Qʼumarkaj

Qʼumarkaj comes from the Kʼicheʼ Qʼumqaraqʼaj. the name Qʼumaʼrkaʼaaj translates more precisely as "rotted reed houses" (qʼumaʼr = "rotten"; kaʼaaj = "house or shack built of cane and reeds"). It was translated as Tecpan Utatlan by the Nahuatl-speaking Tlaxcalan allies of the Spanish conquistadors, with Tecpan being added to distinguish the city as being a seat of rule, equivalent to the Tollan used in Mesoamerica in earlier times. ==Location==

The ruins of the city are to the west of the modern city of Santa Cruz del Quiché. Qʼumarkaj completely occupies of an easily defended plateau surrounded by ravines over deep. Atalaya and Pakaman lie to the east, Pismachiʼ lies to the south and Chisalin is to the north. ==Inhabitants==

In the Late Postclassic, the greater Qʼumarkaj area is estimated to have had a population of around 15,000. The inhabitants of Qʼumarkaj were divided socially between the nobility and their vassals. Their vassals served as foot-soldiers and were subject to the laws laid out by the nobility, although they could receive military titles as a result of their battlefield prowess. Their duties included marriage negotiations and associated feasting and ceremonial lecturing. a four-way joint rule embodied in four leaders, one from each of the four most important lineages in the city of Qʼumarkaj. The king was known as the ajpop, "He of the Mat". The Nijaib and the Saqik noble houses chose the qʼalel (supreme judge) and the Ajaw Kʼicheʼ chose the atzij winaq (speaker). ==History==

Ceramic remains from the site include pieces that date as far back as the Preclassic Period but the majority of finds date to the Late Postclassic and the height of the Kʼicheʼ kingdom. Founding and expansion The site was founded by king Qʼuqʼumatz around 1400 for its defensive position, Qʼuqʼumatz is Kʼiche for feathered serpent, and feathered serpent is used as a title in other parts of Mesoamerica. In the Título de los Señores de Totonicapán, an early Colonial era Kʼicheʼ document, he is listed as Qʼuqʼumatz Kotujaʼ. In the same title, his father is listed as Kotujaʼ Qʼuqʼumatz, and there is confusion in the Kʼicheʼ documents as to whether they were one and the same, or father and son with very similar names. Great magical powers were attributed to Qʼuqʼumatz and he was said to be able to transform himself into a snake, an eagle, a jaguar and blood. Qʼuqʼumatz had several children, one of whom (Kʼiqʼab) became king after him. At this time, the Kʼicheʼs were closely allied with the Kaqchikels. Qʼuqʼumatz sent his daughter to marry the lord of the Kʼoja, a Maya people based in the Cuchumatan mountains, somewhere between Sacapulas and Huehuetenango. Instead of marrying her and submitting to the Kʼicheʼ-Kaqchikel alliance, Tekum Sikʼom, the Kʼoja king, killed the offered bride. The Kʼicheʼ-led army entered Kʼoja at first light, killed Tekum Sikʼom and captured his son. However, he also suffered a humiliating rebellion that eventually resulted in the loss of his key Kaqchikel allies. Kʼiqʼab died around 1475. The rebels tried to kill Kʼiqʼab himself but he was defended by sons loyal to him in Pakaman, on the outskirts of the city. The newly empowered Kʼicheʼ lords turned against their Kaqchikel allies, who were forced to flee Qʼumarkaj and found their own capital at Iximche. After this Qʼumarkaj never again directly challenged the Kaqchikels of Iximche. Late in the history of Qʼumarkaj, the Nijaib appear to have been challenging the ruling Kaweq house for supremacy. Conquest and destruction who razed Qʼumarkaj. In March 1524, the Spanish conquistador Pedro de Alvarado entered Qʼumarkaj when invited by the remaining lords of the Kʼicheʼ, after he defeated the Kʼicheʼ army in the Quetzaltenango valley, in a battle that had resulted in the death of Tecun Uman, one of the four lords of the city. Alvarado feared that a trap had been laid for him by the Kʼicheʼ lords but entered the city anyway. Fearing the great number of Kʼicheʼ warriors gathered outside the city and that his cavalry would not be able to manoeuvre in the narrow streets of Qʼumarkaj, he invited the highest lords of the city, Oxib-Keh (the ajpop) and Beleheb-Tzy (the ajpop kʼamha) to visit him in his camp. As soon as they did so, he seized them and kept them as prisoners in his camp. The Kʼicheʼ warriors, seeing their lords taken prisoner, attacked the Spaniards' indigenous allies and managed to kill one of the Spanish soldiers. Modern history The site was extensively documented in the colonial era. Francisco Ximénez, who first revealed the Kʼicheʼ epic Popul Vuh to the world, visited Qʼumarkaj in the final years of the 17th century. Miguel Rivera y Maestre wrote a report of the site for the government of Guatemala in 1834. The State University of New York at Albany spent three seasons excavating the ruins in the early 1970s. In 2003, the Proyecto Etnoarqueológico Qʼumʼarkaj ("Qʼumarkaj Ethnoarchaeological Project") has worked to reconstruct the history and socio-political organisation of the city through archaeological studies combined with ethnohistorical investigations. The archaeological site is still used for traditional Maya ceremonies, and is one of the most popular destinations in Guatemala for this kind of ritual activity, especially at the solstices and for the New Year. ==Site description==

