Archaeologist Melina Garcia at work at Aguada Fénix. inomata
Researchers have pinpointed almost 500 Mesoamerican ceremonial centers using a remote sensing method known as light detection and ranging, or LIDAR.
Aerial remote sensing carried out across Tabasco and southern Veracruz and in some parts of Campeche, Chiapas and Oaxaca revealed 478 Olmec and Mayan ceremonial centers.
Authorized by the National Institute of Anthropology and History, the 85,000-square-meter LIDAR survey was the largest ever conducted in the historical and cultural region known as Mesoamerica.
Its discoveries are detailed in a paper published Monday in the journal Nature Human Behaviour.
One ceremonial center was located at an early Olmec site in Veracruz called San Lorenzo. University of Arizona archaeologist Takeshi Inomata, who led the study, said the rectangular earthen ceremonial space was previously unknown.
Excavation at La Carmelita in Tabasco. inomata
It is approximately 1,000 meters long and 275 meters wide and is surrounded by 20 slightly raised platforms. Inomata said the exact purpose of the space is unclear but it may have been a plaza where crowds gathered for certain ceremonies. Dwellings may have been located on the elevated platforms, he said.
San Lorenzo, where there are 10 Olmec stone heads that are believed to depict ancient rulers, was at its peak roughly between 1400 and 1000 B.C.
The Olmec civilization is known as the “mother culture” of Mesoamerica because most scholars believe it was the first in the region and influenced those that emerged in later years, including the Maya civilization. Inomata believes there could be undiscovered Olmec stone heads, each of which is carved from a single basalt boulder, at other ceremonial centers
Many of the centers detected via LIDAR have similar layouts to San Lorenzo. Their design appears to be related to the position of the sun on important ceremonial dates.
“These centers were probably the earliest material expressions of basic concepts of Mesoamerican calendars,” Inomata said.
He and other researchers also detected a massive clay and earth platform near the Guatemala border in Tabasco. Found at the Aguada Fénix site using LIDAR, the Mayan structure was described in the journal Nature last year.
Excavation work under way at Aguada Fénix. inomata
“The advantage of LIDAR is that it provides a three-dimensional, bird’s-eye view of the landscape and modifications to it made by humans, ancient and modern, in the form of building, transportation, agricultural and water control infrastructure,” said Juan Carlos Fernandez-Diaz of the University of Houston’s National Center of Airborne Laser Mapping.
“LIDAR also allows us to ‘see’ the landscape and infrastructure that in many parts of the world is hidden under forest cover,” added the co-author of the study.
Fonatur director Rogelio Jiménez Pons speaking before the Senate communications and transport committee on Monday.
Six far-right organizations are behind most legal challenges against the Maya Train railroad project, according to the director of the federal agency the National Tourism Promotion Fund (Fonatur).
Rogelio Jiménez Pons said Monday that 327 people have filed 25 injunction requests against the 1,500-kilometer railroad currently under construction in Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatán, Quintana Roo and Chiapas.
Fonatur is managing the US $9.9 billion project, which is slated to begin operations in 2023.
“It’s obvious that the extreme right is in the area,” Jiménez told reporters after an appearance before the Senate’s communications and transport committee.
“There are very conservative groups,” he said, citing the human rights-focused NGO Indignación and the National Anti-AMLO Front as two of the six groups behind the legal challenges. “They don’t like us,” Jiménez added before conceding that the groups have the right to oppose the project, one of the federal government’s most important infrastructure projects.
Workers installing drainage ditches for section 1 of the Maya train last week.
Asked whether additional injunctions against the train — several have already been granted – would delay it, the Fonatur chief said he hoped not.
“We have to comply with the law. We don’t want to anticipate any decision, it’s up to the courts. … We have to look behind these injunction requests – there are undoubtedly people who believe it is necessary to stop the train,” he said.
The majority of those people are motivated by politics rather than genuine concerns, Jiménez added.
During his appearance before the Senate committee, the Fonatur director said the projected cost of the railroad – along which tourist, freight and local passenger services will run – had increased 43% to 200 billion pesos from an initial estimate of 140 billion.
He reasserted that its construction won’t damage the environment in the states through which it will run, claiming that forested land and nature reserves are being preserved. Jiménez also said that repair work will be carried out to improve 15 archaeological sites located along the route.
