Woman power in the Maya world.

• Author: Hardman, Chris

In Guatemala's Laguna del Tigre National Park, the dense forest hides many treasures: endangered scarlet macaws flit among the treetops, while rare jaguars hunt on the forest floor. Only recently has the world learned about one of Laguna del Tigre's greatest treasures, a 2,500-year-old city that once stood at the crossroads of the ancient Maya world. The archaeologists working on the site believe this city can answer many of the lingering questions about political events in the Peten region during the Classic Period of Maya history.

The ancient city of Waka'--known today as El Peru--first came to the attention of the modern world after oil prospectors stumbled upon it in the 1960s. Ten years later, Harvard researcher Ian Graham recorded the site's monuments, and then in 2003 two veteran archaeologists, David Freidel of Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Texas and Hector Escobedo of the University of San Carlos in Guatemala, launched a full-scale excavation of the site.

According to the historical record, Waka' was inhabited as early as 500 BC. The city reached its political peak around 400 AD and was abandoned some four centuries later. In its heyday, Waka' was an economically and strategically important place with tens of thousands of inhabitants, four main plazas, hundreds of buildings, and impressive ceremonial centers. Researchers say the key to the city's importance was its location between two of the most powerful Maya capitals--Calakmul to the north and Tikal to the east--and that in its history Waka' switched its alliance back and forth between the two rivals. They suggest that the final choice of Calakmul may have led to the eventual demise of Waka' at the hands of a Tikal king.

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"We know a great deal about the ancient inhabitants of this site from their monuments," Freidel writes in an article for SMU Research. "The more than 40 carved monuments, or stelae, at the site chronicle the activities of Waka's rulers, including their rise to power, their conquests in war, and their deaths." The location of Waka' right by the San Pedro Martir River, which was navigable for 50 miles in both directions, gave it great power as a trading center. In addition to the waterway, Freidel suggests that Waka' controlled a strategic north-south overland route that linked southern Campeche to central Peten. Freidel calls Waka' a "crossroads of conquerors in the pre-Columbian era."

One of the most intriguing people who inhabited Waka' was a woman of uncommon power and status. The discovery and...