{"it":{"id":"MAM-005","kind":"site","sub":"Mesoamerica","name":"El Mirador","place":"Guatemala","lat":17.755,"lon":-89.921,"date":"El Mirador (which translates as 'The Lookout', 'The Viewpoint', or 'The Belvedere') is…","mat":"clay;earth;limestone","nfacts":14,"tags":["Mesoamerica"],"sum":"El Mirador's La Danta pyramid, in northern Guatemala, rises about 72 m (Hansen and Suyuc-Ley) and is among the largest pyramids in the world by volume. It was built centuries before the Classic Maya cities most people know.","why":"It is a Maya world of causeways and giant pyramids that peaked centuries before the cities in the textbooks.","src":[312,581,582],"nsrc":4,"yt":"LiDAR can map a city in days but cannot date it. How far should a case for early kingship rest on shapes seen from the air?","rel":["MAM-001","MAM-002"],"hook":"LiDAR mapped 177 km of raised causeways around El Mirador, centuries before the Classic Maya."},"S":{"312":["Wikipedia: El Mirador","https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Mirador"],"581":["Suyuc-Ley & Hansen, El Complejo Piramidal La Danta (Mesoweb)","https://www.mesoweb.org/publications/MMS/14_Suyuc-Hansen.pdf"],"582":["Hansen et al. 2022, LiDAR analyses in the Mirador-Calakmul Karst Basin, Ancient Mesoamerica","https://doi.org/10.1017/s0956536122000244"]},"rec":{"id":"MAM-005","alias":[],"ms":[{"f":"REF1 El Mirador has white roads measuring","a":"width","v":"40","u":"meters","o":"REF1 El Mirador has white roads measuring 40 meters wide and between 2 and 5 meters high, forming what researchers consider the world's first highway system or superhighway.","unc":"","by":"per cited source (see citation)","yr":"","m":"documentary: verbatim sentence auto-extracted from Wikipedia revision","c":"no inline ref in article","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=El_Mirador&oldid=1379318269","b":"S","bb":"auto-extracted, Wikipedia rev 1379318269 (tertiary); unit/attribute classified by keyword - check context in value_original","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M1733"},{"f":"measuring 40 meters wide and between 2 and","a":"height","v":"5","u":"meters","o":"REF1 El Mirador has white roads measuring 40 meters wide and between 2 and 5 meters high, forming what researchers consider the world's first highway system or superhighway.","unc":"","by":"per cited source (see citation)","yr":"","m":"documentary: verbatim sentence auto-extracted from Wikipedia revision","c":"no inline ref in article","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=El_Mirador&oldid=1379318269","b":"S","bb":"auto-extracted, Wikipedia rev 1379318269 (tertiary); unit/attribute classified by keyword - check context in value_original","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M1734"},{"f":"with several thousand structures including monumental architecture from","a":"height","v":"10-72","u":"meters","o":"The civic center of the site covers some 10 sqmi with several thousand structures, including monumental architecture from 10 to 72 meters high.","unc":"","by":"per cited source (see citation)","yr":"","m":"documentary: verbatim sentence auto-extracted from Wikipedia revision","c":"no inline ref in article","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=El_Mirador&oldid=1379318269","b":"S","bb":"auto-extracted, Wikipedia rev 1379318269 (tertiary); unit/attribute classified by keyword - check context in value_original","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M1735"},{"f":"complexes one is nicknamed El Tigre with height","a":"height","v":"55","u":"m","o":"The most notable of such structures are three huge complexes; one is nicknamed El Tigre, with height 55 m; another is called La Danta (or Danta) temple.","unc":"","by":"per cited source (see citation)","yr":"","m":"documentary: verbatim sentence auto-extracted from Wikipedia revision","c":"no inline ref in article","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=El_Mirador&oldid=1379318269","b":"S","bb":"auto-extracted, Wikipedia rev 1379318269 (tertiary); unit/attribute classified by keyword - check context in value_original","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M1736"},{"f":"REF15 REF16 The La Danta temple measures approximately","a":"height","v":"72","u":"m","o":"REF15 REF16 The La Danta temple measures approximately 72 m tall from the forest floor, and considering its total volume (2,800,000 cubic meters) is one of the largest pyramids in the world.","unc":"","by":"per cited source (see citation)","yr":"","m":"documentary: verbatim sentence auto-extracted from Wikipedia