·     The exact location of Sak Nikte’ was not known to archaeologists and epigraphers for quite a long time.

·     It was given the name “Site Q” – Q being an abbreviation of the Spanish “¿que?” or “which?”.

·     Yates-SQ.p1: For years this site was only known from looted archaeological material for sale on the art market; its location was unknown. It has recently been identified in the Peten region of Guatemala. // In the mid-1960s a number of Maya sculptural objects, many bearing the same emblem glyph, began to appear on the art market. Although the panels and stelae could be stylistically tied to the Petén region, the site name recorded on some of the objects was one that scholars were unaware of. It quickly became clear that an interesting archaeological site, unknown to science, was being looted in the deep jungle of Guatemala. // About two dozen sculptures from the unknown site have entered the international art market, including a carved panel depicting two ball players purchased in 1965 by the Art Institute of Chicago from New York antiquities dealer Walter Randall for $12,500 (Canuto and Barrientos Q. 2008; Schuster 1997). Archaeologist Peter Matthews, then a graduate student at Yale, was one of the first to connect these objects, noting that many of them bore the distinct emblem glyph of a snake’s head. He called the unknown Maya city ‘Site Q’, short for ‘Que?’ or ‘Which?’ in Spanish.

·     Canuto&Barrientos-LC-GT-EN.p14.pdfp5.para2: A few years after the appearance of these sculptures on the antiquities market, the epigrapher Peter Mathews (1988) noted that the inscriptions on these monuments shared many epigraphic, iconographic, and stylistic features. Mathews then suggested that this group of monuments came from the same place, a still unknown site to which Mathews gave the nickname of Site Q, that is, “site what?”. Mathews grouped all these pieces with similar features, thus creating the catalog of Site Q monuments. After many searches, changes, and additions, the catalog has grown to nearly 30 individual sculptures, which today are in museums and private collections for everyone.