Guatemala: Did you mean...?

Cochineal is a brilliant red dye extracted from the crushed bodies of parasitic insects which prey on cacti in the warmer parts of the Americas. The dye was an important part of trade in ancient Mesoamerica and South America and throughout...

The Council of the Indies (El Real y Supremo Consejo de las Indias) operated from 1524 to 1834 and was the supreme governing body of the Spanish Empire in the Americas and Spanish East Indies. Reporting directly to the monarch, the Council...

Adelantado was an office awarded by the Spanish Crown to conduct military campaigns in the medieval period but then repurposed during the Age of Exploration to grant an individual the right to privately fund expeditions of discovery and conquest...

The pantheon of the Maya is a vast collection of deities worshipped throughout the regions of Yucatan, Quintana Roo, Campeche, Tabasco, and Chiapas in Mexico and southward through Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador and Honduras. These gods informed...

The staggering quantity of gold the conquistadors extracted from the Americas allowed Spain to become the richest country in the world. The thirst for gold to pay for armies and gain personal enrichment resulted in waves of expeditions of...

The sea dogs, as they were disparagingly called by the Spanish authorities, were privateers who, with the consent and sometimes financial support of Elizabeth I of England (r. 1558-1603 CE), attacked and plundered Spanish colonial settlements...

The Popol Vuh recounts the story of twins who journeyed to Xibalba. For the Maya, their round of adventures serves as a metaphor for timeless, repeating cycles and for the regeneration of earth and all living things. – Gene S. Stuart, Mayanist...

The English mariner, privateer, and explorer Francis Drake (c. 1540-1596 CE) made his circumnavigation of the world between 1577 and 1580 CE. Only the second to achieve this feat after the expedition of the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan...

The Jade Museum (Spanish: Museo del Jade y de la Cultura Precolombina) in San José, Costa Rica houses the world's largest collection of ancient jade from the Americas. With nearly 7,000 pieces in its collection, the artifacts at the Museum...

Censer, Guatemala, Maya culture, classical, 600 - 900 CE, terracotta. Musée du Cinquantenaire (Brussels, Belgium). Made from 80 pictures with MeshRoom 2.8. For more updates, please consider to follow me on Twitter at @GeoffreyMarchal