revision","c":"no inline ref in article","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=El_Mirador&oldid=1379318269","b":"S","bb":"auto-extracted, Wikipedia rev 1379318269 (tertiary); unit/attribute classified by keyword - check context in value_original","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M1737"},{"f":"Also the Los Monos complex is very large","a":"height","v":"48","u":"meters","o":"REF17 Also the Los Monos complex is very large (48 meters high) although not as well known.","unc":"","by":"per cited source (see citation)","yr":"","m":"documentary: verbatim sentence auto-extracted from Wikipedia revision","c":"no inline ref in article","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=El_Mirador&oldid=1379318269","b":"S","bb":"auto-extracted, Wikipedia rev 1379318269 (tertiary); unit/attribute classified by keyword - check context in value_original","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M1738"},{"f":"These are raised stone causeways rising","a":"height","v":"2-6","u":"meters","o":"These are raised stone causeways rising 2 to 6 meters above the level of the surrounding landscape and measuring from 20 to 50 meters wide.","unc":"","by":"per cited source (see citation)","yr":"","m":"documentary: verbatim sentence auto-extracted from Wikipedia revision","c":"no inline ref in article","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=El_Mirador&oldid=1379318269","b":"S","bb":"auto-extracted, Wikipedia rev 1379318269 (tertiary); unit/attribute classified by keyword - check context in value_original","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M1739"},{"f":"level of the surrounding landscape and measuring from","a":"width","v":"20-50","u":"meters","o":"These are raised stone causeways rising 2 to 6 meters above the level of the surrounding landscape and measuring from 20 to 50 meters wide.","unc":"","by":"per cited source (see citation)","yr":"","m":"documentary: verbatim sentence auto-extracted from Wikipedia revision","c":"no inline ref in article","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=El_Mirador&oldid=1379318269","b":"S","bb":"auto-extracted, Wikipedia rev 1379318269 (tertiary); unit/attribute classified by keyword - check context in value_original","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M1740"},{"f":"Mirador to the neighbouring site of Nakbe approximately","a":"distance (not a site dimension)","v":"12","u":"km","o":"One sacbe links El Mirador to the neighbouring site of Nakbe, approximately 12 km away, while another joined El Mirador to El Tintal, 20 km away.","unc":"","by":"per cited source (see citation)","yr":"","m":"documentary: verbatim sentence auto-extracted from Wikipedia revision","c":"no inline ref in article","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=El_Mirador&oldid=1379318269","b":"S","bb":"auto-extracted, Wikipedia rev 1379318269 (tertiary); unit/attribute classified by keyword - check context in value_original","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M1741"},{"f":"while another joined El Mirador to El Tintal","a":"distance (not a site dimension)","v":"20","u":"km","o":"One sacbe links El Mirador to the neighbouring site of Nakbe, approximately 12 km away, while another joined El Mirador to El Tintal, 20 km away.","unc":"","by":"per cited source (see citation)","yr":"","m":"documentary: verbatim sentence auto-extracted from Wikipedia revision","c":"no inline ref in article","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=El_Mirador&oldid=1379318269","b":"S","bb":"auto-extracted, Wikipedia rev 1379318269 (tertiary); unit/attribute classified by keyword - check context in value_original","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M1742"},{"f":"wall which must have been as high as","a":"height","v":"3-8","u":"meters","o":"A large wall, which must have been as high as 3 to 8 meters, had been constructed on the entire northern, eastern, and southern portions of the West Group of the city prior to its abandonment in the terminal Preclassic period, suggesting a possible threat that had been perceived by this time.","unc":"","by":"per cited source (see citation)","yr":"","m":"documentary: verbatim sentence auto-extracted from Wikipedia revision","c":"no inline ref in article","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=El_Mirador&oldid=1379318269","b":"S","bb":"auto-extracted, Wikipedia rev 1379318269 (tertiary); unit/attribute classified by keyword - check context in value_original","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M1743"},{"f":"Archeologists