Kinal

Maya civilization
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History
Preclassic Maya
Classic Maya collapse
Spanish conquest of Yucatán
Spanish conquest of Guatemala

Kinal is a pre-Columbian Maya archaeological site in the Petén Basin region, modern-day Petén Department, Guatemala. The major occupational phase for the site dates from the Late Classic period of Mesoamerican chronology, with evidence for a substantial and expansionary building program dating from the first half of the 8th century CE.

Site description

The site of Kinal (“Place of the Sacred Fire”) consists a ballcourt, 21 plazas and more than 500 structures, many of which contained preserved vaults. The site contains 32 sculptured monuments, including stelae and altars, arranged along a sacbe oriented east-west. The tallest pyramid at the site is 27 metres (89 ft) high. The site covers an area of approximately 2 square kilometres (0.8 sq mi).

A dam at the site dates to the Preclassic period. This feature was used for intensive agricultural production, as were terraces also built at Kinal.

References

Adams, Richard E.W. (1999). Río Azul: An Ancient Maya City. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 0-8061-3076-8. OCLC 39951697. 

Scarborough, Vernon L.; Robert P. Connolly and Steven P. Ross (1994). "The Pre-Hispanic Maya Reservoir System at Kinal, Peten, Guatemala". Ancient Mesoamerica (London and New York: Cambridge University Press) 5: 97–106. doi:10.1017/S0956536100001061. ISSN 0956-5361. OCLC 21544811.