Rescuing the Origins of Dos Pilas Dynasty:
A Salvage of Hieroglyphic Stairway #2, Structure L5-49

Introduction

The Discovery and excavation of ten new steps of Stairway 2, Structure L5-49 in Dos Pilas, Petén, Guatemala during the year 2001 and 2002 has been the subject of an interim report to FAMSI (2002), to the Instituto de Antropología e Historia de Guatemala (IDAEH) by Castellanos et al. in 2001, and as a presentation at the XVI Simposio de Investigaciones Arqueológicas en Guatemala in July of 2001 and 2002. Additionally several epigraphers (Boot 2002; Guenter 2002; in MESOWEB: www.mesoweb.com) as well as important archaeologists like Arthur A. Demarest, Director of the Cancuén Archaeological Project, of Vanderbilt University, Tennessee, and formerly of the Petexbatún Project of the same university, have presented papers on related subjects during 2001 and 2002.

It is also important to mention e-mail correspondence with Simon Martin, Stephen Houston, and Nikolai Grube as well as personal interviews and conversations with Peter Mathews, David Stuart, Stanley Guenter, and Marc Zender.

All of these activities have resulted in valid commentaries that correct the previously presented dates in the Interim Report of 2002 and which accompany the present Final Report in Annex 1. As to the message of the text, in reference this continues to be the same, even though there are some differences of opinions with several colleagues over Step 5, Central Section, that I maintain to be the verb indicating the arrival of the boy-king and the founding of the dynasty in Dos Pilas in 632 A.D. (Figure 1).

Much more important than glyph-by-glyph interpretations, is the result of a more serious and profound study of the history covered by the text of the stairway and the relationship with other events in the inscriptions of Dos Pilas, Aguateca, Ceibal, Tamarindito, and now Cancuén. Besides, this analysis covers these events within the context of the conflicts between the hegemonic states of Tikal and Calakmul and their allies during the sixth, seventh, and eight centuries.

Recent investigations focusing on sites in the southwestern Petén (Fahsen and Demarest 2002; Houston 1993; Fahsen 2000a, b; 2001; Fahsen and Jackson 2001) along with research on the relationship between Tikal, Calakmul, Naranjo, Caracol, etc. (Martin and Grube 2000; Chase and Chase 1996; Schele and Freidel 1990; Marcus and Folan 1994; Carrasco et al. 1999; Schele and Grube 1994; Stuart 1999; 2000; Fahsen 1986; Chase, Grube and Chase 1991) in the seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries have produced a wealth of information derived from specific studies on these sites and from large regional projects.

Yet in the course of the last decade, some accepted notions on Maya politics, dynastic history and war have come into considerable scrutiny as more information comes to light. The result is that what was given for a fact in 1990 is now seen in a completely different light, challenging long established views on the interplay of Maya polities and the collapse of this great civilization.

Work done in the site of Dos Pilas and Cancuén and its region on the upper Pasión River, and the discovery of the ten new steps from Structure L5-49 in the Petexbatún capital of Dos Pilas, have made it necessary to revise previously held knowledge not only on war and diplomacy in the southwestern Petén and its broad implications to the Central area around Tikal and further north in Calakmul, but on commercial trade routes and the Riverine Economy (Demarest and Fahsen 2002; Martin and Grube 2000) (Figure 2).

This wide trade and transport route begins as a navigable waterway at Cancuén and flows northward, then west, then northwest to connect most of the greatest kingdoms of the west. Each major center is located at critical portages, junctures of tributaries, or other loci whose importance can be explained in terms of the river system. Tres Islas, Altar de Sacrificios, and Yaxchilán are placed at junctures with other river systems or land routes. Ceibal is located where the Pasión turns west and the trade route divides, going westward to Altar de Sacrificios, Yaxchilán, Piedras Negras, and past Palenque to the Gulf of México, or going eastward by land to the great centers of the Central Petén. From the Late Preclassic, if not earlier, this great system of river and land routes functioned as the true Maya highway of the western and central Petén.

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