El Rey Archaeological Zone

This guide to El Rey Archaeological Zone opens in 1909, when two Englishmen hacking through jungle scrub uncovered a carved stone face and decided it belonged to a king. It follows the question that carving has posed ever since, whether it depicts a ruler or a god, and the mapping work by archaeologists Thomas Gann and Samuel Lothrop that followed. A 1975 excavation beneath one of the temples turned up a burial with a copper axe, a bracelet, and shell and bone ornaments, alongside the site's centuries as a trading port moving salt, jade, and obsidian along this coast.