The site can be visited, although little restoration work has been done to it. Various temple pyramids, the remains of palaces (mostly reduced to mounds of rubble) and a court for playing the Mesoamerican ballgame can be seen in the site core. In the Greater Qʼumarkaj area there were four ballcourts, one in each of the four major political divisions of the city, testifying to the central role of the ballgame ritual in the sociopolitical organisation of the city. Cut stone originally facing the buildings was taken to build the new buildings of Santa Cruz del Quiché; The Kʼicheʼ colonnaded buildings at Qʼumarkaj appear to indicate ties with the distant city of Mayapan in the Yucatan Peninsula. The parallels also include skull imagery, effigy figure censers, squatting figures and the generous application of stucco. A combined aerial and surface analysis of the ruins has revealed a strongly patterned arrangement with repeating combinations of pyramids, long structures and multipatio residential complexes. These repeating combinations appear to be linked to the different ' lineages. This larger site division places six ' complexes in the northern half and six in the south, although this larger division may not have been strictly along lineage lines, since Kaweq-linked structures are found in both halves of the site. The Kaweq and their allies dominated most of the site, with the Nijaib occupying the eastern portion, possibly as far as the satellite site of Atalaya. This temple lies on the western side of the main plaza. Originally the temple consisted of a steep pyramid with stairways on three sides, all except the west, and a temple building was on the summit. Catherwood's copy of Rivera y Maestre's drawing of the temple showed the body of the pyramid divided into four talud-tablero terraces and 19 steps in each of the three stairways, while Rivera y Maestra's drawing depicts 24 steps and six terraces. Francisco Ximénez, writing at the end of the 17th century, described the temple as the tallest building in Qʼumarkaj. The building style of the Temple of Tohil is similar to that of the most important temples of Mayapan and Chichen Itza, far to the north in the Yucatan Peninsula. The pillars possibly once supported an elaborate masonry roof. The Temple of Tohil was used for human sacrifice, the bodies of the sacrificial victims were probably hurled down the front stairway before being decapitated and the heads places on a skull rack. This tzumpan was likely to have been located immediately to the southeast of the temple, in an area that is now buried under rubble fallen from the temple itself. According to a drawing made by Rivera y Maestre, the temple of Awilix was not as tall as the temple of Tohil. This structure was apparently the second most important temple in Qʼumarkaj. A wide stairway climbed the west side of the temple, it was flanked on the lower level by two large talud-tablero panels. The floor under the third phase of construction had been painted dark green. Like the other structures of Qʼumarkaj, all the stone facing has been robbed, leaving only a rubble and mud core. This structure was part of a complex that consisted of a patio enclosed by the temple on the northern side, a palace on the southern side and a long building on the east. Temple of Qʼuqʼumatz The temple of Qʼuqʼumatz was a circular temple of the feathered serpent, and a palace in honour of the Kawek lineage, the ruling dynasty of the city. It is located directly between the temples of Tohil and Awilix, slightly north of the central axis of the Tohil temple and slightly south of the axis of the Awilix temple. The temple of Qʼuqʼumatz must have been completely dismantled very soon after the Spanish Conquest since it is not mentioned by any of the Colonial era visitors, and early drawings of the site show only vegetation where the temple once stood. Ballcourt The Ballcourt lies close to, and just south of, the temple of Tohil, on the southwest side of the plaza. The ballcourt still retains its distinctive shape, although the structures have been robbed of their facing. The visible ballcourt was one of four in Qʼumarkaj and was administered by the Popol Winaq branch of the ruling Kaweq lineage. The ballcourt is aligned east–west with a length of . The ballcourt was located exactly between the palaces of the Kaweq and the Ajaw Kʼicheʼ, which were located to the north and the south of the ballcourt. Correspondingly, the north range of the ballcourt appears to have been associated with the Kaweq lineage and the south range with the Ajaw Kʼicheʼ lineage. Palaces A small palace belonging to the Nijaib lineage was located directly behind the temple of Awilix. These lineage houses, ', are found throughout the city of Qʼumarkaj. The ' are long rectangular structures located beside the plazas upon high platforms. There were traces of hearths at each extreme of the main chamber. Other structures In the central plaza there are traces of thirteen small platforms that once stood there. Three of these, each measuring wide, were located to the north of the Temple of Kʼucumatz. A line of five similar structures was also located to the south of the same temple, with an alternating pattern of a circular platform, then a square platform, followed by another circular platform and so on. A large square platform in the northwest section of the central plaza, measuring on each side, it is located immediately behind the Temple of Tohil and stands high. The caves may have represented Tulán Zuyuá, the "Place of Seven Caves" described in the Kʼicheʼ origin legend recounted in the Popul Vuh. ==Satellite sites==