have calculated that for the production of","a":"mass","v":"1","u":"tonne","o":"Archeologists have calculated that for the production of 1 tonne of lime cement, 5 tonnes of limestone and 5 tonnes of wood were needed.","unc":"","by":"per cited source (see citation)","yr":"","m":"documentary: verbatim sentence auto-extracted from Wikipedia revision","c":"no inline ref in article","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=El_Mirador&oldid=1379318269","b":"S","bb":"auto-extracted, Wikipedia rev 1379318269 (tertiary); unit/attribute classified by keyword - check context in value_original","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M1744"},{"f":"the production of 1 tonne of lime cement","a":"mass","v":"5","u":"tonnes","o":"Archeologists have calculated that for the production of 1 tonne of lime cement, 5 tonnes of limestone and 5 tonnes of wood were needed.","unc":"","by":"per cited source (see citation)","yr":"","m":"documentary: verbatim sentence auto-extracted from Wikipedia revision","c":"no inline ref in article","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=El_Mirador&oldid=1379318269","b":"S","bb":"auto-extracted, Wikipedia rev 1379318269 (tertiary); unit/attribute classified by keyword - check context in value_original","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M1745"},{"f":"from this time period is scarcely more than","a":"height","v":"8","u":"meters","o":"The largest structure from this time period is scarcely more than 8 meters high, and many of the preclassic buildings were plundered for stone materials for construction and lime making.","unc":"","by":"per cited source (see citation)","yr":"","m":"documentary: verbatim sentence auto-extracted from Wikipedia revision","c":"no inline ref in article","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=El_Mirador&oldid=1379318269","b":"S","bb":"auto-extracted, Wikipedia rev 1379318269 (tertiary); unit/attribute classified by keyword - check context in value_original","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M1746"}],"lab":[{"k":"Materials","mat":"site material (as stated in article)","m":"documentary mention (Wikipedia, auto-extracted)","v":"Archeologists have calculated that for the production of 1 tonne of lime cement, 5 tonnes of limestone and 5 tonnes of wood were needed.","by":"no inline ref in article","b":"S","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=El_Mirador&oldid=1379318269"}],"eng":[],"ori":[],"gaps":[],"dat":[],"aa":[],"ac":[],"me":[],"ci":[],"cq":[],"sd":[],"sub":[],"site":{"age":"El Mirador (which translates as 'The Lookout', 'The Viewpoint', or 'The Belvedere') is a large pre-Columbian Middle and Late Preclassic (1000 BC – 250 AD) Maya settlement, located in the north of the modern department of El Petén, Guatemala.","dm":"[see dating_excerpt; method not extracted]","lab":"NO: inference only (style/context/king list/textual)","weak":"no direct lab result on the structure in our records; date from stylistic, contextual or textual inference","unesco":"","dens":"CENSUS"},"co":{"lat":"17.755","lon":"-89.92055556","src":"Wikidata P625 only + curated wave0 value agrees","agree":"agree","b":"V","note":"two independent sources agree; max delta 0.0021 deg (~0.23 km)","osm":"https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/6471676984"},"src":[{"id":"S0295","t":"no inline ref in article","u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=El_Mirador&oldid=1379318269"},{"id":"S0478","t":"Wikipedia: El Mirador","u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Mirador"},{"id":"S2582","t":"Suyuc-Ley & Hansen, El Complejo Piramidal La Danta (Mesoweb)","u":"https://www.mesoweb.org/publications/MMS/14_Suyuc-Hansen.pdf"},{"id":"S2583","t":"Hansen et al. 2022, LiDAR analyses in the Mirador-Calakmul Karst Basin, Ancient Mesoamerica","u":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0956536122000244"},{"id":"VMAM-005-5","t":"LiDAR analyses in the contiguous Mirador-Calakmul Karst Basin, Guatemala: an introduction to new perspectives on regional early Maya socioeconomic and political organization | Ancient Mesoamerica | Cambridge Core","u":"https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/ancient-mesoamerica/article/lidar-analyses-in-the-contiguous-miradorcalakmul-karst-basin-guatemala-an-introduction-to-new-perspectives-on-regional-early-maya-socioeconomic-and-political-organization/31075DFA8ADBAA5E7C7320CA6DB93E5E"}],"sum":"Somebody had to cut 205,508 blocks of limestone. That is the estimate for the stones that once covered the surface of a single pyramid in the forests of northern Guatemala. The archaeologists who made it based their labour figure on field experiments: quarrying that many blocks would have kept 158 workers busy for five years without a break, and that is only the skin of the building, before a single basket of fill was carried to its core. The pyramid is La Danta, at El Mirador, and it was finished centuries before the Maya cities in the textbooks were born.