 The site was extensively documented in the colonial era. Francisco Ximénez, who first revealed the K 'iche' epic Popul Vuh to the world, visited Q 'umarkaj in the final years of the 17th century. Miguel Rivera y Maestre wrote a report of the site for the government of Guatemala in 1834. In 1840 John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood paid a brief visit to the site after reading Rivera y Maestre's report, and Catherwood mapped the site and produced a drawing of the Temple of Tohil. In 1865, the French architect Cesar Daly mapped the five clustered sites that include Q 'umarkaj, although the maps have since been lost. A more detailed survey of the site was made by Alfred P. Maudslay in 1887, being published between 1889 and 1902. Archeological excavations were carried out in the 1950s and the 1970s.
