Izapa

Izapa lies in the hills of the Soconusco, about 10 kilometers east of Tapachula on the road to the Talismán border crossing, in the municipality of Tuxtla Chico. It was one of the earliest and largest settlements in the region: people may have lived here from around 1500 BC, and the town remained occupied until roughly 1200 AD. Its peak came in the Late Formative period, in the last centuries before the Common Era, when it was a political and religious center for the cacao-growing coast. Many researchers link its builders to Mixe-Zoque speakers, and the site is often described as a bridge between Olmec traditions and the later Maya.

The New World Archaeological Foundation mapped 161 mounds here, arranged around plazas over an area roughly a kilometer and a half from north to south. The buildings are low platforms and stepped pyramids faced with river cobbles; Mound 30A, the largest, rose about 10 meters. The layout is turned about 21 degrees east of north, lining the city up with the Tacaná volcano and, it seems, with the sunset of the December solstice. Some scholars even place the origin of the 260-day ritual calendar here, a debated idea.

Izapa is best known for its sculpture. Dozens of carved stelae, many paired with round altars shaped like toads or frogs, show scenes of gods, rulers and myths in what archaeologists call the Izapan style, a name now used for related carvings across the Pacific slope of Guatemala. Some original pieces are kept on site under small shelters, others are in museums. Three groups are open to visitors: Groups A and B on one side of the highway and Group F, with a ball court and later buildings, on the other. It is a quiet, green site among fruit and cacao orchards, and on a clear morning the volcano rises right behind the mounds.