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Dos Pilas is a Pre-Columbian site of the Maya civilization located in what is now the department of Petén, Guatemala. It dates to the Late Classic Period, and was founded by an offshoot of the dynasty of the great city of Tikal in AD 629 in order to control trade routes in the Petexbatún region, particularly the Pasión River. In AD 648 Dos Pilas broke away from Tikal and became a vassal state of Calakmul, although the first two kings of Dos Pilas continued to use the same emblem glyph that Tikal did. It was a predator state from the beginning, conquering Itzan, Arroyo de Piedra and Tamarindito. Dos Pilas and a nearby city, Aguateca, eventually became the twin capitals of a single ruling dynasty. The kingdom as a whole has been named as the Petexbatun Kingdom, after Petexbatún Lake, a body of water draining into the Pasión River.
Dos Pilas gives an important glimpse into the great rivalries and political strife that characterised the Late Classic. Much of the history of Dos Pilas can now be reconstructed, with a level of detail which is almost unparalleled in the Maya area.
On June 12, 1970, the site was declared a National Monument according to Article 1210 of the Guatemalan Ministry of Education.
Dos Pilas is Guatemalan Spanish for two wells (or water containers), and this is the generally accepted meaning of the name, even though early investigator Pierre Ivanoff stated that it meant two stelae. The emblem for the site and/or the polity of Dos Pilas is the same as that of Tikal, Mutul. Its exact meaning is obscure but the drawing suggests a hair knot.
Dos Pilas is located in the Petexbatún region of the Petén Basin, in the southwest of the department of Petén, in northern Guatemala. It lies between the Pasión and the Salinas rivers. The site has an elevation of 160 metres (525 ft) above mean sea level. Dos Pilas falls within the municipality of Sayaxché, a town on the banks of the Pasión River. Dos Pilas lies about 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) east of the border with Mexico, 120 kilometres (75 mi) to the southwest of the Maya ruins of Tikal, and 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) west of Tamarindito. Lake Petexbatún and the Pasión River form a part of the drainage of the Usumacinta River.
At the height of its power the kingdom covered an area of some 1,500 square miles (3,885 square km).
The local landscape consists of heavily forested ridges interspersed with low lying wetlands, rivers and lakes. The area is subject to high annual rainfall, averaging 2,500 mm (98.4 in).
Bʼalaj Chan Kʼawiil (Ruler 1) (c. 648–692+) was born on 15 October AD 625. He claimed to be a member of the Tikal royal line. On Dos Pilas Panel 6 he names a king of Tikal as his father. He probably saw himself as the legitimate heir to the Tikal throne and defected from Tikal in AD 648 to found Dos Pilas as a rival kingdom under the overlordship of Calakmul. Bʼalaj Chan Kʼawiil is known to have taken two wives, one of them from the nearby Petexbatún kingdom of Itzan. His father was Kʼinich Muwaan Jol II, who was either the 23rd or 24th ruler in Tikalʼs dynastic line. A daughter of Bʼalaj Chan Kʼawiil, Wak Chanil Ajaw, left Dos Pilas to found a dynasty at Naranjo.
Itzamnaaj Bʼalam (c. 697) had a short reign. He was the son of Bʼalaj Chan Kʼawiil and his wife from Itzan.
Itzamnaaj Kʼawiil (Ruler 2) (698–726), another son of Bʼalaj Chan Kawiil, was born in AD 673, probably in Calakmul during his familyʼs exile after Dos Pilas was defeated by Tikal. His birth abroad seems to have been cause for embarrassment, with discrepancies in the calendar dates recorded on monuments likely to be the result of attempts to show that he was born in Dos Pilas itself. He reigned for 28 years. He died on October 726. A stele erected by his successor records that he was buried four days later, at night and within Dos Pilas. A tomb believed to be that of this king was found under Structure L5-1 in the site core.
Uchaʼan Kʼin Bʼalam (Ruler 3, "Master of Sun Jaguar") (727–741) seems not to have been a direct heir to the throne but rather a regent providing strong leadership while the heir was still a child. Twenty years before his rise to the throne he was already a prominent figure in Dos Pilas, responsible for the capture of the lord of Tikal in AD 705 and being closely involved in rituals performed by the previous king. Uchaʼan Kʼin Bʼalam took a wife from Cancuén, a city that controlled the upper reaches of the Pasión River. "Master of Sun Jaguar" died in May 741, his death is recorded on Stela 1 at his twin capital of Aguateca where it is believed that he was buried, although his tomb has not yet been found.
