The City at the Beginning of the World

Features July/August 2018

The only Maya city with an urban grid may embody a creation myth
(Courtesy Timothy Pugh/Itza Archaeological Project)
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A peninsula jutting into Guatemala’s Lake Petén Itzá is the site of the ancient Maya city of Nixtun-Ch’ich’. (Courtesy Timothy Pugh/Itza Archaeological Project)

For years, archaeologist Timothy Pugh thought he was simply following the cows as he walked across the site of Nixtun-Ch’ich’, an ancient Maya city in northern Guatemala. The site, whose name means, roughly, “a rocky place,” is located on a peninsula that juts out like a pointed finger into Lake Petén Itzá. It is now

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