That route has been modified in some cases to protect new archaeological discoveries, he said. Jiménez also told senators that the Maya Train will generate 750,000 formal sector jobs in the municipalities where stations are located.
Jiménez told senators on Monday that the Maya Train project will generate 750,000 formal sector jobs in municipalities with stations.
“The stations are going to be a significant factor in [economic] growth,” he said.
In addition to tourism-oriented and construction jobs, the rail project will spur the creation of food industry positions, Jiménez said. Ten years from now there is a possibility that the railroad will have generated more than 1 million jobs, he said, adding that it could reduce poverty levels by 27%.
The project seeks to boost development in Mexico’s southeast while respecting the rights of indigenous people and protecting the environment as well as archaeological and cultural heritage, the Fonatur director said.
Work on the railroad, which makes use of existing tracks in some sections, officially began in June 2020. It is divided into eight sections, and contracts to build each one were awarded via individual tendering processes.
Several sections are being built by private construction companies, but the army is also working on the project. It recently began preparatory work for a section of railroad that will run between Cancún and Tulum in the Caribbean coast state of Quintana Roo. Jiménez said that “heavy” work on that section will begin in March 2022.
Johnson with his painting 'Calendar,' one of the works in his exhibit 'The Weight of Gravity' at the Centro Cultural Pedregal in Mexico City. Centro Cultural Pedregal
An exhibition in Mexico City by an artist who moved to Mexico from England nine years ago reflects his interest in the human imprint on the environment and its impact on the natural landscape.
“The Weight of Gravity” is the first solo show in Mexico by Ian Johnson, who lives and works in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, and is part of his exploration into how humanity impacts nature.
Johnson’s work started to shift more fully in this direction, he says, after a chance encounter in the Sierra Nevada of northern Colombia.
An indigenous Kogi man and child approached him, offering him an unusual seed from a regional plant. Johnson doesn’t know how the man knew, but he had been collecting seeds for several weeks as he traveled through Colombia and had been incorporating them into his artwork.
The language barrier kept them from communicating fully, but this interaction set him on a path to look more closely at the Kogi culture, which exposed him to a community of people deeply committed to Mother Earth, of whom the Kogi believe they are the protector.
“They have kept their privacy and avoided all but minimal contact with the outside world until fairly recently,” Johnson says. “In the early 1990s, they wanted to put their message out to the world.”
Johnson’s sculpture Untitled (Geo-Therm) is made of ceramic and steel. Courtesy of Ian Johnson
According to Johnson, the Kogi view themselves as guardians of the world.
“In the lifestyle they live and in their connection with nature, the harmony they strive for, they have been seeing over the decades a change in the environment,” he says. “The glaciers are melting, the rivers aren’t flowing as fast, the lakes aren’t filing up — and they can see that it’s out of balance.”
Already, much of Johnson’s work had dealt with the impact of humans on the environment, either via the blatant impact of industrialism or the subtler changes and shifts in the natural world. But this chance encounter crystallized much of his focus, he says.
“I think, really, from that point, that kind of tied in to a lot of the impetus for where my work was going. It’s always kind of held a focus around nature and the landscape, and I think that helped to really define it for me at that point.”
Johnson works with industrial materials like steel and spray paint alongside more natural mediums like clay and found objects in nature. He has divided the show into three sections, each representing a different element of the tug-of-war between humans and nature.
The focal point of the exposition’s first section, Calendar, is a piece representative of the passage of time and our conception of it. It consists of 12 panels of birch wood inlaid with colored bronze bars. Each panel is mounted in fabricated steel frames.
Nature Morte #1, a suspended mixed-media sculpture. Johnson uses items found in nature in some works. Courtesy of Ian Johnson
The 12 panels represent months, and the thin bronze wires that connect them days.
“It comes out of the way we record data,” he says, “whether it be measuring sticks along the sides of rivers to measure the level of the water [or] the way we chart things and make graphs of things. They are obviously abstract, but I like the element; it’s kind of an abstract record of data.”
In the second section, Johnson uses a combination of natural and industrial materials to focus on constructed nature. One of the most striking pieces is Landscape Painting, which uses vinyl and enamel acrylic spray paint on stainless steel panels to recreate a leafy canvas of greens, whites and blacks.
