CARACOL: THE SUPREMACY OF LORD WATER -MAYA ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE - PART VII

The ruins of Caracol are located in the Vaca Plateau of the Cayo District. Caracol Camp, adjacent to the ruins, is located at approximately Mile 46 of the Chiquibul Road which connects the Western Highway with the western slopes OF the Maya Mountains.
Unfortunately, Caracol, meaning "Snail", is one of the most inaccessible ruins in Belize, but conversely, it provides one of the most scenic drives in Belize. You must obtain permission from the Department of Archaeology, as well as the Forestry Department in Augustine, in order to visit Caracol. Because of the limited accessibility and the necessity for permits, it is advisable to use a reputable travel and tour operator for your adventure.
Currently in the state of excavation and restoration Caracol is the largest known Maya center in Belize. The largest pyramid in Caracol, "Canaa" (Sky Place), rises 140 feet high, and it is the tallest manmade structure in all of Belize. Since Caracol is located in the Chiquibul Rain Forest, there is a plethora of flora and fauna to enhance the true beauty of this magnificent Maya center.
This is an enormous ceremonial center, perhaps the largest site in Belize. The site sits on a low plateau deep in the Chiquibul Forest Reserve where primary rain forest jungle is still evident. The tallest temple structure there stands 42 meters above the plaza floor with an expanse at its base rivalling anything at Tikal. Caracol was once a powerful center controlling a very large area, some of which is still being discovered. From the numerous carved monuments at the site, information has been gained that Caracol and Tikal underwent conflicts during ancient history with each succumbing to the other at different times. The name is Spanish for " snail shell" and was given to the site by a previous Commissioner of Archaeology because of the inordinate numbers of snail shells found at the site.
Caracol can be reached through Augustine in the Mountain Pine Ridge. However, although this site is only 30 miles away from Augustine, the road there is extremely rough and usually requires 4-wheel drive vehicles for the journey. Accomodations are available at the many "jungle inns" and hotels in and around the major towns of the Cayo District.
Historical contextCaracol is news in Belize. The word is around that the site - discovered only in 1936 by chicleros- was supreme in the region, and indeed that is only a slight overstatement, for in 1986 an altar was found in the centre of one of the site's ball courts with a glyphic record of a military victory by Lord Water of Caracol over the warlords of Tikal. News too because USAID has provided funds to help develop the site for tourism.
So Belize has indeed a site which, in the sixth century, rivalled the mightiest and most complex of them all. Why such a powerful site as Caracol should have been located in an area bereft of running water is one of the site's mysteries. Yet in a sense, the Maya created their own fertility: the main reservoir at Caracol is an engineering masterpiece providing water to this day and, again in the context of warlords and fertility, it is apropos to bear in mind the name of the supreme Caracol warlord - Lord Water.

Caracol, the largest known ancient Maya site in Belize, is a Classic Period urban centre comprising a central ceremonial area converged on by causeways which linked the centre to its outliers -to the areas whose production supported the nucleus. The site centre is 1.5 sq. km. (.9 sq. mile) in area with structures extending out over 3 sq. km. (1.75 sq. miles). The tallest structure, standing 42m. (137 ft.) above the plaza level has ousted Xunantunich's A-6 as the tallest Maya building in Belize.
The site's special features include the buildings surrounding the A court, which functioned during the Early Classic as an astronomical observatory. Following a now familiar pattern, many of the site's pyramids were constructed in the Early Classic, and later surmounted by further and hence ever more impressive structures. Interestingly, one of the burials -in the Machete group, and dated 613 A.D.- was desecrated by the Late Classic Maya and then re-buried.

Archaeological Work
A.H. Anderson explored and named the site- Caracol, Spanish for "Snail Shell"- in 1938. In 1950, 1951 and 1953 Linton Satterthwaite of Pennsylvania University excavated primarily to recover the numerous sculpted stone monuments at the site. In 1954 Anderson, and Gordon Willey, William Bullard and John Glass of the Peabody Museum of Harvard, and Michael Stewart and Charles Wright excavated a masonry chamber in structure B-2. In 1977 Pennsylvania University Museum sent Carl Beetz to complete the volume started by Satterthwaite (now deceased) on the Caracol monuments.
In 1978 Elizabeth Graham sent a team to the site to recover Stela 21, a beautifully sculpted slate monument currently curated by the Department of Archaeology in Belmopan. The three finest monuments from Satterthwaite's excavations are now displayed in the Bliss Institute, Belize City; many more remain at the site.
In 1978 and 1979 Paul Healy of Trent University investigated the Maya agricultural terraces surrounding the site. In 1985 Arlen and Diane Chase of the University of Central Florida began the first full-scale excavation of Caracol; that excavation, which they anticipate
will take at least a decade, will focus on all aspects of Maya society and culture and especially on the importance of Caracol as a regional centre.

