10 ARCHAEOLOGY • March/April 2018FROM THE TRENCHES
THE SITE
While the reserve is accessible from Gua-
temala, most visitors will likely arrive from
Belize. El Pilar can be reached from the
village of Bullet Tree Falls, just outside the
town of San Ignacio. A Belize Institute of Ar-
chaeology sign in Bullet Tree Falls marks an
all-weather dirt road that leads to the site.
Local tour compa-
nies offer excursions,
and visitors can ar-
rive by taxi, rental
car, mountain bike,
or horse, or they can
hike the roughly sev-
en-mile road. Guests
are encouraged to
explore on their
own, but site care-
takers and local tour
guides are a helpful
resource for any in-
terested traveler.WHILE
YOU’RE
THERE
Belize’s Cayo Dis-
trict is home to a
wealth of Maya his-
torical sites. Begin
your journey at El
Pilar in the morn-
ing when it is cool-
est and then travel
back to San Igna-
cio to have lunch
and visit the near-
by Cahal Pech, believed to have been an
acropolis-palace for an elite Maya family
during the Classic period, between a.d.
250 and 900.
—Marley BrownEl Pilar, an ancient Maya city that straddles the border between modern-day Belize and Guatemala, boasts more than 25 plazas
and numerous houses, temples, and grand monumental structures. Archaeologist Anabel Ford, who first recorded the site in 1983,
works with local Maya people, in cooperation with both governments, to run El Pilar Archaeological Reserve for Maya Flora and
Fauna. Much as it may have been some 2,300 years ago when first settled, the city remains nestled in the forest, one with the natu-
ral environment. This distinguishes El Pilar from other, perhaps better-known, Maya sites throughout Mexico and Central America,
where trees are often removed and lawns manicured to accommodate tourists.
El Pilar, a major urban center at its height between a.d. 500 and 1000, featured large forest gardens, relying on swidden, or
slash-and-burn, agriculture. Ford has worked for decades with the native Maya community to preserve indigenous agricultural and
gardening practices. At El Pilar, as a result, visitors can explore the remains of the ancient city by following nature trails leading
them through plazas, and can discover Maya ruins as some of the first archaeologists to encounter them did in the nineteenth
century. “This is how I would like the site to be viewed,” Ford says, “through the roots and the trees and vines, so you really feel like
you’re coming upon it for the first time.”
the mid-nineteenth century to predict
the existence and location of Neptune
based on anomalies observed in the
orbit of Uranus. In a new application of
the concept, modern-day economists
use the structural gravity model to posit
trade relationships between economic
units based on their size and the distance
between them. “It’s a very successful
model,” says Cosar. “It can predict trade
flows between cities or countries with an
80 percent success rate.”
The team began by isolating 2 , 806
tablets that mentioned travel itinerar-
ies between two or more cities. They
then employed equations based on
the structural gravity model to predict
trade flow between different centers.
“We know where Kanesh and the other
known cities are located,” says Cosar.
“Depending on how much a lost city
interacted with known cities, we couldestimate the distance between those cit-
ies, as well as their economic size.” The
model predicted locations of the lost
cities within a radius of about 20 miles.
In many cases, the team’s estimates lined
up with proposals made by historians. In
other cases, they supported one histo-
rian’s proposal over another. Remarkably,
the ancient economic sizes of the cities
could also be used to predict the income
and population of cities now located in
the same regions in modern-day Turkey.
The key to a city’s long-term success,
it seems, lies in its position on natural
trade routes, ones first plied by donkey
caravans some 4 , 000 years ago.
—Eric A. PowEllOFF THE GRID
ARCHAEOLOGY • March/April 2018EL PILAR, BELIZE10Merchants’ quarter at KaneshEl Pilar, BelizeCaretaker, El Pilar