Uaxactún

thumb|275px|City glyph thumb|275px Uaxactun (pronounced ) is an ancient sacred place of the Maya civilization, located in the Petén Basin region of the Maya lowlands, in the present-day department of Petén, Guatemala. The site lies some north of the major center of Tikal. The name is sometimes spelled as Waxaktun.

==History of discovery== With the achievements in the decipherment of the ancient Maya hieroglyphic writing system since the 1990s, it has been determined that the ancient name for this site translates roughly as '''''Siaan K'aan''' or "Born in Heaven". The name Uaxactun was given to the site by its rediscoverer, archaeologist Sylvanus Morley, in May 1916. He coined the name from Maya words Waxac and Tun'', to mean "Eight Stones". The name has two meanings; Morley's stated reason for the name was to commemorate it as the first site where an inscription dating from the 8th Baktún of the Maya calendar was discovered (making it then the earliest known Maya date, corresponding the year 328 AD). The other meaning is a pun, since "Uaxactun" sounds like "Washington", the U.S. capital and home of the Carnegie Institute which funded Morley's explorations.