica and Templo Mayor’s two purposes). Mayans would base the timing for planting crops or starting a war depending on whether Venus appeared as a morning or evening star.

If Venus appeared in the morning, it would rise in the east over the Temple of the Cormorants, signaling the wet season and a time of rebirth - a good time to grow crops. If it rose in the evening in the west, over the Temple of the Captives, the dry season had come and it was a good time to wage war. (Easier to do so when you don’t have crops to harvest.)

To the north and south of the square are the Palace of the Toucans and the Palace of Pop. Both are lower stone platforms that probably had wooden structures on top. After about ten minutes of climbing around and snapping photos, we crossed the square to the grandest structure, the Temple of the Cormorants. It’s roped off and can’t be climbed, but the structure is beautiful and unique, with three cave-like niches set into the stairs, and a couple of large trees growing about half way up. This pyramid served as a burial chamber for at least one ruler, currently known as 'The Lord of Dzibanche'.

Next, we walked up the stairs along the side of the Temple of the Cormorants. More masks and carvings are located here, shaded from the elements by palm-frond roofs. At the top, we entered Plaza Xibala. Directly across from the back of the Temple of the Cormorants is the largest building at Dzibanche, the Temple of the Owl. It’s a similar design to the Temple of the Lintels, on a grander scale.

The top of the pyramid is largely intact, with two ornamental crests meant to symbolize temples. Feeling a bit wary of its height and steepness, I climbed this one but chose to do so with my hands free, leaving my camera with my mom. Of course, I kicked myself for doing so, as near the top you get a great view of the solid back of the Temple of the Cormorants looking out over the treetops. I stopped about a dozen steps from the top - where they got much steeper - knowing my limit for the day.

It’s thought that the Kaan dynasty left Dzibanche around 590 CE. They showed up in Calakmul by 635 CE, with an inscription celebrating their overthrow of the previously reigning Bat Dynasty. New things are being discovered about the Maya every day – as we left the site, we drove past small pyramid-shaped hills with corners of crumbling stone. There are several other temples and sites in the area if you’d like to make a day of it, but for us – on our cruise excursion – a simple visit to Dzibanche with Native Choice was perfect.