Qualla: Tazumal https://qualla.com/tazumal en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:12 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/d/4/2/p/tazumal-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Tazumal https://qualla.com/tazumal Tazumal: Introduction https://qualla.com/tazumal/ Photo credit Daniel Schwen, CC BY-SA 4.0. In the K'iche' language, Tazumal means "pyramid where the victims were burned." The name has outlasted the ceremonies it once described, and the pyramid still dominates the town of Chalchuapa in western El Salvador -- 24 meters of layered stone rising from a site that was occupied, abandoned, rebuilt, and reoccupied across more than a millennium. When archaeologist Stanley Boggs began excavating in the 1940s, he found something unusual for a site this far south: evidence of connections stretching to Teotihuacan in central Mexico, to Copan in Honduras, to Chichen Itza on the Yucatan Peninsula, and to Kaminaljuyu in the Guatemalan highlands. Tazumal was not a provincial outpost. It was a crossroads.

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Image: Daniel Schwen | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 22 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/4/2/p/tazumal-wp/d42p-tazumal-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Tazumal: A Volcano Interrupts https://qualla.com/tazumal/ Photo credit Mariordo (Mario Roberto Durán Ortiz), CC BY-SA 3.0. Chalchuapa was already ancient when Tazumal's builders began their work. The broader archaeological zone shows massive construction from the Preclassic period, evidence of a city that once rivaled its neighbors in scale and ambition. Then the Ilopango volcano, 75 kilometers to th...

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Image: Mariordo (Mario Roberto Durán Ortiz) | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 22 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/4/2/p/tazumal-wp/d42p-tazumal-a-volcano-interrupts.mp3 0:06 2 full Tazumal: Trade Routes in Stone https://qualla.com/tazumal/ Photo credit Manuel de Corselas, CC BY-SA 3.0. The artifacts tell a story of reach. Green obsidian found at Tazumal could only have come from central Mexico. Ceramics and architectural styles echo Copan, the great Maya city in western Honduras. Sculptures of Xipe Totec, the central Mexican deity of spring and renewal, and cha...

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Image: Manuel de Corselas | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 22 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/4/2/p/tazumal-wp/d42p-tazumal-trade-routes-in-stone.mp3 0:06 3 full Tazumal: The Pyramid Rebuilt and Rebuilt Again https://qualla.com/tazumal/ Photo credit Mariordo (Mario Roberto Durán Ortiz), CC BY-SA 3.0. Structure B1-1, the principal pyramid, underwent at least four major phases of construction. Each generation built over the last, expanding the footprint and adding height. The earliest phase stood 4.7 meters tall with three stepped levels. Successive builders raised it to five l...

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Image: Mariordo (Mario Roberto Durán Ortiz) | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 22 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/4/2/p/tazumal-wp/d42p-tazumal-the-pyramid-rebuilt-and-rebuilt-again.mp3 0:06 4 full Tazumal: What the Dead Carried https://qualla.com/tazumal/ Photo credit Beatriz Fortinez, CC BY-SA 3.0. Beneath the platforms, burials tell quieter stories. Workers excavating the eastern platform of B1-1 reported finding many graves, though Boggs never documented them in his reports -- a gap that frustrates modern archaeologists. One burial that was properly recorded, found under ...

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Image: Beatriz Fortinez | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 22 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/4/2/p/tazumal-wp/d42p-tazumal-what-the-dead-carried.mp3 0:06 5 full