ALTUN HA

Altun Ha, the Rock of the Pond, is one of the country's most famous Mayan sites. Despite its northern location, Altun Ha was part of the Tikal confederation, and its ruler reported to the ruler of Tikal. Its main interest for archaeologists is the collection of jade pieces discovered there. The first explorations of Altun Ha date back to the 1960s, when Professor Dr. David Pendergast of the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada led an excavation team. He had been informed of the discovery of a jade pendant carved on the site by local villagers. Over a period of almost 4 years, the site was meticulously excavated, and the pieces discovered were then examined in the laboratory to date them and obtain as much information as possible.

The site's history dates back to 900 BC, when the first Maya settled in the area and built their first ceremonial structures; gradually, these primitive structures were to be topped by increasingly imposing edifices, those seen today dating from the ^6th and ^7th centuries, when the city was a leading agricultural and commercial center. The Classical period (250 to 950 A.D.) is thus marked by the significant presence of jade in the excavations, with 800 pieces carved from this stone having been found on the site. Then, as elsewhere in the Maya world, the end of the Classic period was marked by the gradual abandonment of Altun Ha by the Maya. The Post-Classic period (AD 950 to 1539) bears only traces of burials, the site being used mainly as a funerary site, before being definitively abandoned in the ^11th century.
The 13 structures excavated and restored today are distributed around two main squares (Square A and Square B).

In square A, the Temple of the Green Tomb owes its name to the rich tomb found within: shell necklaces, ceramics, beads, ray needles, ritual flints and some 300 small jade objects, mainly pendants.

On square B, the Temple of Masonry Altars is certainly the most imposing on the site, reaching a height of 16 m. It owes its name to the numerous altars where copal (incense) was burned and pieces of jade ground as sacrifices. This temple has gone down in history, as its image adorns the label of the local beer, Belikin Beer. In the course of 1968, many previously looted tombs were found here, but one had yet to reveal its secrets. It was that of an elderly person, buried with numerous jade objects, including a sculpture in the round of the Mayan sun god Kinich Ahau: 15 cm high and weighing 5 kg, it is the country's main archaeological treasure. Long kept secret, this sculpture was finally the subject of a travelling exhibition in Belize in 2005, when it was rumoured to have long been lost abroad. A replica can be seen in the site's museum, while the original sits quietly in a vault at the Belize Central Bank, from which it rarely leaves for special exhibitions. A representation of this unique Mayan coin can be seen in the top left-hand corner of all the country's banknotes.