Mound E-III-3 (Acropolis)

14.6333°N, 90.5500°W.

Mound E-III-3, the Acropolis at Kaminaljuyú, sits within the modern boundaries of Guatemala City — the highland Maya capital that was largely overbuilt by twentieth-century urban expansion. The mound was built between approximately 400 BCE and 100 CE during the Late Preclassic, of compacted earth, adobe, and pumice fill rising about 20 metres above the original plaza floor. The structure contains some of the richest Preclassic Maya tombs ever excavated — interments accompanied by jade plaques, mosaic vessels, and stingray spines, indicating a sophisticated stratified society long before the Classic Maya emerged in the lowlands. Excavations by Alfred Kidder, Jesse Jennings, and Edwin Shook for the Carnegie Institution from 1936 to 1942 documented the mound before much of Kaminaljuyú was bulldozed for housing developments.

Mound E-III-3 is a pyramid whose Preclassic tombs were richer than what most Classic Maya cities produced, on land that is now under streets.