It is no coincidence that the four small hills at the feet of the Vallejo Mountains right in front of the immense Banderas Valley, next to two huge embankments surrounded by water drippings are perfectly aligned from north to south. No, it cannot be a simple whim of nature.
Jose Beltran stands on the very top of the northern most hill and allows his gaze to lose itself in the horizon. At this beautiful site he sees all of Puerto Vallarta, Nuevo Vallarta, San Juan de Debajo de Tebelchia, San Jose del Valle de Ixtapa. This is where he made the discovery.
The archeologist had a feeling about it, but now he is sure to be standing on top of what could have been the mythical Xiutla, the most important city in the Aztatlan Cutlure established in the Bay of Banderas, as stated in the chronicles of the Spanish expeditions at the time of the colonization.
Why is he adamant about this possibility? There are many factors; the first of them being the vast extension of terrain where a few mounds erect that are evidently manmade.
An artificial dam, a good number of piles of rubble that make him think of small family nuclei, two embankments that figure to be a huge public courtyard, a small mound that seems to be a sacrifice altar and those four perfectly aligned hills….all hidden beneath the earth and between huisache tree roots, burying the outline of a great city.
The location is a major factor; the whole valley is dominated from the spot, it is also an ideal place for farming, growing corn and rearing cattle. The entire valley where Puerto Vallarta and Riviera Nayarit stand today, cannot escape from the eyes of this apparent ceremonial center.
Beltran has no doubt… just a few weeks after beginning excavations together with the support of Eduardo Gomez Encarnación, a student of regional history by his own passion and heritage and the owner of the 20 hectares hiding this treasure of unknown value, the INAH investigator dares to talk publicly about the possibility of this important discovery. There it lies, he is sure, one of the most important archeological sites of the bay; and probably the very Xiutla which fills all natives with pride.
A diamond amid the debris
Beltran’s first visit to Banderas Bay’s municipal government, headed by Héctor Paniagua Salazar, before his discovery, was not very inspiring.
Beltran was called in by the opposition councilor, Ismael Duñalds, whom reported the extraction of archeological material from a precinct that had been protected during Crescenciano “Chano” Flores’ administration, the first mayor that this young Nayarit municipality ever had.
A little back in history: it is 1989 and the municipal head of Bahia de Banderas is Compostela; the bay is the most prosperous coastal tourist area of the south of Nayarit. At this time Chano Flores is notified of a presence of a great amount of petro glyphs and immediately gives notice to the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH).
Gabriela Zepeda, a young archeologist, arrived in the area for the evaluation. They named the area Piedras Azules, the place where dozens of carved rocks with symbols proper of the Aztatlán culture, such as the Spaniards had documented and also exploited for more than two hundred years.
Zepeda, like many others that preceded, found plenty of the sites documented by Isabel Kelly in the 1930’s and continued the investigations on the Nayarit side of the Banderas Valley.
“ I began by placing small crosses on a map on every historical remain we found from Punta de Mita to El Colomo . Soon there was not a spot on the map without a mark, and we decided to place a great big cross over the entire territory” confessed Gabriela in an interview we held back in 1997.
Unlike Beltran, Zepeda found support from the municipal government from Chano Flores, one which Beltran now wishes he had. Zepeda held serious discussions with one of the biggest specialists in archeology of the region, Joseph Mountjoy.
“There is no doubt that when you ask Mountjoy which is the most important sight of the region, he will state it is Ixtapa. I say the most important site is El Colomo, it is much larger, and for me, far more important“ she assured.
Back then, Mountjoy was working on rescuing the Ixtapa sight in the municipality of Puerto Vallarta. A task that today seems impossible. He manifested his quest openly and soon the rescue of Ixtapa became a political issue and the law for its protection came in too late: they had sacked it all, and as if that did not suffice, some contractor took half of the largest mound and used it as refill for the runway at the Gustavo Diaz Ordaz Airport.
On the other hand, Zepeda kept her site at El Colomo confidential and only made it public to a few articles for scientific magazines.
We are not certain that the site that Beltran today tags as the possible Xiutla, is the same one that Zepeda did. Nevertheless, during Beltran’s visit to help prevent a construction company (history repeats itself) from taking the petro glyphs from Piedras Azules as boulders for building a platform for the Marina in La Cruz de Huanacaxtle , he discovered this other site, untouched, without traces of the brutal plundering accustomed by cultural mercenaries.
Going back to the first encounter, only a few months back… “There is nothing of importance, it´s all debris and pieces of rubble, nothing worthy” replied Paniagua at Beltrans request to thoroughly investigate the area while protecting the carved rocks.
It was thanks to the fine imposed by the INAH to those that hauled the protected rocks, and not to the impulse of the present mayor, that Beltran was able to go over the geography of the zone and identifying its faults as much more than mere accidents.
The treasure was hidden within the debris and rubble, a diamond in brute; one that must be rescued, as long as the economic interests allow it.
