NaraNjo-Sa'al - World Monuments Fund

Tikal National Park
Upper Holmul R.
Figure 3. Naranjo-Sa’al in
relation to the national parks
and Holmul river
Naranjo-Sa’al en relación a
los parques nacionales y el río
Holmul.
Tikal
Yaxhá-Nakum-Naranjo National Park
Naranjo-Sa’al
Yaxhá
years, elucidated the pivotal role of Naranjo-Sa’al in the socio-political and cultural
landscape of the Classic Maya world. Its ancient name Sa’al is thought to mean “place
where [maize] gruel abounds,” perhaps a reference to the site’s agricultural fecundity.
The site’s history is evident not only in the inscriptions captured in Maler’s detailed
photographs and Graham’s meticulous drawings but in the extensive historical
narratives recorded by Naranjo-Sa’al’s neighbors—both allies and enemies. Most of
these texts date from the mid-sixth to mid-eighth centuries a.d. when the kingdom of
Naranjo-Sa’al was a formidable force in the Maya Lowlands. At its height, Naranjo-
Sa’al held hegemony over Maya states as far away as Xunantunich and Buena Vista in
modern-day Belize, Ucanal and Sacul in the southeast Petén, and its neighbors Yaxhá
and Nakum just to the west. Naranjo-Sa’al also waged successful military campaigns
against its powerful rival Tikal to the west and Caracol to the east; it also endured
crushing defeats at the hands Caracol and Calakmul.
Despite Naranjo-Sa’al’s importance, systematic work would not be carried out at
the site until nearly a century after Maler’s visit. In the intervening years, looters feverishly
mined the ancient city in search for artifacts for an emerging Precolumbian art
market. Many of the site’s freestanding stone sculptures—intricately carved altars and
stelae—were spirited away in the late 1970s. By 2000, nearly all of the site’s monumental
architecture had become riddled with thousands of destabilizing tunnels and
trenches dug in pursuit of treasure—fine polychrome ceramics, masterfully carved
jades, and smaller works in stone. Further site destruction would come in the more
benign form of unregulated agricultural encroachment, slash-and-burn cultivation,
use of the land for grazing, and the exploitation of the region for the harvesting of
chicle, xate palm, and timber.
8
Nakum
Middle Holmul R.
Lower Holmul R.