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Indeed, by 1983 when archaeologists with the Proyecto Nacional Tikal visited the site to assess looting damage, all buildings of notable size or importance had been looted (Laporte 2006). Almost all of the nearly fifty buildings within the site core have been structurally compromised by looters’ trenches and tunnels. It was news of the looting at El Zotz that both inspired Bailey’s visit in December 1977, and brought archaeologists Ian Graham and then George Andrews to the site in 1978 (Laporte 2006). Looters even carved their names and the dates of their digging on some of the monuments at the site (Houston 2008a). Like most remote jungle sites, El Zotz fell victim to the wave of systematic looting which devastated the Petén in the 1960s and 1970s. This alliance appears to have signalled the end for El Zotz: the last known inscription to refer to the city describes it as being the target of an attack from Tikal (Houston 2008a). During the Late Classic war between the polities of Tikal and Calakmul, El Zotz appears to have allied itself with Calakmul. 75 km square and is covered by tropical forest. He appears to have changed the name to distinguish it from another ‘Dos Aguadas’ recorded by William Bullard in 1960 (Laporte 2006). Originally called Pa’Chan, the site was known as Dos Aguadas until 1977 when archaeologist Marco Antonio Bailey registered it as El Zotz with the Guatemalan government. The Classic Maya city of El Zotz is located within the San Miguel la Palotada National Park, 20 km west of the major Maya site of Tikal in Guatemala’s northern Petén province.
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Classic Maya city heavily looted in the 1960s and 1970s.