“That work originated standing in front of the jungle. I was in Peru,” he says, “… and I got this experience and opportunity to stand at the side of the river, staring at the jungle canopy in front of me. It’s incredibly imposing, and I was aware that what this experience was, was that the jungle was almost acting as a mirror; it was reflecting all my own fears and insecurities about stepping into it.
“The jungle itself was fine, doing its thing. I was the foreigner in that environment, and it was very interesting to relate to it in that sense.”
The third section deals with water as an emotional and physical force of nature. The main piece, Water Elements, is a nine-panel wall painting with similar attributes to The Calendar, also about the theme of measuring data.
Water Elements, part of Johnson’s Level Paintings series. Courtesy of Ian Johnson
The piece entitled Geo-Therm — created from glazed ceramic and steel on a steel base — gives a sense of erosion and transformation over millennia, the way water erodes a rock face across the centuries.
Throughout the exhibit, there are sculpture pieces blended in, including many leaf sculptures that were the impetus for the collection’s title.
“What I did was take some of the leaves that I’ve been working with, and I went in every other day, dipping them in liquid clay and leaving them to dry; and then I would go back in and dip them again,” he explains.
“In the course of about two months, these leaves were dipped in and out of the bucket of liquid clay, and they built a surface around them,” he says. “That was really where the title came from because I like the idea that it was really the weight of gravity that was forming on these leaves. It was transforming the shape slightly every time they were dipped, and it was through that that they took their shapes.”
Johnson studied at the Jacob Kramer College of Art in Leeds, England, (now Leeds Arts University) and Goldsmiths College at the University of London. In 1991, he graduated with honors with a Bachelor of Fine Arts and received the European Union’s Erasmus grant to study at L’École des Beaux-Arts in Montpellier, France. He was also the recipient of a young artist work grant with the Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea in Torino, Italy.
In 1993, he traveled to Latin America for the first time with four other artists and musicians.
Untitled (Leaf #1). Courtesy of Ian Johnson
“We were there as a creative group, to look at how people were using creativity in programs or dealing directly with children. It opened my eyes to Latin America, and that was my first encounter with it. I think from then I have had this fascination with and deep admiration for it.”
Johnson met his wife in Oaxaca, and they decided to return to Mexico with their two-year-old daughter in 2012 to have a traveling adventure before she started school. Their plans for a one-year stay turned into nine, and now Johnson works out of his studio in San Miguel de Allende and exhibits both in Mexico and abroad.
His hope for this latest show in Mexico City is that the artwork will impact the viewer enough to stop and really think about what they are looking at and how it relates to the space around it.
“Maybe [they will] consider the relationships going on between the works, and [it will] create that moment of reflection because I think that’s the point where art can actually step out to impact people,” he says.
• The “Weight of Gravity” is currently on display at Gallery 557 of the Centro Cultural Pedregalin Mexico City until November 19. Viewing hours are from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday–Sunday. You must make a reservation in advance.
Lydia Carey is a regular contributor to Mexico News Daily.
Migrants on the highway near Huixtla, Chiapas. ben wein
The 2,000-strong migrant caravan which left Tapachula, Chiapas, on Saturday arrived at its first major milestone on Monday, just over 40 kilometers north.
After entering the town of Huixtla in heavy rain the majority of the travelers stayed in cramped conditions in a public sports field, but the town’s many cheap hotels were also filled. A Catholic church gave shelter to women traveling with children, but turned the fathers away.
The root cause of the caravan cannot be explained by poverty alone: many of the migrants can afford cheap hotels and buy food in local restaurants. It is not clear, however, how many of the convoy are traveling with no money at all.
Fears of a heavy-handed response by authorities are a constant. Tensions were high on Sunday night, spent in Huehuetán, due to worries of an ambush by authorities while the migrants rested. That failed to materialize, as did organizers’ concerns about a blockade on the way to Huixtla, where caravans have been detained in the past.
Their concerns are reasonable: National Guard and National Immigration Institute (INM) vehicles tail the convoy and wait in its path, but have so far regularly dispersed and regrouped farther along the highway. An official from the United Nations International Organization for Migration (IOM), who has previously accompanied larger caravans, said security officials’ approach had been unorthodox on this occasion.
