Yaxha

Listen first. Before you see a single stone, the forest gives itself away by sound. Somewhere above you, a deep, rolling roar moves through the canopy. It sounds like a big animal, but it comes from howler monkeys, calling across the treetops. The air is warm and damp. The ground underfoot is soft with leaf litter. And through the trees there are shapes that are far too regular to be hills. You are standing in Yaxha, one of the great cities of the ancient Maya.

The name itself is a small surprise. For many Maya cities, we only use names given by modern explorers. Yaxha is different. Its ancient name survives in the inscriptions, in a hieroglyph scholars call an emblem glyph, a kind of royal title tied to a place. The name is usually translated as green water, or blue-green water. Walk to any high point here and you will understand why. The city sits on a ridge above two lakes, and the water below holds that exact colour.

Those two lakes are Lake Yaxha and the smaller Lake Sacnab. They shaped everything about this place. They gave the city fresh water, fish, and a natural route for travel and trade. Today the ruins sit inside a protected area, the Yaxha, Nakum and Naranjo National Park, in the northeast of Guatemala's Petén region. Petén is a vast lowland of tropical forest, and it holds some of the densest clusters of Maya cities anywhere.

Yaxha grew over a very long time. People were living here centuries before the birth of Christ, in what archaeologists call the Preclassic period, the early era of Maya civilisation. The city reached its greatest size during the Classic period, roughly from the third to the ninth century. By then it was one of the largest cities in this part of the lowlands. Researchers have mapped hundreds of structures here, from grand temples to modest house platforms.

As you walk, notice that the city is not one single block of buildings. It is a network of groups, plazas, and acropolises — raised complexes of palaces and temples built on huge platforms. Wide raised roads connect them. The Maya called these roads sacbeob, which means white roads, because they were once paved with pale lime plaster. Some of the causeways here still carry names given by early explorers and archaeologists.

Here is a detail many visitors walk straight past. Yaxha has a twin pyramid complex. This is a special layout with two matching flat-topped pyramids facing each other across a plaza. Scholars link these complexes to the end of a katun, a period of about twenty years in the Maya calendar. The best-known examples are at Tikal, the great city to the west. Seeing the same plan here is a sign of close ties between the two.

Those ties were not always peaceful. The lowland Maya world was a patchwork of rival kingdoms, each ruled by a divine king. Inscriptions record conflict between Yaxha and Naranjo, a powerful city to the east. Wars between Maya cities were often about prestige, tribute, and the capture of high-ranking enemies. The carved monuments of these cities tell one side of the story, so historians read them with care.

Now look toward the tallest building in the city. This is Temple 216, in the eastern part of the site. It is often called the Temple of the Red Hands, because red handprints were found on its walls. A wooden stairway lets visitors climb to the top. From the summit, you rise above much of the forest canopy. On a clear day, you look out over the lakes and an unbroken sea of green.

That view is why many people time their visit for late afternoon. As the sun drops, the light turns gold and then orange over Lake Yaxha. The water darkens. Birds cross the sky in long lines toward their roosts. Parrots and toucans are common in this forest, and their calls carry far in the evening air. It is one of the quietest and most memorable moments a visit to Petén can offer.

Out in Lake Yaxha there is another layer of history. An island called Topoxte holds ruins from a later era, the Postclassic period, after the great lowland cities had declined. Its buildings are smaller and built in a different style. They show that people continued to live around these lakes long after the Classic kings were gone. Visiting the island usually requires a boat, so ask locally if you want to go.

Why did cities like Yaxha empty out? Across the southern Maya lowlands, many major centres lost their populations during the ninth and tenth centuries. Scholars still debate the causes. Long droughts, warfare, overpopulation, and the collapse of political systems are all part of the discussion. Most researchers now think it was a combination, unfolding over generations rather than in one sudden event.

One more surprise, this time from modern times. In the 2000s, the American reality television series Survivor filmed a season in this area, using the ruins and lakes as a backdrop. For a short time, this quiet corner of Petén reached millions of television screens. Yet the site still feels far less crowded than Tikal. On many days you can stand in a plaza and hear nothing but insects and wind.

As you move through the ruins, take a moment to look at what the forest has done. Roots grip the edges of stairways. Moss covers carved stone. Many mounds are still unexcavated, wrapped in trees and soil. Each one is a building waiting under the ground. Stand still in one of the plazas and imagine the white plaster, the painted walls, and the crowds that once gathered here.

Before you leave, look once more toward the water. The lake that gave this city its name is still there, still green, still catching the light. The monkeys will keep calling after you have gone. And as you walk back along the old causeway, remember that your feet follow a route people walked more than a thousand years ago.