Yaxchilan

Yaxchilan was built inside a great horseshoe bend of the Usumacinta River, on the frontier between Mexico and Guatemala, so that water protects it on every side except a narrow neck of land to the south. Its palaces and temples rise in terraces from a long plaza along the riverbank up into forested hills, and the city is famous above all for its carved stone lintels, set over temple doorways, whose scenes and hieroglyphic texts are among the masterpieces of Maya sculpture.

The city's origins reach back to the Preclassic period, and its dynasty is traced from Yopaat Balam I, most likely enthroned in 359. In the Late Classic it became one of the strongest kingdoms of the Usumacinta, the long-standing rival of Piedras Negras, about 40 km downstream, and overlord at times of Bonampak. Its golden age came under Itzamnaaj Balam II, who reigned from 681 until his death in 742, and his son Bird Jaguar IV. In the later decades of his reign Itzamnaaj Balam II transformed the centre with a building programme of carved lintels, hieroglyphic stairways and stelae. Structure 23, dedicated to his wife Lady K'ab'al Xook, held the celebrated lintels showing royal bloodletting rites; Lintel 24 depicts her drawing a thorned rope through her tongue before the king, who holds a torch above her. Bird Jaguar IV dedicated Structure 33, probably in 756, a temple overlooking the plaza and river that keeps its three carved lintels, its sloping roof frieze and its tall pierced roof comb. The last known monument at the site, Lintel 10, records the capture in 808 of the final king of Piedras Negras.

The inscriptions of Yaxchilan played a key role in deciphering Maya writing: Tatiana Proskouriakoff used them to identify the glyphs for capture and death. Explorers Alfred Maudslay and Désiré Charnay reached the ruins within days of each other in 1882, and several lintels were taken away; some are now in the British Museum and one in the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City. Lacandon Maya have continued to come here to make offerings to the old gods.

Getting there

Yaxchilan lies on the Usumacinta River in Ocosingo municipality, Chiapas, near the Guatemalan border. The usual access is from Frontera Corozal on the Border Highway that runs from Palenque along the frontier, followed by a boat journey of about an hour along the river. The nearest town by straight-line distance is Tenosique in Tabasco, about 80 km away. The nearest airport, Mundo Maya International at Flores (FRS), is in Guatemala, about 117 km away; within Mexico, Ciudad del Carmen International Airport (CME) is about 213 km away in a straight line.