📷 Wikimedia Commons
Where in the world
Belize
Caracol
Maya · Belize
Field notes
- civilizations
- Maya
- types
- City
- built
- 300 BCE — 900 CE
- occupied
- 1,200 BCE — 900 CE
- country
- Belize
The site
One of the largest Maya cities, buried in the jungle of the Belizean highlands and only rediscovered in 1937. At its height it may have housed over 100,000 people, linked by causeways to outlying plazas, and its stelae record a war in which Caracol defeated mighty Tikal in 562. Its pyramid Caana — 'sky place' — rises 43 m and is still the tallest structure in Belize. Dense forest kept it hidden for a millennium, and much of it still lies unexcavated.