Kʼawiil Chan Kʼinich (Ruler 4) (741–761+) was installed on the throne of Dos Pilas in June of AD 741, 26 days after the death of "Master of Sun Jaguar". It is not known when he died but he was forced to flee Dos Pilas in AD 761 and was never mentioned again after that.
The early history of the Dos Pilas site is unclear; there are traces of an earlier indigenous dynasty predating the arrival of Bʼalaj Chan Kʼawiil from Tikal. From the Early Classic the Petexbatún region had been dominated by a Maya kingdom centred on the sites of Tamarindito and Arroyo de Piedra. Bʼalaj Chan Kʼawiil founded Dos Pilas within the territory of this pre-existing kingdom and the new city quickly came to dominate the region.
The interactions between Classic Period Maya city-states were deeply linked to the long-running power struggle between the two Maya "superpowers", Tikal and Calakmul, and the history of Dos Pilas is no exception.
In AD 629, the Tikal king Kʼinich Muwaan Jol II installed his son Balaj Chan K'awiil, aged four, as ruler of Dos Pilas. With the establishment of the new kingdom, Dos Pilas advertised its origin by adopting the emblem glyph of Tikal as its own. For the next two decades he fought loyally for his brother and overlord at Tikal.
In AD 648, king Yuknoom Chʼeen II ("Yuknoom the Great") of Calakmul attacked and defeated Dos Pilas, capturing Balaj Chan K'awiil. At about the same time, the king of Tikal was killed. Yuknoom Cheʼen II then reinstated Balaj Chan Kʼawiil upon the throne of Dos Pilas as his vassal. In an extraordinary act of treachery for someone claiming to be of the Tikal royal family, he thereafter served as a loyal ally of Calakmul, Tikalʼs sworn enemy. The exact methods used by Calakmul to induce Balaj Chan Kʼawiil to switch sides are unknown.
King Nuun Ujol Chaak of Tikal attacked and captured Dos Pilas in AD 672, driving Bʼalaj Chan Kʼawiil into a five-year exile, probably in Calakmul.
This exile was only ended in AD 677, on the same day that Calakmul celebrated a success over Tikal, revealing Bʼalaj Chan Kʼawiilʼs obvious dependency on his foreign overlord.
Tikal and Dos Pilas went to battle again in AD 679 and Tikal suffered a humiliating defeat by its smaller rival. Although Dos Pilas celebrated this as the victorious conclusion of the war, neither side had gained any real advantage over the other. For Dos Pilas, this battle represented the consolidation of its kingdom and the failure of Tikal to crush its splinter state before it gained a foothold. The hieroglyphic texts at Dos Pilas describe the victory in graphic terms, recording "pools of blood" and "piles of heads" as the result of a major battle between the two cities, with Dos Pilas very likely having received military aid from Calakmul. Bʼalaj Chan Kʼawiil consolidated his power with marriage alliances. He took at least two wives; his main wife was a noblewoman from Itzan, another city in the Pasión drainage. Their marriage produced Balaj Chan Kʼawiilʼs heirs, Itzamnaaj Balam and Itzamnaaj Kʼawiil. Balaj Chan Kʼawiil had a famous daughter with a second wife, this daughter was Lady Six Sky who was despatched to Naranjo to refound its obliterated dynasty. Balaj Chan Kʼawiil is known to have made several further visits to Calakmul; in 682 he celebrated a period ending ceremony there under Yuknoom the Great and in 686 he attended the enthroning of his successor, Yuknoom Yichʼaak Kʼakʼ.
Calakmul and its allies suffered after the defeat of Calakmul by Tikal in 695, shifting the balance of power in the Maya lowlands. Around this time Balaj Chan Kʼawiil died and was succeeded by one of his sons, Itzamnaaj Balam, although the exact year is not clear from the hieroglyphic texts. Itzamnaaj Balam did not reign for long and he was replaced by his brother Itzamnaaj Kʼawiil in 698.
