Lubaantun

Maya ceremonial centre built without mortar, famous for the Crystal Skull

Lubaantun is a Late Classic Maya site about 40 km northwest of Punta Gorda, active between roughly 700 and 900 AD. Unusually, the site was built without the use of mortar — the limestone blocks were cut to interlock precisely. The pyramids and plazas are largely unexcavated and partially overgrown, giving the site an atmospheric quality that the more touristed Maya sites in Mexico lack.

Admission includes a guide, which is recommended as the signage is minimal. The road to the site passes through several Kekchi Maya villages, and the landscape — jungle hills, small farms, river crossings — is part of the experience.

things to do sight
A story
In 1924, a British explorer's daughter named Anna Mitchell-Hedges claimed to have found a perfectly carved crystal skull at Lubaantun on her 17th birthday. The skull was displayed for decades as a genuine pre-Columbian artifact. Modern analysis by the British Museum found tool marks consistent with 19th-century European lapidary work — the skull is almost certainly a fake, though Mitchell-Hedges insisted otherwise until her death.