page_title: Cerro Quiac
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Cerro Quiac / History
caption_attribution_description: English: K'iaqbal, Cantel, Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. Maya ritual site with a couple of pre-Columbian scultpures. Español: K'iaqbal, municipio de Cantel, departamento de Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. Sitio ritual maya, con dos escuturas precolombinas.
context_page_description: Cerro Quiac is a small Maya archaeological site located at an altitude of 2,635 metres, overlooking the Plains of Urbina in the Guatemalan Highlands. When investigated in 1970 it had five stone sculptures, by 1977 only four were left. The sculptures included figures and geometric decoration. The site is still used for contemporary Maya rituals. Cerro Quiac is located in the northeast of the municipality of Cantel, within the boundaries of the hamlet of Chirijquiac.
  Cerro Quiac contains two small groups of pre-Columbian architecture. An ethnohistoric document from the early Colonial period describes the site as a fortress founded by the Mam Maya, who were subsequently driven from the area by K'iche' expansion. Cerro Quiac has been dated to the Early Postclassic period of Mesoamerican chronology. Local K'iche' folklore holds that the archaeological site was a training ground for K'iche' warriors, and that the K'iche' hero Tecun Uman died upon the hill.
context_section_description: Recovered ceramics date the site to the Early Postclassic period of Mesoamerican chronology (c. 950–1200 AD). The early colonial K'iche' document entitled Título C'oyoi describes the site as a fortress built by the Mam Maya of Zaculeu. There is no archaeological evidence of occupation after the Mam were driven from the site by K'iche' expansion. The ceramics and stelae are likely to be Mam in origin, and to date to the 13th or 14th century AD.
caption: Sculpted stone at Cerro Quiac
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