The polytheistic Mayans are famous for their pantheon of gods.  As one of the Mayan Kingdom's most powerful and enduring metropolises, and today among of their most-visited relics, the city of Chichen Itza is famous for its pyramids and temples, which pay tribute to many of these gods, although two are represented with special frequency: Chak, the rain god, and Kukulkan, the feathered serpent.

The steep walls of the Sumidero Canyon in Chiapas, Mexico are still sacred spaces where humans meet ancestors and deities much in the same manner as they did 2000 years ago before European influences came to this continent. This practice is maintained up to date by the so called “traditioners” (costumbreros). According to archaeologist Enrique Mendez Torres from the Mexican School of Anthropology and History (ENAH), surrounding Tuxtla, Chiapas and mainly on the Capoya Plateau, the Mountain Range and the Sumidero Canyon –whose walls rise to 1200 meters (4000 feet)- caves, rocky shelters and gullies are found that have been used for ritual means since pre-Hispanic times. 

Tulum has been voted second by TripAdvisor’s 2010 Travelers Choice Beach & Sun Destinations of the World. Tulum Mayan ruins is the site of a Pre-Columbian Maya city.  The ruins are located on cliffs, along the east coast of the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. One of the best-preserved coastal Maya sites, Tulum is today a popular site for tourists.
The Mayan ruins of Tulum are easily accessible on Tulum tours out of Cancun, Playa del Carmen or the Riviera Maya or when staying in Tulum you can simply take a walk or a taxi to these beautiful ruins that are situated on the Caribbean beach.

A new and modern archaeological conservation center is to be constructed at Tikal National Park, Guatemala. The project is being managed by the Guatemalan Ministry of Culture and would be founded by a six million dollar grant from the Japanese government, a spokesman said to Acan-Efe.

Achaeologist Alejandro Tovalín Ahumada said: “Based on the results of these excavations, I think the murals refer to a change in the ruling lineage; this change was then achieved through battle, and the skeletal remains could possibly correspond to one of the most important captives of that battle, perhaps the head of the group that was overthrown by Chaan Muan II.”

“In other words: Chaan Muan II belonged to a distinct or secondary ruling lineage of Bonampak until the moment of the battle, towards the Late Classic period, and with the help of Yaxchilan, in a military and marital alliance - as he was married to a sister of Shield Jaguar III, ruler of the site mentioned – he was able to take the power over Bonampak.”
“Those portrayed in The Battle mural are not people of any important nearby settlement, but they might be the group that ruled Bonampak until then.” 

Copan:

 Legacy of the Mayan Kings

Unlike Chichen Itza and Tikal, Copan is very little known by the outside world. Nonetheless, this Mayan site is one of the most important sites in the Mayan world. Because of its vast gambit of hieroglyphic texts, Copan is considered an intelligencia among the Mayan world settlements. The site, located in the Copan Valley of Honduras has recently been subject to meticulous study and investigation due to the wealth of history and culture found in the inscriptions on the temples and stellae.

What’s interesting about the site is that although the settlement is compact and enclosed, traces of the civilization can be found throughout the surrounding valley. Of most interest to the archaeologists are, "Las Sepulturas", "Los Sapos" , the stelae surrounding the valley and the two museums:the “Museum of Archaeology”, located in the town and the “Museum of Maya Sculpture”, located within the Visitors Center area of the Park.

Inside the crypt the skeletal remains of a man without a skull were found, remaining the lower jaw only; at his feet rested two polychrome plates, and on one side of the head area a perforated alabaster vase was found. According to preliminary studies conducted by physical anthropologist Javier Montes, the individual was approximately 35 to 42 years of age, and 1.70 meters high. Archaeologist Tovalín specified that none of the objects of the offering have hieroglyphs which could give information on the identity of the buried individual. Nevertheless, the treatment of the archaeological objects have allowed him to make two hypothesis: First, that this is an important prisoner of war who was offered up, a theory inflicted by the absence of the skull and associated with the drilled alabaster. The second hypothesis is that the individual was a close relative of Chaan Muan II.

In the first semester of this year 2010, during the search for proper conservation of the Bonampak murals a new discovery was made in this Mayan archeological site in Chiapas, Mexico. A crypt with the bones of a man, accompanied by pottery and jade ornaments has been found in a tomb that is thought to be over 1300 years old. The finding was made below the second quarter of the Temple of Paintings and the remains of the character, still to be examined with further detail, could correspond to a prisoner of war as those embodied in the mural The Battle, or it could also be a close relative of Chaan Muan II, who ruled the site from 776 to 792 of our era.