\n\nEl Mirador, whose name means \"the lookout,\" lies in the Mirador-Calakmul Karst Basin in the north of Guatemala's Petén region. Karst is limestone country, where water has dissolved the rock into sinkholes and hollows, and the basin is now deep tropical forest. Most of its great sites, El Mirador among them, belong to the Middle and Late Preclassic, about 1000 BC to AD 150 on the reckoning of the main survey team, or to AD 250 on another. The city flourished from about the sixth century BC to the first century AD. That is centuries before the Classic Maya cities most people know.\n\nLa Danta is the giant. It rises in three continuous platforms, the third topped by a triadic group, a set of three buildings arranged together, and its highest point stands about 72 metres above the forest floor, roughly the height of a 24-storey tower. Its footprint is enormous. Enrique Suyuc-Ley and Richard Hansen give 314 metres north to south by 600 metres east to west; the 2022 LiDAR paper gives 600 by 320. The survey team puts its possible volume at 2,816,016 cubic metres of fill, pending more digging, which places it among the largest pyramids in the world by volume. Suyuc-Ley and Hansen write that the original La Danta was never matched in scale anywhere in the ancient Maya world. Its builders kept one style from the lowest step to the highest walls, large blocks set on end, and plaster masks decorated the main faces of its buildings.\n\nDanta is not alone. At El Mirador the Monos, Tigre and Danta pyramids each rise above 48 metres, and El Tigre reaches about 55. Every one of them needed lime as well as stone. Archaeologists have calculated that making one tonne of lime cement required five tonnes of limestone and five tonnes of wood. A city plastered on this scale would also have consumed a great deal of its forest.\n\nThen there are the roads. From the civic centre, raised white causeways run out through the trees, 40 metres wide and 2 to 6 metres high, wider than a modern motorway and built of stone. One joins the La Danta complex to the city centre over more than a kilometre. Others reach about 12 kilometres to the neighbouring city of Nakbe and about 20 kilometres to El Tintal, where the Jade causeway, also 40 metres wide, is typical of the region's Preclassic roads. The survey team calls them by Maya terms, noh be, \"big road,\" and chibal be, \"large lineage road.\" They can be told apart from later causeways by their width and by the lack of low stone walls along their edges.\n\nMost of this was invisible until recently. LiDAR maps the ground from aircraft using laser pulses, some of which slip through gaps in the forest canopy to touch the earth below. In 2022 Hansen and his colleagues published the results for the basin. They counted more than 775 ancient Maya settlements inside it and 189 more on the ridge around it, and grouped them into 417 cities, towns and villages in at least six tiers. The abstract speaks of 177 kilometres of raised Preclassic causeways. The body of the paper adds up to about 175, at least 133.22 kilometres between sites, 38.23 within them and 3.89 more if end platforms are counted. The small difference matters less than the scale.\n\nThe authors draw a bold conclusion. The monumental buildings, shared building plans, water systems and causeways, they write, \"suggest labor investments that defy organizational capabilities of lesser polities.\" In plain words: villages do not do this. Somebody ordered it. A road 40 metres wide was hardly built for traffic alone. It may have been built for processions, and to show every visitor arriving from Nakbe or Tintal whose city this was and how many hands it could command.\n\nThe mainstream case is careful about its footing. LiDAR shows shapes, not dates. Over four decades the team mapped and dug at 56 separate sites, with test pits, salvage of looters' trenches and broad exposures of buildings, as a ground check on the scans. The dating of the rest comes from that work and from the forms of buildings seen from the air. The sites did not all peak together. Nakbe, Wakna and El Mirador were strong in the Middle Preclassic, about 900 to 400 BC, and by about 300 BC El Mirador, Tintal, Nakbe and Balamnal had grown even more dominant. Afterwards the basin was not empty. A more modest occupation returned in the Late Classic, about AD 600 to 900, and El Mirador was finally abandoned around the end of the ninth century.