Kaminaljuyu

Listen first. Somewhere beyond the trees, traffic hums along a busy avenue. Closer in, birds call from the branches, and the grass feels soft and uneven underfoot. Around you rise low green hills, too regular to be natural. They are not hills at all. They are buildings, made of packed earth and clay, slowly worn down by rain and time. You are standing inside one of the most important ancient Maya cities in the highlands, and modern Guatemala City has grown up all around it.

The name Kaminaljuyu comes from the K'iche' Maya language. It is usually translated as hills of the dead, or place of the dead. That name was given long after the city's builders were gone, when people looked at these grassy mounds and sensed what lay beneath. Archaeologists later confirmed the instinct. Some of the mounds held rich burials of important people, laid to rest with jade, pottery, and other precious goods. The name, it turns out, was close to the truth.

Here is the first surprise. This city is very old. People were living in this valley well over two thousand years ago, long before the famous lowland cities like Tikal reached their height. Kaminaljuyu grew strongest during what archaeologists call the Late Preclassic period, roughly the centuries just before and after the start of the Common Era. In those centuries it was one of the largest and most powerful centres in the entire Maya highlands, a true regional capital.

Look at the mounds again and notice what they are made of. In the lowland jungles, the Maya built with limestone. Here in the volcanic highlands, good building stone was harder to find. So the people of Kaminaljuyu built with earth, clay, and volcanic material, shaped into platforms and temple bases. These were often coated with plaster and probably painted. Earth is fragile compared with stone. That is one reason the city looks so soft and rounded to us today.

And that fragility leads to a quieter, sadder story. Early explorers recorded a very large number of mounds spread across this valley, many more than you can see now. Through the twentieth century, Guatemala City expanded rapidly. Neighbourhoods, roads, and shopping centres were built over much of the ancient city. Many mounds were levelled to make way. What survives in this park is only a fraction of the original settlement. Some other mounds still sit between houses and streets nearby, easy to miss.

The second surprise is about water. The people of Kaminaljuyu did not simply wait for rain. They built canals. Archaeologists have found channels that carried water from a lake that once lay nearby, known today as Lake Miraflores. The lake has since dried up. These canals are among the earliest known irrigation works in the Maya world. They let farmers water their fields in a more controlled way, and they help explain how such a large population could thrive in this valley.

Wealth also came from what lay in the surrounding landscape. Not far from here is a major source of obsidian, the sharp black volcanic glass used for blades and tools across Mesoamerica. Kaminaljuyu was well placed to control or benefit from this trade. Jade, shells, and fine pottery also moved through the city. Traders, pilgrims, and rulers would have come and gone along routes linking the Pacific coast, the highlands, and the lowlands to the north.

In the Early Classic period, something unusual appears in the architecture. Some buildings here use a style called talud-tablero. That means a sloping lower wall topped by a flat, framed vertical panel, stacked again and again up the side of a platform. This style is strongly linked to Teotihuacan, the great city near modern Mexico City, more than a thousand kilometres away. Archaeologists still debate the exact relationship. Was it trade, alliance, migration, or influence carried by a small elite? The question remains open.

Much of what we know comes from excavations in the twentieth century. In the 1930s and 1940s, researchers working with the Carnegie Institution of Washington dug into several mounds and uncovered elaborate tombs. Later projects continued the work, often racing against construction crews. Some of the most important carved monuments from this site, including stone stelae showing richly dressed figures, are now kept in museums in the city, such as the National Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, where they are protected from weather.

As you walk through the park, you may notice some areas covered by roofs or shelters. These protect exposed earthen walls from the heavy rains of the wet season. Without that cover, the clay surfaces would wash away quite quickly. Under some shelters you can see the stepped profiles and plastered edges of ancient platforms. Take a moment to look at the layers. Builders here often constructed new platforms directly over older ones, so a single mound can hold several generations of work.

Now imagine the city at its height. The mounds you see would have been sharp-edged platforms, bright with plaster and colour, topped by temples of wood and thatch that have long since vanished. Plazas would have filled with people, smoke from cooking fires, and the sound of grinding stones. Fields and canals would have spread out toward the lake. It was not a quiet park. It was a working capital, crowded and noisy, much like the city around you today.

There is a strange continuity in that thought. The Valley of Guatemala has been a centre of power for a very long time. The ancient people chose it for its fertile soil, its water, and its position between mountains and coast. Centuries later, the modern capital settled into the same valley. Standing here, you are in one of the few places where both cities, ancient and modern, are visible at the same moment, side by side.

Before you leave, stand still once more. Feel the slight rise of the ground under your feet, and look at the shape of the nearest mound against the sky. Listen to the traffic beyond the trees, and to the birds above you. As you walk back toward the street, watch for other low green rises between buildings and along roadsides. Some of them may also be the hills of the dead, still waiting quietly in the middle of the living city.