Palma Sola

Palma Sola is a small archaeological zone high up in Acapulco's 'amphitheatre', the ring of hills behind the bay, on the southern slope of Cerro El Veladero. It takes its name from the Palma Sola neighbourhood around it, where a single palm once stood beside the parish church. Nobody knows who carved the rocks or what the place was called; INAH dates the occupation to between about 800 BC and AD 750, with most of the activity in the Late Preclassic and Classic periods.

The site covers about 3 to 4 hectares and holds 18 granite boulders carved by chiselling and polishing. Most of the designs are simple human figures, with circles or squares for heads and lines for bodies, along with faces, geometric shapes and what appear to be calendar counts tied to the farming year. Rock 1, at the top, sits under a big overhang and shows a man and a woman with raised arms and open hands; others show groups that seem to be praying and dancing, figures in feathered headdresses read as shamans, and masks used in ritual. Rock 10 has a circle divided into four with stepped pyramids pointing to its centre, interpreted as a marker for the solstices and equinoxes, and rock 15 has carved streams, spirals, two whales and two crocodiles. The rocks are numbered from 18 at the bottom to 1 at the top.

The site was refurbished and reopened on 21 June 2002 with a reception building and exhibition halls; today an introductory room explains the petroglyphs, the landscape and the research done here. A path of steep steps, rebuilt in reddish cement to blend with the hillside, climbs from rock to rock, and there are viewing stations, trails, a bookshop, toilets and parking. A stream forms beside rock 1 in the rainy season.