page_title: Seibal
section_title: Terminal Classic
hierarchical_section_title: Seibal / History / Terminal Classic
caption_attribution_description: Late Classic Stella (Detail) Seibal (also Ceibal) Guatemala (Peten)
context_page_description: Seibal, known as El Ceibal in Spanish, is a Classic Period archaeological site of the Maya civilization located in the northern Petén Department of Guatemala, about 100 km SW of Tikal. It was the largest city in the Pasión River region.
  The site was occupied from the Preclassic Period through to the Terminal Classic, with a significant hiatus. The principal phase of occupation dates to the Late Preclassic, followed by a decline in the Early Classic. Seibal experienced a significant recovery in the Terminal Classic immediately prior to its complete abandonment, reaching its second peak from about 830 to 890, with a population estimated at 8–10,000 people. The dates on the stelae at Seibal are unusually late, with monuments still being dedicated after the Classic Maya collapse had engulfed most of the Petén region. Many of Seibal's late monuments show artistic influence from central Mexico and from the Gulf Coast of Mexico.
  The early history of the site is lost due to the catastrophic defeat of the polity in AD 735 by the nearby Petexbatun kingdom with its capital at Dos Pilas, resulting in the destruction of its earlier sculpted monuments.
context_section_description: With its independence came a new  apogee, and for a brief time Seibal became a prominent regional capital located on the important Pasión River trade route. The architecture and ceramics from this period demonstrate connections with the northern Yucatán Peninsula and the Gulf Coast of Mexico. Seventeen stelae carved between AD 849 and 889 show a mix of Maya and foreign styles, including a lord wearing the beaked mask of Ehecatl, the central Mexican wind god, with a Mexican-style speech scroll emerging from the mouth, carvings of foreign-style foot slippers, and squared cartouches. Some of these stelae have a stylistic affinity with the painted murals at Cacaxtla, a site in the central Mexican state of Tlaxcala. This hybrid style seem to indicate that the new lords of Seibal were Maya lords adapting to changing political conditions by adopting a mix of symbols originating from both lowland Maya and central Mexican sources. Some of the more foreign-looking stelae even bear non-Maya calendrical glyphs. Changes at Seibal at this time are associated with the Chontal-controlled trade flowing along the Pasión River. The Chontal Maya themselves were warrior-merchants originating from the Gulf Coast of Mexico who displayed a mixture of Maya and non-Maya characteristics.
  Hieroglyphic texts at Seibal indicate that the city's newly refound vigour was sponsored by a new alliance formed by the cities of Caracol and Ucanal in the east, two sites that had so far survived the spreading Classic Maya collapse. It is likely that they were attempting to reopen the old Pasión-Usumacinta trade route and were drawn to Seibal by its defensible location overlooking the Pasión River. Seibal's refounding took place in AD 830 with the installation of Wat'ul Chatel as a vassal of Chan Ek' Hopet of Ucanal. The new king dedicated a new building and stelae in 849, overseen by Jewel K'awil of Tikal, and Chan Pet, king of Calakmul. Wat'ul Chatel built an innovative new temple-stelae arrangement to the south of the Central Plaza of Group A. Structure A-3 consists of a low radial pyramid with an inventive arrangement of sculpted monuments.
  Wat'ul Chatel's last monument was erected in 889. This stela is also the last dated monument raised at Seibal and by 900 the city was all but abandoned, the whole region had been engulfed by the Classic Maya collapse and trade no longer flowed along the Pasión-Usumacinta route. Most Classic Maya capitals had already been abandoned and whatever external support Seibal had received from its overlord had vanished. By 930 AD, the site was completely abandoned. It was left relatively undisturbed until around 1890 when Federico Artes was informed of the city’s ruins.
  The late stelae at Seibal show a marked reduction in quality over a span of about forty years, with the loss of Classic Period traits, and bearing flatter and cruder representations than earlier stelae. This may reflect the loss of expertise in the Terminal Classic, with craftsmen less able to work monuments and large structures as time progressed.
caption: Detail of Stela 11 at Seibal, showing king Wat'ul Chatel.[56]
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