A number of other archaeological sites are included within the area of Greater Qʼumarkaj, usually referred to as 'Greater Utatlan'. Chisalin Chisalin is also known by the alternative names of Pilokabʼ and Muqwitz Pilokabʼ. Chisalin is located a few hundred meters north of Qʼumarkaj. On the northeast side the strip is connected to a plateau that forms a part of the plain to the east of Qʼumarkaj. The plateau is separated from the Qʼumarkaj plateau by the ravine containing the Ismachiʼ river. Pismachiʼ was the Kʼicheʼ capital before it was moved to nearby Qʼumarkaj, and was probably founded early in the 14th century. Its location was never forgotten by the local Kʼicheʼs, although it was from time to time lost by outside investigators. The site was built upon four terraces that dominated the approach to Qʼumarkaj, at the beginning of the eastern plain occupied by the modern town of Santa Cruz del Quiché. The site was very small, covering an area of . A paved avenue (or sacbe) is said by locals to have passed the tower, which was closely linked to the Nijaib lineage. Between Qʼumarkaj and Atalaya there was a place where criminals were punished. Atalaya is used for modern Kʼicheʼ rituals and is the focus of local folklore, which relates that Tecún Umán is buried there and that it is haunted by tzitzimit spirits. Towards the end of the 20th century the majority of the land making up the site still belonged to the Rojas family, descendants of the kings of Qʼumarkaj. Pakaman Pakaman is located east of Atalaya and east of Qʼumarkaj. The same sakbe that passed the north side of Atalaya is said to pass south of Pakaman. The original name of Pakaman is likely to have been Panpetaq ("place of arrival") and was the first important outpost on the entry road to Qʼumarkaj. ==See also==