San Bartolo (Maya site)

San Bartolo is a small pre-Columbian Maya archaeological site located in the Department of Petén in northern Guatemala, northeast of Tikal and roughly fifty miles from the nearest settlement. San Bartolo's fame derives from its splendid Late-Preclassic mural paintings still heavily influenced by Olmec tradition and from examples of early and as yet undecipherable Maya script.

The Maya site includes an 85-foot pyramid named "Las Ventanas" (The Windows); the Temple of "Las Pinturas" (The Paintings); an early royal tomb in the "Tigrillo Complex" (Ocelot Complex); and (in the "Jabalí" [Wild Boar] group some 500 mt. to the east from the central Plaza) a triadic complex similar to the H group in Uaxactún and Tikal's North Acropolis. The pyramid was constructed from ca 300 BC (base rooms) and was completed ca 50 AD.

In 2001, in the base of a pyramid, a team led by William Saturno (a researcher for the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology) discovered a room with murals that were carbon-dated as from 100 BC, making them the oldest ones to date. Excavation started in March 2003. The murals were stabilized and a special technique was used for photographically recording the paintings. Fallen fragments were pieced together and also photographed. Detailed reconstruction drawings were made by Heather Hurst. The iconography of the mural scenes was subsequently analyzed and interpreted by project iconographer Karl Taube. Besides the murals, the oldest known Maya royal tomb was discovered on San Bartolo, by archaeologist Monica Pellecer Alecio.

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