Ancient Maya stairways carved with centuries of dynastic history hide a deliberately altered timeline, according to a new study published in the journal Latin American Antiquity. Researchers say scribes at a ceremonial site in Mexico reworked parts of their rulers’ deep past using calendar tricks that go far beyond simple counting errors.
The study, led by Alexandre Tokovinine of the Department of Anthropology at the National Institute of Anthropology and History in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, focuses on the site of El Resbalón in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo.
The site holds three hieroglyphic stairways, known as HS I, HS II and HS III, made up of 203 carved stone blocks. Archaeologists first excavated the stairways between 1973 and 1978 before the blocks were placed in storage. Researchers later digitized each block and rebuilt the layout of two of the three stairways.
Rulers whose reigns are centuries apart in the carvings
The carvings describe three rulers. Lak’nes Bahlam reigned around the time the stairways were dedicated in the sixth century AD. Two other figures, Ti’ Chan K’inich Xan Bahlam and Num Joloom, appear in accounts set centuries earlier.
The inscriptions say Xan Bahlam took the throne in 337 BC while Num Joloom, who held the high title of “kaloomte” and lived in a place called Chih Ka’, oversaw the event.
Two dates tied to that ancient story fall 108 years apart, longer than any single ruler could realistically have lived, researchers found.
A separate count on one stairway places Num Joloom’s death 888 years after a historical date recorded in the sixth century AD, another sign the ancient chapters do not follow a normal calendar.
How the Maya stairways encode a deliberately altered timeline
The clearest sign of tampering is how the calendar dates contradict each other on the same stone. Maya scribes usually linked several counting systems together so each date could be checked against the others.
At El Resbalón, several dates fail that check too often to be accidental, since no other known Maya monument shows this many mismatched dates in one set. Researchers compared the pattern to a cave site called Naj Tunich, where scribes sometimes used a different, ritual style of counting days instead of the standard calendar.
The findings suggest the Maya stairways at El Resbalón were built around a purposely altered timeline meant to serve political and religious goals rather than record precise history. Researchers described the ancient chapters as a clear example of “alternative facts” that depart from the accepted chronology.
The historical sections of the carvings also helped researchers narrow the timing of a power transfer within the nearby Kaanu’l dynasty, one of the most powerful Maya royal lines of the era, pinpointing a succession between April 4, 568, and April 13, 569.
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