Archaeologists In Mexico Discover Long-Lost City Inhabited By Maya Rebels Who Resisted The Spanish Conquest

After Spanish troops seized their capital, the Lacandon Ch’ol established a new settlement called Sac Balam, or the “Land of the White Jaguar”

To pinpoint the likely location of Sac Balam, archaeologists plugged data from historical records into a predictive model built with ArcGIS Pro. Josuhé Lozada Toledo / CINAH Chiapas

In the dense jungles of Chiapas, Mexico, archaeologists have uncovered the long-lost city of Sac Balam, or the “Land of the White Jaguar,” a stronghold of the Lacandon Ch’ol, a Maya group who resisted Spanish conquest for more than a century. Spanish forces seized the city in 1695, but by 1721, it had been abandoned.

Archaeologists Brent Woodfill and Yuko Shiratori collaborated with Josuhé Lozada Toledo, of Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), to pinpoint the likely location of Sac Balam.

The researchers combed through 17th-century Spanish chronicles for clues, including a letter by Spanish friar Diego de Rivas, who recalled reaching the Maya settlement after a treacherous four-day journey through the jungle and a two-day canoe trip along the Lacantún River. Lozada Toledo then fed this historical information into a predictive model built with the digital mapping tool ArcGIS Pro, factoring in data on the region’s terrain, vegetation and waterways, as well as estimates of colonial-era travel speeds.

“By combining all these variables, I was able to make the proposal on the map and get an approximate range of where [Sac Balam] could be located,” says Lozada Toledo in an INAH statement.

The model led the archaeologists to the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve, near the Jataté and Ixcán Rivers along the Mexico-Guatemala border. There, they found stone structures, obsidian tools, ceramics and the ruins of a small Spanish church—physical evidence that matched the Maya stronghold described in colonial documents, Lozada Toledo tells Milenio’s Leticia Sánchez Medel.

Established after the Spanish conquered the Lacandon Ch’ol capital, Lakam Tun (“Great Rock”), in 1586, Sac Balam became a refuge for Maya rebels determined to remain independent. The Spanish tried and failed to find the community, only succeeding when the leader of a different Maya group offered to escort Catholic priests hoping to convert the Lacandon Ch’ol to the hidden city. “The Lacandon had been trading with but also attacking and raiding Spanish-allied Maya towns for decades, and perhaps the leader had had enough,” wrote Science magazine’s Lizzie Wade in 2019.

Initial attempts at diplomacy faltered after several Lacandon leaders who had traveled to Guatemala to meet with Spanish authorities contracted an illness and died. Negotiations broke down, and in early 1695, Spanish troops aided by Maya allies occupied Sac Balam without needing to engage in battle. The Spanish renamed the city Our Lady of Sorrows.

Miramar Lake in the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve Josuhé Lozada Toledo / CINAH Chiapas

Sac Balam is more than an archaeological find. It represents an opportunity to learn about and honor the lives of Indigenous individuals who resisted until their last breath, then “were erased and exterminated from official history, a people who preferred to hide in the jungle and not be conquered,” Lozada Toledo tells Milenio.

“This discovery enriches the history of Chiapas and shows the dignity, identity and strength of the Native groups,” he adds. “It also highlights the archaeology of ordinary people, their customs, their daily lives and their struggle.”

Sac Balam’s rediscovery sheds light on a broader pattern of Maya resistance. In the early 16th century, Maya city-states functioned independently, with shifting alliances and rivalries, much like ancient Greece. “Because the Maya were never centralized, it’s very hard to conquer entire areas,” Maxine Oland, an archaeologist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst who was not involved in the new research, told Science magazine in 2019.

The Spanish conquest of Maya territory was not a sweeping victory, but rather a slow, city-by-city effort that left patches of independent Maya communities scattered across the jungle. Sac Balam was the second-to-last Maya capital to resist Spanish control; Nojpeten, capital of the Itza Maya people, fell in 1697.

The research team has already completed two field seasons at the Sac Balam site, conducting preliminary excavations to determine its period of occupation. Future plans include using lidar technology to map the area beneath the jungle canopy and locate hidden structures, in addition to publishing the predictive model in the journal Chicomoztoc. The archaeologists also hope to uncover metal artifacts that could offer clues about Maya trade networks.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/author/aurora-martinez/