The area of Aguateca known as the Barranca Escondida is located to the southwest of the Palace Group. In this area of the site, excavators encountered a deep chasm. Upon excavating this chasm, excavators uncovered a corpus of stelae. All of the stelae date to the Early Classic and beginning of the Late Classic periods. Thus, they are all earlier than the structures in the Palace Group. Because of this fact, Inomata believes that these stelae could have been dedicated by the rulers of Tamarindito; he suggests that Aguateca could have been the territory of Tamarindito before the peoples of Aguateca claimed this area for themselves. |
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 The Chasm of the Barranca Escondida |