Puuc Cities and Mayapan
Saturday, March 11, 2006
This is one of the buildings at Sayil, one of the three Puuc sites we visited. Puuc is a style of building, and the three sites are in the only area with any height above the Yucatan plain. Sayil and the other two, Kabah and Labná, were built sometime between 600 AD and 900 AD. These areas are all connected by well made roads.
Here is the entrance to Kabah. On the other side is the road out of town, called a Sacbe. These roads are slightly raised above the surrounding earth and run without curves for long distances.
This is a view of the Sacbe on the other side of the Kabah arch. This road runs over ten miles back to Uxmal.
In the Yucatán, we often came across debris like this carved stone.
This building with its arched doorway is at Labná.
Mayapan is situated on the Yucatán plain. We were there about three o’clock in the afternoon, and only four people had visited the site before us that day. The only crowd so far here in “Mayaland” was at Uxmal in the middle of the day.
Mayapan is a relatively large site, compared with the three Puuc sites. Our guidebook says the city was destroyed in 1447 in a civil war.
Another of one of the impressive buildings at Mayapan.
From Uxmal we took a day tour of three Puuc sites and also visited Mayapan, one–time “capital” of the Mayan region.
Next— Chichén Itzá.
