"Land Of The White Jaguar": 327-Year-Old Letter Leads Researchers To Lost Ancient Maya City

The city had been completely lost, after being abandoned to the jungle in 1721.

James Felton
Senior Staff Writer

Edited
by
Holly Large



Ruins in Sayil, Yucatan, Mexico.

Image credit: ahau1969/shutterstock.com

Researchers in Mexico have uncovered the lost ancient Maya city of Sak-Bahlán, locating it using information outlined in a letter written in 1698 CE.

After the Maya people known as Lakandon-Ch'ol were forced out of their capital, Lakam Tun ("Great Rock&quot in 1586, they moved further into the jungle, creating the city of Sak-Bahlán, or the "land of the white jaguar". There, they managed to live free from Spanish colonist interference for a century.

But in 1695, the Lakandon-Ch'ol's luck ran out, as Friar Pedro de la Concepción discovered the city. Soon afterwards, the city was taken by the Spanish and renamed to a much less attractive Nuestra Señora de los Dolores (or "Our Lady of Sorrows&quot . Soon after that, by 1721, the city was abandoned, and lost to the jungle. Ever since then, nobody had been able to locate it.

But now, according to Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), it appears that the city's remains have been identified. Using information about the city's location from the time, including instructions on how to get there from Friar Diego de Rivas, a team of archaeologists were able to piece together the journey that they took and replicate it.

"I took information from the chronicle of Friar De Rivas, from 1698; for example, it tells how, that year, he and a troop of soldiers left Nuestra Señora de los Dolores (formerly Sak-Bahlán) and walked four days to the Lacantún River. They sailed for two days and arrived at El Encuentro de Cristo, where the tributary joins the Pasión River, and left their canoes and then walked to Lake Petén Itzá, in Guatemala," Lozada Toledo, a researcher from INAH, explained in a translated INAH statement.

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