Tenam Puente

Tenam Puente is an archaeological site of the Maya culture in the Balum Canan valley, in the municipality of La Trinitaria, 12 kilometers south of Comitán, Chiapas, in Mexico. It is reached by a deviation from Federal Highway 190 that leads to La Trinitaria. The name Tenam derives from the Nahuatl tenamitl, which means wall or fortress, while Puente alludes to an old farm that existed at the beginning of the 20th century, whose land today forms the Francisco Sarabia ejido.

Although the site dates back to the classic period (between 300 and 600 AD), everything indicates that its main period of occupation was the early Postclassic (approximately between 900 and 1200 AD), when the Mayan sites of the central area were abandoned. The site represents the transition from the Classic Period to the Postclassic, one of the least studied stages of Chiapas archaeology. The last date of registration of the place is around the year 874 AD. Tenam Puente and nearby Chinkultic were a modest power on the western fringe of the Maya highlands and appear to have survived until around 1200 AD, before being abandoned for reasons that are still unclear. It was first mentioned in the book Tribes and Temples, edited by Frans Blom and Oliver La Farge in 1928.

Its strategic location let its inhabitants control the route of important commercial networks linking the highlands of Chiapas and Guatemala with the central depression of Chiapas. Ceramics from the excavations show very active trade with distant areas, including snails from the Gulf of Mexico. Burials show the presence of important people who received numerous offerings, such as vessels, jade objects, ornaments of shell and stingray spine. The finds confirm that Tenam Puente took part in the last stage of the Classic Mayan culture and the transition to the Early Postclassic, when metallurgy becomes stronger and objects made of alabaster appear.

The site was built on a mountain with a series of calcareous hills, about 1,600 to 1,700 m above sea level, dominating the comiteca plain that extends to the Montebello Lakes. It consists of large platforms with monumental retaining walls, some with stone ramps in the form of buttresses. The nuclear zone is made up of a little more than 60 structures spread over approximately 30 hectares. Most of the important buildings are on the north side, in the Acropolis, with its structures 4 and 7, the highest point of the site. To build it the hills were levelled with high and long terraces, the upper ones up to 20 meters high, and the buildings were arranged around patios and plazas. A group to the south corresponds to temples and residences of the upper classes.

The word Tenam is a hybrid toponymic: Tenam derives from the Nahuatl tenamitl which means 'wall' or 'fortress', while the word Puente alludes to the name of an old farm existing at the beginning of the 20th century, whose land today constitutes the Francisco Sarabia ejido, where this attraction is now located.