\n\nWhat does not fit easily is the sequence. The textbook story of the Maya builds slowly toward a Classic peak. El Mirador inverts it. Its largest monument comes early, at the start, not at the end, and was never surpassed. A society that could organise large workforces, quarry hundreds of thousands of blocks, burn forests into plaster and lay a planned network of stone highways appears here already formed, in the Preclassic, and then fades centuries before the Classic collapse. How centralised that world was, and why its great centres went quiet, are still open questions. The case for an early state rests on scale and on the 56 tested sites, and some of the 417 settlements, dated by their shapes, may one day prove younger.\n\nStand on the top of La Danta today and the view is what gave the place its name: green canopy to every horizon. Under the trees, straight as rulers, the white roads still run out toward cities no one has finished counting.","qs":["LiDAR can map a city in days but cannot date it. How far should a case for early kingship rest on shapes seen from the air?","El Mirador peaked, then went quiet centuries before the Classic Maya collapse. What could empty a centre of that size?"],"gal":[{"src":"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/60/Pir%C3%A1mide_de_la_Danta%2C_Pet%C3%A9n.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled","page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pir%C3%A1mide_de_la_Danta,_Pet%C3%A9n.jpg","title":"Pirámide de la Danta, Petén.jpg","lic":"CC0","licurl":"http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en","by":"Konjiki1","cap":"Pyramid of La Danta at the archaeological site of El Mirador, Petén, Guatemala"},{"src":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e8/001_El_Castillo_o_templo_de_Kukulkan._Chich%C3%A9n_Itz%C3%A1%2C_M%C3%A9xico._MPLC.jpg/1280px-001_El_Castillo_o_templo_de_Kukulkan._Chich%C3%A9n_Itz%C3%A1%2C_M%C3%A9xico._MPLC.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail","page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:001_El_Castillo_o_templo_de_Kukulkan._Chich%C3%A9n_Itz%C3%A1,_M%C3%A9xico._MPLC.jpg","title":"001 El Castillo o templo de Kukulkan. Chichén Itzá, México. MPLC.jpg","lic":"CC BY-SA 3.0","licurl":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0","by":"Manuel de Corselas","cap":"El Castillo o templo de Kukulkan. Chichén Itzá, México. Cultura maya."},{"src":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d2/El_Mirador_1.jpg/1280px-El_Mirador_1.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail","page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:El_Mirador_1.jpg","title":"El Mirador 1.jpg","lic":"CC BY-SA 3.0","licurl":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0","by":"Simon Burchell","cap":"Stonework at the Maya site of El Mirador, Petén, Guatemala. Photo taken in December 2000."},{"src":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/32/El_Mirador_3.jpg/1280px-El_Mirador_3.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail","page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:El_Mirador_3.jpg","title":"El Mirador 3.jpg","lic":"CC BY 2.0","licurl":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0","by":"Geoff Gallice from Gainesville","cap":"El Mirador"},{"src":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/65/El_Mirador_5.jpg/1280px-El_Mirador_5.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail","page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:El_Mirador_5.jpg","title":"El Mirador 5.jpg","lic":"CC BY 2.0","licurl":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0","by":"Geoff Gallice from Gainesville","cap":"Archaeological excavation at the Preclassic Maya site of El Mirador, in Petén, Guatemala."}]},"img":null,"md":null,"hh":[{"v":"72","u":"m","h":"La Danta, among the largest pyramids on Earth by volume","s":[65]},{"v":"Clay","h":"Made of: Clay, earth, limestone","s":[65]}],"hs":{"65":["Wikipedia: El Mirador (and sources cited there)","https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Mirador"]},"lh":{"s":"img/h/MAM-005.webp","w":1080,"h":1268,"o":"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/60/Pir%C3%A1mide_de_la_Danta%2C_Pet%C3%A9n.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled"}}