GUATEMALA: The discovery of stone tablets that record 30 years of Mayan history may have solved a mystery that has puzzled archeologists for nearly 50 years - the location of an elusive city known only as Site Q.
Looted artefacts from Site Q - an abbreviation of the Spanish "que" or "which" - are in museum and private collections around the world, but their source has long been a topic of debate.
The tablets, discovered by archeologist Marcello A Canuto of Yale University, may finally lay the debate to rest, proving that Site Q is an ancient royal village called La Corona in the northwest Peten region of Guatemala.
La Corona has been suspected of being Site Q since its discovery 10 years ago, but the tablets provide what Mr Canuto calls "incontrovertible" proof.
The tablets indicate that La Corona lay on a royal road constructed by the Mayan empire ruled by the city of Calakmul. It may have been the site of epic battles in the 7th and 8th centuries between Calakmul and the nearby Maya city of Tikal.
The saga of Site Q began more than 40 years ago when the antiquities market was flooded with exquisitely carved monuments of apparent Mayan origin.
Because of their similar style, Australian archeologist Peter Mathews suggested they all came from a previously unknown location that he called Site Q.
Ten years ago, Harvard archeologists David Stuart and Ian Graham discovered La Corona in an isolated region about 13 miles north of El Peru-Waka. - (LA Times-Washington Post service)