July 2025: The Tomb of Te’ Kab Chaak

One excavation that was not overly represented in the 2025 blog was that labeled C117H associated with the Northeast Acropolis. This focused re-excavation of a small portion of the 1993 trench discovered a new tomb at the end of Week 3 of the field season, but only limited artifact photos were placed on the web entries made during subsequent weeks in the 2025 blog. Work continued in this chamber until it was backfilled in Week 8 of the field season. There was no mention of the actual context in which the artifacts were found. This was done so as to not draw attention to the investigation while we were in the middle of excavating the tomb of an individual whom we believe to be Te’ Kab Chaak, the dynastic founder and first ruler of Caracol (according to the hieroglyphic record). While the Institute of Archaeology was aware of the tomb from the time we started its excavation, only individuals working directly with the project were informed about its existence. Guards were posted in the Northeast Acropolis every night for the duration of the tomb investigation, and its excavation took several weeks to accomplish. The materials in the chamber and significance of the find will be presented at the Santa Fe Institute (Collaborative Visions of Power: Teotihuacan and the Lowland Maya) on August 20, 2025 in both written and visual form. The archaeological write-up for the tomb will appear in the final 2025 field report.

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