The war with Tikal continued under the new king and in AD 705 Tikal was again defeated and its lord captured. This victory was overseen by Itzamnaaj Kʼaawiilʼs general Uchaʼan Kʼin Bʼalam, who would later become king himself. After this victory Dos Pilas benefitted from tribute in the form of labour and wealth, resulting in the rapid expansion of the city. At this time Itzamnaaj Kʼawiil ordered the building of the El Duende group centred on a sizeable temple on a hilltop east of the Main Group. Victories over unknown, presumably minor, enemies are recorded to have taken place in AD 717 and 721. Itzamnaaj Kʼawiil raised five stelae in the El Duende group to celebrate his military victories. Itzamnaaj Kʼawiilʼs died in 726 and was buried four days later, as recorded on Stela 8. A royal tomb excavated under Structure 5-1 is probably that of this ruler.
Uchaʼan Kʼin Bʼalam was enthroned in 727, probably as regent for Kʼawiil Chan Kʼinich, Itzamnaaj Kʼawiilʼs young son and heir. By the 8th century AD, Dos Pilas was powerful enough to attack the much larger city of Seibal on the Pasión River. In AD 735 the Lord of Dos Pilas (Ruler 3, "Master of Sun Jaguar") attacked the city, capturing Yichʼaak Bʼalam, its king. The captive king was not executed but rather became a vassal under the lord of Dos Pilas. At about this time, the nearby site at Aguateca became a twin capital of the Dos Pilas kingdom, with victory monuments being erected simultaneously in both cities.
In AD 743 Kʼawiil Chan Kʼinich, went to war against the sites of Ahkul and El Chorro. Two years later, in AD 745, he went to war against the distant cities of Yaxchilán, on the Usumacinta River, and Motul de San José on Lake Petén Itzá. The capture of the lords of both cities, and also the lord of El Chorro, is depicted on Hieroglyphic Stairway 3.
Dos Pilas continued to exert control over Seibal even after the death of "Master of Sun Jaguar", with his successor Kʼawiil Chan Kinich presiding over rituals performed at the vassal site in AD 745–7.
Ongoing conflict in the Maya region soon destabilised the whole area following the defeat of Dos Pilasʼ patron Calakmul and in 761 the city was dramatically abandoned after Tamarindito and other Petexbatún centres rebelled against their Dos Pilas overlord. A hieroglyphic stairway at Tamarindito mentions the enforced flight of Kʼawiil Chan Kʼinich, who was never mentioned again. The Dos Pilas royal family probably transported itself to the more defensible Aguateca, which lies only 10 km to the southeast. The violent end of Dos Pilas is evident from the smashed remains of a royal throne recovered from the Bat Palace. The entire Petexbatún region was engulfed by warfare in the late 8th century AD until almost all the settlements of the former Dos Pilas kingdom were abandoned. The monuments of Ixlú in the central Petén lakes region bear some hieroglyphic texts that closely resemble texts from Dos Pilas, suggesting that the lords of Ixlú may have been refugees from the collapse of the Petexbatún region.
A small group of refugees occupied Dos Pilas after its abandonment, throwing up hastily built defensive walls constructed from stone stripped from the deserted temples and palaces. These palisaded walls formed concentric patterns with no regard for the pre-existing architecture at the site. This village was overrun and itself abandoned in the early years of the 9th century AD, at which point the history of Dos Pilas as a settlement ends.
The collapse of the Dos Pilas state seems to have benefited other sites in the region, such as Itzan, Cancuén and Machaquila, which all demonstrate renewed strength coincident with the fall of the city.
Comprehensive excavations across the Petexbatún region have defined the core architectural sectors, subterranean karst networks, and emergency defensive modifications at Dos Pilas:
The ruins of Dos Pilas were first reported in 1953–4 by two brothers from Sayaxché, José and Lisandro Flores, but local residents probably already knew of their existence. Pierre Ivanoff lead an expedition to the site in 1960. He described the ruins, which he called Dos Pozos (two wells in Spanish) in his 1973 book Monuments of a Civilization: Maya, in which he claimed to have discovered the ruins.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Dos Pilas”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.