sugarcane worker beside giant stone head guatemala

El Baul – Giant Stone Head Half-Buried

Guatemala

While I’d seen many giant stone heads in Mexico, it was an encounter with a ‘wild’ stone head in a field that really excited me.

Rather than a crispy-clean Olmec head in a modern museum.

Such an ‘authentic’ sacred site – a lost head, exists at El Baul in Guatemala.

ancient giant stone head guatemala
Colossal stone head of the ancient Pipil culture at El Baul, near Santa Lucia de Cotzumalguapa in Guatemala.

The Giant Stone Head of Guatemala


El Baul archaeological site seems lost, sitting amid sugarcane about 5 km from the sweltering town of Santa Lucia Cotzumalguapa.

After leaving the Finca El Baúl – Sugar Refinery HQ and its small museum of Pipil sculpture, which I reached by taxi, I set out on foot towards the fields.

But soon hitched a ride in an old US-school bus taking workers back to town.

They dropped me at a dirt path leading into a jungle of high sugarcane, where I wandered the damp track.

Then a lightning storm came crashing!

My poncho saved me from a soaking – yet I was wet from sweat.

So the rain cooled me.

Pipil sculpture at the small museum near the El Baul site near Santa Lucia Cotzumalguapa.
Pipil sculpture at the small museum at the sugar refinery near the El Baul site near Santa Lucia Cotzumalguapa.

Locating the stone head was difficult


After 30 minutes, I was ready to give up when I encountered a lone worker—carrying a machete and bag.

In broken Spanish, I explained what I wanted from this jungle of sugar cane.

Walking towards a grassy mound – a lost temple platform; he led me to the ancient stone head.


Facts about the Pipil ruins at El Baul


The ruins of El Baul are from the little-known Pipil civilization and their city of Cotzumalguapa, which flourished from 650 to 950 AD.

“Cotzumalguapa was most likely the seat of a powerful state, which exerted political control over a vast region of the Pacific coast.”

SOURCE: https://web.archive.org/web/20071023135932/http://www.authenticmaya.com/Cotzumalguapa.htm
santa lucia cotzumalguapa el baul stone head guatemala
The giant stone head at a site still sacred for Pipil and Maya people at Santa Lucia Cotzumalguapa at the El Baul in Guatemala. They littered the ground with ritual offerings. FOREGROUND: The carving with a head-dress is thought to be a Fire God.

Of the Pipil ruins in the area, it’s El Baul—aka Cotzumalguapa—that’s the largest and most probably where the king’s palaces were located.

Studies show the city’s wealth derived from the production of cacao, and they traded the seeds across Mesoamerica for ritual drinks.


El Baul remains a sacred site


The site of the El Baul stone head near Santa Lucia Cotzumalguapa has been a place of worship for over 1400 years.

Today, Pipil descendants and Maya go to El Baul to pray, light candles and burn copal—pine-incense, and leave offerings of liquor. And, sometimes sacrifice chickens.

The blackened face of the colossal stone head is from the smoke of ritual fires and the wax of dripping candles.

The cane worker was friendly, especially after my tip.

(He deserved it. I’d never found it without him. Probably would’ve gotten lost – since I couldn’t even see a horizon amid the forest of sugarcane).

He happily—but sternly posed for a photo (below).

sugarcane worker beside giant stone head guatemala
The giant stone head of Guatemala: Site of ancient Pipil city of Cotzumalguapa and the sugarcane worker who showed me the site.

His expression and cheekbones – strangely similar to the giant stone face of this surreal ancestor.

Do you agree?

Afterwards, he continued homewards.

And I wandered the 5 km back to the town.

People stared at the lone gringo wandering amid their forgotten corner of Guatemala.

All smiles.

Everybody returned my greetings; I’d offered about 100 “Buenas Tardes”—Good Afternoon(s) on my stroll.

And me, still elated with my stone head encounter.

So when arriving in Santa Lucia, I zipped into a dive bar for cold beers and chicas (but that’s another story).

Travels in Guatemala – 2010

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