[Aztlan] Mysteries of the Cancuen Massacre

[Henry Avila]

The Petexbatún area including Cancuen has a very interesting history.  They
didn´t fall as a collapse as their gigants neighborhoods Tikal and Calakmul
and others, they did fall because of their internal fights and seek of
power.

The story starts like this:

When Tikal was the king of this area, this was a very nice place to be in,
and even when Calakmul defeat Tikal and take control over all the area it
was still a very nice place to live in.  And again, even when Tikal retake
the control of the Petexbatun area, it was a still nice place to be in.

The problem starts when Calakmul and Tikal went down and there´s no other
leader to take the control.  So Dos Pilas says, "I´m the new leader" and
take the control for a while, then another city Altar de Sacrificios says
"why I can´t be the new leader?" so makes the war and destroy Dos Pilas.
Then another city Aguateca says "I want to be the new leader now" makes the
war and destroy Altar de Sacrificios and continue the war to other littles
cities like Tamarindito and Punta de Chumino.

So at the end, everybody is running away from this unstable kingdom, many
people (nobles and elite) run away to Cancuen where they are well recieved
and stay to live, in some way, everybody thinks that Cancuen is a safe place
so everybody goes there.  At the end, we found this mass sacrifice of elite,
but this is pretty interesing.  The sacrifice is a very special one, they
were killed with honors, with respect, inclusive Demarest -director of the
project of Cancuen- talks about a sacrifice with love.

So Cancuen was a very quiet peaceful place for a long time, until the war,
unexpectedly, takes it and ends.  And the evidence point that were not
foreigner people, but the people of the kingdom theirselves.

So that´s the story until the epigraphist says another thing.



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Robert Kirsch junior" <rkirsch en cox.net>
To: <aztlan en lists.famsi.org>
Sent: Monday, September 03, 2007 12:29 PM
Subject: [Aztlan] Mysteries of the Cancuen Massacre


One wonders how safe it would be to live in
a large city on a major trade river like the Pasion. It must have been
expected that wandering groups of rebel warriors from other regions might
arrive and start a conflict. The people of Cancuen must have been prepared
for these possibilities, allies of Maya city states must have guaranteed a
measure of stability in this respect. Unless they had already fallen at the
hands of an effective rogue nation and its invading warriors. But what of
the warriors of Cancuen,  were they not strong enough to protect their
Nobles and their King and Queen? Or did they turn against them and join the
invaders, or were they singly the only attacking force? I wonder if the
artifacts of weaponry used could be traced to some other ancient
civilization near or far away. If so, is it possible that people who once
trade with Cancuen, now attacked it out of need, or for plunder or revenge.
If the people of Cancuen had fought in defense of their rulers, then there
must be many more burials nearby and many more remnants of the weapons of
war.
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