El Temblor is an archaeological site in

Petén Department Petén is a department of Guatemala. It is geographically the northernmost department of Guatemala, as well as the largest by area at it accounts for about one third of Guatemala's area. The capital is Flores. The population at the mid-2018 ...

, Guatemala which was once the location of a settlement of the

Maya civilization The Maya civilization () of the Mesoamerican people is known by its ancient temples and glyphs. Its Maya script is the most sophisticated and highly developed writing system in the pre-Columbian Americas. It is also noted for its art, ar ...

. First recorded in 1974 by Ian Graham of

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

's Peabody Museum, the site represents a medium-sized and compact settlement about south-south-east of the ruined Mayan city of

Tikal Tikal () (''Tik’al'' in modern Mayan orthography) is the ruin of an ancient city, which was likely to have been called Yax Mutal, found in a rainforest in Guatemala. It is one of the largest archeological sites and urban centers of the pre-Co ...

and about north-east of the ruins of

Ixlu Ixlu () is a small Maya archaeological site that dates to the Classic and Postclassic Periods. It is located on the isthmus between the Petén Itzá and Salpetén lakes, in the northern Petén Department of Guatemala.Aguilar 2000, p.259. The si ...

. It is situated in a wooded area called Paso del Carmen, a few kilometers east of the modern village of . It is designated TMB in the ''Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions''.

Description

The ruins at El Temblor consist of at least three groups of collapsed structures or platforms on a north-south axis. The northernmost group, designated as Group A, is clustered in a wooded hilltop and includes a pyramid standing over high. A long structure similar to a palace, at least in length, is situated to its north-east. A damaged

stela A stele ( ),Anglicized plural steles ( ); Greek plural stelai ( ), from Greek , ''stēlē''. The Greek plural is written , ''stēlai'', but this is only rarely encountered in English. or occasionally stela (plural ''stelas'' or ''stelæ''), wh ...

stands east of the pyramid. Group B is located in a lower and flatter area to the south and includes at least five mounds or platforms. Group C is located further south along the site's main axis and comprises eight structures on a hill, possibly representing temples and palaces. A

chultun A chultun (plural: ''chultunob or ''chultuns'') is a bottle-shaped underground storage chamber built by the pre-Columbian Maya in southern Mesoamerica. Their entrances were surrounded by plastered aprons which guided rainwater into them duri ...

, a bottle-shaped underground storage chamber, is situated to the west of Group C. The site is unguarded and has been badly damaged by

looters Looting is the act of stealing, or the taking of goods by force, typically in the midst of a military, political, or other social crisis, such as war, natural disasters (where law and civil enforcement are temporarily ineffective), or rioting. ...

who have dug trenches and mutilated stelae. Around 1970, two sawn-off inscribed sides from an El Temblor stela were offered for sale by a

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

art gallery which claimed it to be of unknown provenance, presumed to be from

Belize Belize (; bzj, Bileez) is a Caribbean and Central American country on the northeastern coast of Central America. It is bordered by Mexico to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and Guatemala to the west and south. It also shares a wa ...

. One side was purchased by the

Nasher Museum of Art The Nasher Museum of Art (previously the Duke University Museum of Art) is the art museum of Duke University, and is located on Duke's campus in Durham, North Carolina, United States. The Nasher, along with Dartmouth's Hood Museum of Art and ...

at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. The other side was purchased privately and its whereabouts are unknown. El Temblor has not yet been investigated archaeologically. However, its visible architectural features suggest that it dates from the Late Classic period (circa AD 600–909).

References

{{Maya sites Archaeological sites in Guatemala Former populated places in Guatemala Maya Classic Period Maya sites in Petén Department