Piedras Negras
Yo'k'ib', the great entrance : the largest Maya city of the Usumacinta basin, on the river's bank inside what is now the Sierra del Lacandón national park in Petén. Ceramics put occupation from about 700 BCE, and the city reached its extent and its power between 450 and 810 CE, with a long documented rivalry across the river with Yaxchilán. Its importance to the field is out of proportion even to its size. Piedras Negras produced an unusually large body of dated sculpture, and it was on those stelae that Tatiana Proskouriakoff showed the inscriptions were recording the births, accessions and deaths of actual rulers — the step that turned Maya writing from ornament and calendar into history, and the foundation everything since has been built on. The site is remote enough that it has stayed largely unrestored.
Open in the Atlas map →Walkthrough videos (1)
Expedition Piedras Negras: Quest for the Hall of Records · The ARX Project
Nearby sites
- Palenque90 km
- El Mirador157 km
- Tikal174 km