In 1968, two Belizean workers digging beneath a pyramid's stairway pulled from a tomb a jade head weighing 4.42 kilos: the largest carved jade object ever found in the Maya world. Today that piece is kept in the vault of the Central Bank of Belize and appears on the country's banknotes; the pyramid where it was found illustrates the label of the national beer. And yet, of the place where all this happened we don't even know its true name: 'Altun Ha' is a modern invention, not the name the city bore in Maya times (which was lost forever). When archaeologists began studying the site in the 20th century, they named it after the neighboring village called Rockstone Pond. 'Altun Ha' is the translation of that place name into Yucatec Maya: from 'haaltun', which denotes a stone reservoir or cistern, and 'ha', water. Hence it's usually translated as 'stone water' or 'water of the rock'.
The name is no accident: next to the site's ceremonial core there's a water reservoir, today known as Rockstone Pond, that the Maya modified and made use of. Water was a decisive resource for any Mesoamerican settlement, and the availability of this reservoir helps explain why a city developed here. So the modern name ended up capturing, almost by chance, a central feature of the place.
This kind of modern naming is common in the Maya archaeology of Belize: many sites receive names in Maya, English or Spanish coined by explorers and archaeologists, since the original names were lost after centuries of abandonment. Altun Ha is one of the cases in which the new name describes the site's geography very well.
Altun Ha has a very long history of occupation. The archaeological evidence indicates that the place was inhabited from the Maya Preclassic period, several centuries before our era, which makes it an ancient settlement within the Maya world of the lowlands. Its great development as a ceremonial and trading center, however, corresponds to the Classic period, roughly between AD 200 and 900.
During that heyday the pyramids, temples and plazas visited today were built, organized around the two central plazas (Plaza A and Plaza B). Archaeologists estimate that at its greatest splendor the city and its surroundings may have been home to between 8,000 and 10,000 people, spread across a settlement of several square kilometers, an area much larger than the visible monumental core. In Plaza A, Structure A-1 —known as the Temple of the Green Tomb— held an elite tomb from the mid-6th century with more than 300 jade objects, jaguar pelts, pearl necklaces, ritual stingray spines and the deteriorated remains of a codex, one of the few traces of a Maya book found in Belize. Although it was not one of the great Maya political capitals, Altun Ha had notable wealth, reflected in the abundant valuables found in its tombs and offerings.
Its location is key to understanding that role: a few kilometers from the Caribbean coast and from the routes to the interior, Altun Ha was well placed to take part in trade. That's why many specialists describe it more as a trading and ceremonial hub —a point of exchange between the sea and the interior cities— than as a great seat of political power. That commercial function would explain the quantity and quality of the prestige goods found at the site.
Although the existence of ruins in the area was known to local inhabitants, Altun Ha was not the subject of systematic archaeological study until the second half of the 20th century. Starting in the 1960s, the Canadian archaeologist David Pendergast, of the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, led extensive excavations that brought to light the scale of the site: its plazas, temples, tombs and offerings.
Pendergast's campaigns, carried out over several years, made it possible to map the structures, document the occupation sequence and, above all, recover a huge quantity of ritual and funerary objects. Among the finds were jade pieces, ceramics, sea shells, obsidian and other materials that confirmed both the city's wealth and its long-range trade connections.
Pendergast's work made Altun Ha one of the best-documented Maya sites in Belize and laid the groundwork for its subsequent conservation and opening to tourism. Today the site is protected and managed by the Belizean archaeological authorities, and it's one of the most visited in the country, largely thanks to the impact of those excavations and the treasures they revealed.
The find that gave Altun Ha worldwide fame occurred in 1968, during Pendergast's excavations in the Temple of the Masonry Altars (Structure B-4). It was two Belizean workers on the team who, in a tomb hidden beneath the stairway, found a monumental head carved in jade representing Kinich Ahau, the Maya sun god (though some specialists suggest it may be the deified portrait of a ruler). The piece weighs 4.42 kilos and stands about 15 centimeters tall: it's the largest carved jade object found in the entire Maya area. It lay alongside some forty other objects in the tomb of an elite figure, sealed around AD 600-650. Since then the original has been kept in the vault of the Central Bank of Belize and is displayed only on special occasions; a replica can be seen in the Museum of Belize.
Beyond its artistic and archaeological value, the jade head became a national symbol of Belize. Its image, and that of the Altun Ha site itself, are associated with emblems as recognizable as the national beer, Belikin —whose label shows the pyramid of the Temple of the Masonry Altars— and also appear in the iconography of Belizean coins and banknotes. Few archaeological finds have had such a broad cultural impact in a country.
The piece is also a testament to Altun Ha's prestige and connections: jade was not produced locally but arrived through Maya trade networks (the most important jade sources were in the Motagua Valley, in present-day Guatemala). That a city of modest size could accumulate and carve a jade piece of that magnitude confirms its importance as a trading and ceremonial center.
Like so many other Maya cities of the lowlands, Altun Ha was abandoned toward the end of the Classic period, in the context of the so-called Maya 'collapse' that affected numerous centers between the 9th and 10th centuries. The causes of that phenomenon are debated among specialists —prolonged droughts, overexploitation of resources, conflicts, changes in trade routes and political crises are usually mentioned in combination— but the result was that the city ceased to function as an inhabited center and its structures lay covered by the jungle for centuries.
After its rediscovery and excavation in the 20th century, Altun Ha came back to life, this time as heritage and a symbol of Belizean identity. Its main pyramid illustrates the country's most popular beer, its jade head is a recognizable emblem, and the site became one of the most visited archaeological destinations in Belize, closely tied to cruise tourism and to excursions from Belize City.
Today Altun Ha is managed by the national archaeological authorities as a protected site. It represents well the way Belize has integrated its Maya heritage into its contemporary identity: a small, multicultural country that looks with pride at the ancient cities that flourished in its territory, and that has made places like Altun Ha a central part of its image before the world.