Wheelchair-bound migrants on the road in Chiapas. ben wein
The group left Huehuetán at around 6:00 a.m. Monday shortly before daybreak and the 18 kilometers to Huixtla would be the farthest that the caravan had walked in a day. Among the crowd are many pregnant women, young children, seniors and two people in wheelchairs.
Organizer Luis García Villagrán led a prayer at the town’s exit and many raised their hands to the air as a sign of religious reverence. Cries of “Freedom!” accompanied their departure from Huehuetán.
On the first two days, women and children remained at the rear of the caravan due to concerns for their safety in the event of confrontation with security officials. However, that created problems for the convoy’s cohesion, when those slower walkers lagged farther behind while stronger walkers at the front of the caravan accelerated away. On Monday, organizers changed their tactics, and women and children were encouraged to lead the caravan and dictate the pace, which also made them more visible and available to the media.
One mother, who was presented to national television news channels, said her group was looking after nine children.
Guzmán, a Nicaraguan migrant in his 20s, said he left his country due to the dictatorship of President Daniel Ortega. “We have a president that’s worse than Hitler … You can see in the news, you can see how many [political] murders there have been,” he said.
A woman collapsed exhausted after about two hours of walking in the hot conditions. She received medical attention from representatives of the French NGO Doctors of the World, despite migrants’ pleas for help from officials in a Health Ministry ambulance.
A woman from Honduras with her well-traveled 3-month old baby. ben wein
The caravan reached Segundo Cantón in the municipality of Tuzantan at about 11:30 a.m., still about five kilometers from Huixtla. The migrants dispersed into local hamlets to search for food and found a local tortillería and convenience stores.
The Hernández Marroquín family, among others, opened their doors to the migrants, offering water, a bathroom and places to sit, and helped them charge their phones and prepared eggs and beans bought by the migrants in convenience stores.
They refused to accept a single peso for their assistance. “You’re happy to be able to help others considering the situation they’re in,” family member Lorena Bravo said.
At around 2:00 p.m. the migrants advanced toward Huixtla, arriving during a rainstorm at about 4:00 p.m.
On Tuesday the group planned to rest before aiming to reach Escuintla on Wednesday, almost 32 kilometers north, the broadcaster TV Azteca reported.
Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said on Monday that the migrants were being lied to. “We will act with prudence, with care for the law and human rights, but we want to say that they are being deceived because it is not true that they are going to let them pass into the United States,” he said.
A young boy clutches the shirt of an adult as he marches with fellow migrants in Chiapas on Monday. ben wein
“What is the tragedy? The deception. They are told ‘We’ll go as a caravan, we’ll get to the United States and they are going to let us pass,'” he added.
Chief organizer Irineo Mújica has previously said the caravan is destined for Mexico City, where the INM will be pressured to regularize the migrant’s legal status. The organizers are not charging money to any of the migrants to travel with the caravan.
Many of the contingent felt they had no choice but to break the law by leaving Tapachula because of what they saw as negligence by the government refugee organization Comar and the INM.
The migrants who arrive at the United States border cross illegally in many cases, knowing that they would be refused entry on the basis of their nationalities. That is necessary even for those with asylum claims, which are generally accepted from Cuban, Nicaraguan and Venezuelan nationals due to the U.S. opposition to governments in those countries. But the logic is questionable: Honduras can be far more dangerous than those countries due to gang rule and the extortion of small business owners.
However, even migrants that have entered the U.S. hoping to make asylum applications have generally been prevented from doing so in recent years. So-called Title 42 authority first invoked by former president Donald Trump, and continued by President Biden, has been used to expel migrants from the country using the COVID-19 pandemic as a pretext. Yet Title 42 enforcement has seen migrants detained in cramped conditions in places that are ideal for contagion.
Governor García claims that a former official in the water department bought the cars with public funds.
Nuevo León Governor Samuel García has accused a former official of corruption, claiming that he used public resources to buy as many as 90 luxury cars during a 12-year career in the state water department.
The value of the vehicles purchased by Juan Pulido, a former operations director at the Monterrey Water and Drainage Service (SADM), far exceeded his salary, the governor told a press conference.
The cars are registered in the name of a company in which Pulido is clearly involved, Garcia said.
“It’s estimated there are between 80 and 90 luxury cars in the company. The million-dollar question is: how can a public servant with a net salary of 48,000 pesos [US $2,380] a month afford to buy 80 Lamborghinis? The illicit enrichment is clear,” he said.
