Ebook: Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions 5.3 (Uaxactun)

Uaxactun lies near the foot of an extensive belt of contorted karst terrain, which runs through north-central Peten in an arc bulging toward the southeast. In places, the edge of this hilly region forms a steep escarpment overlooking large areas of bajo; some 50 km west of Uaxactun the escarpment becomes a precipice along the foot of which runs the nascent Rio San Pedro.

Near Uaxactun, a seasonal stream comes out of the hills to pursue a rather ill-defined course along the foot of the hills, tending a little east of north, later becoming a tributary of the Rio Azul. Uaxactun thus stands near the watershed between the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean.

Groups A, B, and C of the ruins were constructed on a ridge that rises to a maximum height of about 40 m above the plain. Other groups occupy less elevated ground some 800 m to the southeast. Low ground in between has been cleared as an airfield, on both sides of which a village has grown up. The aguada which supplies much of the water for the village (as it must have in antiquity) lies at the foot of the slope up to Group A. This aguada, however, has been known to dry out completely, most recently in 1978.

During the Carnegie Institution's many seasons of work at the site, the staff used to ride in with mule trains from El Cayo, a four-days' journey; E1 Cayo, in what was then British Honduras, was reached by motorboat from Belize, ascending the river of the same name.

Air service to Uaxactun, established in the late 1930s with Trimotors for the purpose of bringing out chicle, largely supplanted other means of reaching Uaxactun for the next forty years, until a road from Flores was driven through to Tikal. with a track suitable for four-wheel-drive vehicles opened up from there to Uaxactun. This track was greatly improved by grading in 1984. Another road now leads from Flores via San Andres, EI Zotz, and Santa Cruz; though hardly more than a logging road, it provides an alternative route to Uaxactun now that air service to the village has ceased. This road continues past Uaxactun to Dos Lagunas.

On the 1:500 000 map of the Central Lowlands area, published at the end of Volume 3 of this series, a site is shown to the east of Uaxactun with the name Ramonalito. At the time of my visit to those ruins in 1978, I was unaware that a note by A. Ledyard Smith on the same site, under the name El Paraiso, had been published in Ricketson and Ricketson (1937, pp. 295, 296). The latter name has therefore been used in the accompanying map of the area.