Pusilha

Pusilhá is an archaeological site in Belize. The location of this Late Classic Maya urban complex, along the east and west flow of trade, made the city a major transfer point for economic activities in the whole region. In addition, the city gave archaeologists a historical view of a secondary Maya site. Large and extended excavation efforts have changed the overall picture of Maya social and political relationships between larger and smaller cities and challenged the prevailing view of conquest and absorption of smaller cities into the larger cities in the region. The research conducted at Pusilhá began in 1927 and continues to this day. The site of Pusilhá is located in the Toledo district of Belize in the town of San Benito Poité. Situated between the Poite and Pusilha rivers that run east and west may have had an impact of why the Maya urban complex was built there. The site is also located favorably between the Caribbean to the south and the Maya Mountains to the east. Pusilhá was also situated in the region for the flow of goods and ideas from the central lowlands and southeastern periphery located in Honduras. With the major Maya urban sites of central lowlands at Caracol and Tikal and the southern lowland site of Copan, Pusilhá was possibly a major transfer point for economic activities in the whole of the lowland region. The initial site survey was conducted in 1927 by archaeologists from the British Museum Expedition to British Honduras that was led by Thomas Joyce. The survey led to the removal of the best preserved stelae from Pusilhá to the British Museum in London. The survey yielded dates and calendrical glyphs that were included in Sylvanus G. Morley's discussion work The Inscriptions of Petén. Thomas Joyce also conducted an extensive ceramics evaluation in 1929. In the intervening 70 years very little research has been done at Pusilhá. This state of affairs has changed with research and excavations carried out by Geoffrey Braswell and the Pusilha Archaeological Project beginning in 2001.