García asserted that former directors of SADM, a decentralized organization of the Nuevo León government, embezzled money via simulated infrastructure projects.
“There was a mafia there for 12 years,” he said, adding that public resources were diverted to so-called empresas factureras, or invoicing companies, and subsequently laundered.
García, who succeeded Jaime Rodríguez as Nuevo León governor on October 4, also claimed that nephews of Manuel González Flores – the state government’s former general secretary and interim governor while Rodríguez campaigned for the presidency in 2018 – set up a scheme to defraud Isssteleón, the Nuevo León state workers social security institute.
The brothers Javier and Manuel Flores Martínez embezzled 4.9 billion pesos (US $242.6 million) between 2015 and 2021 via a phony contract with Isssteleón, the governor alleged.
He said that complaints against Pulido and the Flores Martínez brothers have been filed with the Nuevo León Attorney General’s Office.
A Mexico City resident receives a COVID-19 vaccination. 97% of adults in the capital are at least partially inoculated.
Almost four in five Mexican adults are at least partially vaccinated against COVID-19, according to the latest official data.
The Health Ministry reported Sunday that 69.97 million people, or 78% of adults, have had at least one shot. Of that number, just under 53.5 million people, or 76% of the total, are fully vaccinated.
All told, just under 115.2 million shots have been administered across Mexico’s 32 states, the Health Ministry said.
Mexico City has the highest vaccination rate in the country with 97% of adults inoculated, followed by Quintana Roo (95%), Querétaro (92%) and San Luis Potosí (89%). The federal government hasn’t offered broad vaccine access to minors, but the inoculation of adolescents with underlying health conditions that make them vulnerable to serious illness is now underway.
Meanwhile, Mexico’s accumulated coronavirus case tally currently stands at 3.78 million, while the official COVID-19 death toll is 286,346.
An average of 3,753 cases and 281 fatalities per day have been recorded during the past seven days. The average number of daily deaths has declined by 190 over the past three weeks, according to the Reuters COVID-19 tracker. Average daily case numbers are just 20% of the seven-day peak recorded in August.
There are currently just over 30,000 active cases across Mexico, a figure that represents 0.8% of all infections detected during the pandemic. About one in five hospital beds set aside for seriously and gravely ill coronavirus patients are currently in use, the Health Ministry said.
Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell said recently that more than 95% of hospitalized COVID-19 patients are unvaccinated.
One of the alebrijes at the Rockefeller Center in New York City.
Two large Mexican folk art sculptures known as alebrijes have been installed in New York City as part of a 12-day celebration of the Día de Muertos (Day of the Dead) and a month-long promotion of Oaxaca in the United States.
One dragon and one feathered jaguar measuring more than three and four meters high, respectively, currently adorn the center plaza of the Rockefeller Center in midtown Manhattan.
Made by Oaxacan artisans Jacobo and María Angeles, the colorful and fantastical sculptures are a drawcard of “Mexico Week: Día de Muertos at Rockefeller Center,” a free event that began last Friday and runs through November 2.
Two catrinas, female skeleton figures commonly associated with the Day of the Dead, are also on display at the famous New York City landmark. The center plaza’s statue of the Greek titan Atlas will be converted into a floral installation later this week, and a Day of the Dead ofrenda, or altar, honoring victims of COVID-19 will be set up.
In addition, an open-air market, or tianguis, selling Mexican handicrafts, food and beverages will run from Friday until next Wednesday.
Oaxaca Governor Alejandro Murat was in New York last Friday to attend the inauguration of the Day of the Dead festival and launch “Oaxaca Month in the United States,” an event that celebrates the art, culture and traditions of the southern state.
“… Oaxaca has an objective that we like to summarize in one sentence: we want more of Oaxaca in the world and more of the world in Oaxaca. Being here at the Rockefeller Center in New York, unveiling these alebrijes and beginning this festival of economic and cultural promotion, we know that we’re achieving that objective,” he said.
“In Oaxaca everything’s done with the soul because, in our land, spirits dance, paint, cook and write,” the governor said.
Mexico’s ambassador to the United States, Esteban Moctezuma, spoke of the great natural and cultural beauty of Oaxaca, while Rockefeller Center managing director EB Kelly thanked the government of Oaxaca and the Mexican Consulate in New York for making the Day of the Dead event possible.