Locale and Access
Caracol is situated 36 km., as the crow flies, southwest of the Augustine Forestry Station in the Mountain Pine Ridge. As part of the Chiquibul Forest, it displays classic rain forest and jungle vegetation, the natural home of a wide variety of fauna, ranging from colonies of butterflies to families of howler monkeys and a diversity of birds and felines. Gigantic trees with trunks 2 metres in diameter are adorned with orchids and a plethora of interwoven vines. The forest canopy, trapping the humid air beneath, is broken only by the summits of the ancient man-made structures.
Eight miles south of Caracol are the vast Chiquibul Caves, the longest cave system in Central America with the largest cave room in the Western Hemisphere and the fourth largest cave room in the world. Only the lucky few have entered Chiquibul.
To reach Caracol one must travel through the Mountain Pine Ridge, superb in itself, with granite and limestone mountains, waterfalls, pools and wildlife.
At the site there are caretaker-guides; a guide book with fold-out map is available on sale from them. But no drinking water is available at the site, nor is there any public transport to the locale. Your options are renting a vehicle or joining a guided tour offered by travel agencies and hotels around the country. Although the site is only thirty miles from Augustine, the road is extremely rough and often impassable during wet weather. Four-wheel drive, high clearance vehicles are usually required for the journey.
Please note that it is imperative for the Department of Archaeology and/or the Forestry Department, Western Division, to be informed prior to any visits in order to obtain entry permission and advice on accessibility. There is no gas available at Augustine and visitors are responsible for ensuring they have enough gas to complete the journey. Camping is only allowed with a permit from the Forestry Department in Belmopan.

Recent Changes
New work at Caracol makes it tourist friendly - News 5, January 22, 2003
It is not what you'd call an easy drive, particularly following a heavy rain. But on Monday we finally made it to an ancient Maya site in Cayo that, thanks to a multi-million dollar facelift, may one day become one of the nation's most popular destinations.
Guatemala may have Tikal; Honduras Copan; Mexico Chichen Itza but in Belize, Caracol is king. Translated to mean snail in English, the remnants of Caracol are slowly emerging from beneath the jungle to claim a place of prominence in the modern Mundo Maya. Since it's rediscovery in the early 1920s, archaeologists have discovered the earliest dated carved stellae in Belize at Caracol, dating back to 400 A.D., and unearthed the massive structure called Caana or "Sky Place", believed to have been completed around 800 A.D. nation's most popular destinations.
At the peak of its existence, the Mayan city of Caracol covered some sixty-five square miles and was home to more than a hundred thousand people. Today, archaeologists from all over the world have a field day excavating its more than seventy-five structures. nation's most popular destinations.

Jaime Awe, Archaeological Coordinator: "Caracol is certainly one of the most amazing sites that we have in Belize. It has the tallest and largest human made structure in this country." nation's most popular destinations.
According to archaeological coordinator, Dr. Jaime Awe, Caracol's influence in the region spans thousands of years. nation's most popular destinations.

Dr. Jaime Awe: "Besides constructing large monumental structures, we know that they were politically involved with other sites in the region. We know that Caracol entered wars against cities like Tikal, Naranjo and Bital, Ukanal and that in many of those occasions, Caracol was the triumphant site. But Caracol is also important to us as a country, as a culture, because it gives us a symbol of what the ancient first Belizeans or ancient Belizeans, were able to accomplish in our own country." nation's most popular destinations.

Janelle Chanona: "For the past two years, the Government of Belize has invested two point seven million Belize dollars to restore Caracol to some semblance of its former glory. By all accounts, they have succeeded." nation's most popular destinations.
But it has not been easy. More than a hundred and sixty people call the archaeological site home...working from dawn to dusk shifting through soil for secrets. Nestled deep in the Chiquibul Forest, accessibility to Caracol has proved challenging. nation's most popular destinations.

Dr. Jaime Awe: "Everything that we use here has to be trucked in. We have no water here, so we have to bring in water from twelve miles away from the Guacamayo Bridge. All the food, we have a hundred and sixty people who work here full time. It's taken us two years, but in the two years that we've been here, we have converted what used to look like just hills with trees to some of the beautiful temples and palaces that you can now see when you come to the site." nation's most popular destinations.
Financed through a fourteen million U.S. dollar loan from the Inter-American Development Bank, the rebirth of Mayan sites like Caracol is part of the Ministry of Tourism's, Tourism Development Project. The plan is to turn the trickle of tourists into a steady stream of visitors. nation's most popular destinations.

Mark Espat, Minister of Tourism: "Like the reef, like the rainforest, like the caving, archaeology is a particular brand of tourism that attracts literally hundreds of thousands of people to Belize. So I think the excavation work, the new visitor's centre, access to Caracol will open up the Cayo District certainly to a lot more archaeology enthusiasts to visit Belize. And it will certainly develop offshoot industries, hotels nearby, gift shops, restaurants. So the work here really is firstly to preserve certainly our very profound Mayan culture, and secondly, it is promote and build tourism to this district and to Belize." nation's most popular destinations.

Dr. Allan Moore, Director, Tourism Development Project: "If we may look at Xunantunich, which gets about two hundred people per day on an average, and that's going up because the cruise ship tourism is increasing. So we might look at Caracol somewhere around four, four-fifty, five hundred a day, providing the accessibility is taken care of. The road condition is not too pleasant right now, but we hope to address that situation pretty shortly." nation's most popular destinations.
But at this rate, setbacks aside, it won't be long before the magnificence of Caracol captures more of the world's attention and respect. nation's most popular destinations.
Anytime but the dry season potential visitors may want to check with the B.T.B. before embarking down the road to Caracol.
( Conversation takenfrom an interview with Channel 5 Reporter Janelle Chanona)