Caracol

Caracol is a large ancient Maya archaeological site, located in what is now the Cayo District, of Belize. It is situated approximately south of Xunantunich, and the town of San Ignacio, and from the Macal River. It rests on the Vaca Plateau, at an elevation of above sea-level, in the foothills of the Maya Mountains. Long thought to be a tertiary center, it is now known that the site was one of the most important regional political centers of the Maya Lowlands during the Classic Period. Caracol covered approximately , covering an area much larger than present-day Belize City, the largest metropolitan area in the country, and supported more than twice the modern city's population. "Caracol" is a modern name from caracol, "snail, shell", but more generally meaning spiral or volute-shaped— apparently on account of the winding access road that led to the site. The site was first reported by a native logger named Rosa Mai, who came across its remains in 1937, while searching for mahogany hardwood trees to exploit. Mai reported the site to the archaeological commission for British Honduras, today Belize. In 1938, the archaeological commissioner A. Hamilton Anderson, visited the site for two weeks along with a colleague, Hugh Blockley Jex, who later became Inspector of Crown Licence. It was Anderson who gave the site its modern name. They conducted preliminary surveys, noted 9 carved monuments, took notes on the structures of the A Group Plaza, and undertook limited excavations in two locations. Anderson and Linton Satterthwaite, later discovered 40 stone monuments. The site was first noted and documented archaeologically in 1937, by Anderson. More extensive explorations and documentation of the site was undertaken by Satterthwaite, of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, from 1950 to 1953. During this time Satterthwaite, primarily focused on finding and documenting monuments, later removing several stelae and altars.