Archaeological Investigations at Nakum, Peten, Guatemala: New Data on the Site’s Development and the Discovery of a Royal Tomb

The paper presents the main results of excavations conducted by the Institute of Archaeology of the Jagiellonian University in pre-Columbian Mayan city Nakum in northern Guatemala. These excavations were carried out in 2006 in two complexes of the site to verify several hypotheses about the relationship between the Mayan culture and the Teotihuacan culture, the location of royal burials within pyramids and the settlement of the final classical period. Research provided a wealth of valuable information about the development of the Mayan civilization, and several spectacular discoveries were made, including the discovery of the royal tomb dated at the late classical period (c. 700 AD), which contained, inter alia, the jade breastplate covered by hieroglyphic inscriptions.