Archaeology Monday: Balamku

Welcome to "Archaeology Monday" our newest feature here on YucatanDiscovery.com! Check back every week for a new profile and photos of some of our favourite archaeological sites! Located on the Escarcega-Chetumal highway and just a couple km (west to east) from Calakmul, Balamku is an often overlooked classic period archaeological site which certainly merits a visit. Architecturally Balamkú is clearly a Petén style site, however as is the case with many sites in the most southern regions of Campeche, Rio Bec features are also easily observable. Balamku appears to have been first settled in the third century BC and seems to have been continuously inhabited until the beginning of the second millennium. Though by the 1990s much of the site had been looted a team of Mexican and French archaeologists discovered a trench which lead them to a large painted stucco frieze that had originally been art of an upper facade. This stunning frieze depicts four “ascension scenes” which