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Published: July 19th 2008
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Mexico
27-06-08 Mayan Ruins. 29-06-08 Sunday. Gabriel arrived at 9.00 am to take us to some Mayan temples. As we drove he explained that Mayan is the most common language spoken in the area, with the people bilingual, speaking Mayan and Spanish.
Uxmal. The first was Uxmal, a temple that had been largely restored. The restored pyramid was built in 3 stages, each stage being built over the previous building. Behind it was an accommodation building in the form of a hollow square with small rooms along the outer and inner walls. The rooms were all constructed in the same way with a lower section of the walls being vertical for about 2 metres. Above this the two longest walls angled inwards to form a wedge shape almost meeting at the top. There were cap stones across the top of the angled walls and the angled walls were faced with stones shaped to deflect any water seeping down from above.
The external walls above the doors were highly decorated with patterns, bas relief figures and Chaac the Rain God. In the centre there was a lawn with the remains of a structure in the centre.
Beside the accommodation area there was a small ball games arena and beyond that again there was a large pyramid that had been reconstructed on only one face. Adjacent to this there was a large raised platform with two buildings on it. The smaller one was decorated with turtles above the doors. Turtles were the messengers of Chaac the Rain God. In the larger “Governor's” palace every second room was a double room. The skeletons of two important men were found buried in the central room.
Gabriel explained how the number of steps and the number masks of Chaac the Rain God on the various buildings were significant for the Mayan calendar.
Nearby there are several more mounds that have not been cleared although stonework can be seen on the top of one of them.
Tabah. The second was Tabah. It was less reconstructed that Uxmal with some of the walls still covered in stone rubble. Like Uxmal we had access to most of the site that did not involve climbing on the structures.
Again the room construction was the same as before, although there were some wider rooms with more slope on the
“ceiling-walls”. This seemed less successful because the outer wall of most of these rooms had fallen down. One feature not found at Uxmal was two large human statues on one building.
Some of the rainwater collecting cisterns were still functioning. These consisted of rainwater collecting paved areas feeding into an underground waterproof cavity.
There was a large collections of sorted stones. I would hope that money will be available for them to be re-erected.
01-07-08 Chechen Itza. This was the third pyramid that Gabriel took us to. The main pyramid is most impressive being larger than that at Uxmal, but, like Uxmal, it consisted of one pyramid built over a previous pyramid. Even the rooms on the top of the first pyramid were left with their contents intact and just built over.
It was claimed that the Mayan leader lived entirely within the rooms at the top of the main pyramid.
The site is probably larger than that at Uxmal, but was disappointing in that it did not have the “residential” buildings that were at Uxmal and most of the buildings were roped off to prevent access. One building that I would have liked
to explore was the Observatory, but is not fully reconstructed and there was no access.
There seemed to be much more emphasis on sacrifices than at the other sites. One bas relief carving showed amalgamation of the Mayan and Toltec cultures. There were no human sacrifices at Uxmal and Tabah because they were constructed before that amalgamation of the two cultures. The Toltecs brought the human sacrifice to the culture.
There was a platform raised about 1 metre. Its sides were covered with 3 rows of bas relief skulls apparently arranged as 3 skulls on wooden spikes. This could be interpreted as a warning to other armies and to Mayans who did not want to work on the religious site.
The temple of the warriors had about 1,000 columns representing the soldiers.
The ball game was played by two teams of 7 players who played on opposite sides of a long arena. The game was won when the first team put their ball through the stone ring high on their side wall. The ball was a 150 mm (?) heavy solid rubber ball that could not be touched by the head, hands or toes, but it
could be hit by the elbows, thighs and sides of the feet. The Toltec version of the game had an elevated playing surface about 1 to 2 metres wide and about 1 metre high against each wall that the captain and 3 or so players played on. The Mayan version had a sloping surface at the foot of each wall. The game continued until one team won - maybe more than one day. In the Toltec version of the game the losing captain beheaded the winning captain. It was a great honour to win so the winning captain went straight to heaven but it was a great disgrace for the losing captain. That left 13 players - one for each level of heaven.
03-07-08 Talum Our guide for this trip gave her cheerful commentary in her native Mayan, Spanish and English. She had the short, sturdy stature of the Mayan because her mother was Mayan and her father was Mexican.
This site was different from the others in that it was more like a walled town with streets and buildings. Most of the buildings were made of wood and only some the stone buildings have survived. There
were probably 400 living in the walled section and 4,000 outside. The wall and the watch tower were built to protect them from the Toltec. However it was abandoned before the Spanish arrived.
There was no access into any of the buildings but the guide pointed our the small windows high on the walls. They were used to identify the key astronomical events such as the equinoxes and solstices that were so important for agriculture and religion.
There were 863 hiroglyphs and sculptures of new-born babies holding the umbilical cord. A happy face and a sad face carved onto the corners of one building wall were most realistic.
The Mayan counted in 20s (20 toes and fingers), so their year was divided into 18 months of 20 days plus a 5 day month. There were 52 years in one cycle.
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Esther
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I have heard of these football games. Fancy beheading the winning coach. We usually behead (sack) the losing coach! Lovely to keep abreast of your adventures.