Former president Enrique Peña Nieto and his girlfriend Tania Ruiz as they were being filmed by a Mexican Twitter user. Twitter
Former president Enrique Peña Nieto suffered the indignity of being called a thief while leaving a luxury hotel in Rome with his girlfriend on Sunday.
A Twitter user who identifies herself as a tapatía, or native of Guadalajara, filmed the ex-president and Tania Ruiz, a Mexican model, as they left Hotel de la Ville in the Italian capital.
Twitter user @karenytv3 shouted “ratero” (thief) at Peña Nieto as he and Ruiz entered a taxi outside the hotel.
“The ratero is leaving now,” the woman said before she and another person mocked the ex-president for riding in a taxi.
The woman also predicted that Peña Nieto — who vanished from public life after leaving office in late 2018 and now reportedly lives in Spain — will end up in jail.
El ex presidente Enrique Peña Nieto subiéndose en taxi y celebrando el cumpleaños de su novia mientras le gritó que es un ratero y q se merece la cárcel. Que bueno q ni en Roma anda tan comodo y qué hay mexicanos exponiéndolo. Aunque bien que se queda en hotel de $2mil la noche pic.twitter.com/02hRVsSSmr
“It’s good that he’s not even comfortable in Rome [because] there are Mexicans exposing him,” she wrote on Twitter.
“… I scream to him so many things, and he kept hiding from me like a coward,” she wrote in another post.
On Monday, she tweeted that she was surprised that her videos of Peña Nieto had gone viral.
“… I know that a president deserves respect, but we the citizens deserve respect as well. If he doesn’t want to be recognized, he should cover himself more and be more discreet. In the end, he’s a public figure,” she wrote.
Peña Nieto, who led a government plagued by corruption scandals, was apparently in Rome to celebrate Ruiz’s 34th birthday.
The ex-president is accused by fomer Pemex CEO Emilio Lozoya of leading a bribery scheme that used money from the Brazilian company Odebrecht to buy lawmakers’ support for the previous federal government’s structural reforms, in particular the energy reform which opened up the sector to foreign and private companies after an almost 80-year state monopoly.
The newspaper Milenio reported last week that the federal Attorney General’s Office would seek to prosecute Peña Nieto on organized crime charges related to the Odebrecht case.
Asked about the latest footage of his predecessor on Monday, President López Obrador declined to comment. “I don’t get involved in that,” he told reporters at his regular news conference.
Uxmal features exemplary Puuc-style Mayan architecture with intricate, well-preserved designs.
Uxmal, declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1996, is one of the most beautiful ancient Maya ruins in the Yucatán Peninsula. Situated around 80 kilometers from Mérida, the ancient city is part of the Ruta Puuc travel route — which covers several archaeological sites, cenotes and other attractions.
The city’s name, pronounced “oosh-mal,” means “thrice built,” which Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) believes may refer to the site’s successive occupations. The name also translates to “the place abundantly harvested.”
Archaeologists estimate that the Maya occupied Uxmal as far back as 500 B.C., although the city’s peak was around A.D. 700–950. Between the 9th and 12th centuries, Uxmal became a political and economic seat of power in the Puuc region, an area in the northwest Yucatán Peninsula.
The city’s peak population is estimated to have been around 30,000. Notably, there is an 18-kilometer Mayan white road connecting Uxmal with the Maya site of Kabah, which is farther south.
Uxmal was taken over by the clan of the Mayan city Chichén Itzá in the late ninth century, and the city’s decline started around A.D. 900. It was eventually abandoned around the 12th century.
Mayan lore says that the House of the Magician was finished overnight using magic in response to a challenge by one of Uxmal’s leaders.
The architecture here is considered some of the best examples of the Puuc style. You can observe rich decorative elements on the structures, including gods, human figures, and animals. According to INAH, some of Uxmal’s phallic decorations were removed from structures in advance of Mexico’s ill-fated Empress Carlota visiting the site in 1865 to avoid upsetting her.
During our recent visit to Uxmal, many structures we had been able to access on a previous visit, as well as some areas of the site, were cordoned off to visitors.
Upon entering the site, you’ll pass by a chultún – an underground rainwater storage tank. Due to the water shortages in the region, the ancient Mayas built a complex system to collect and use rain.
Near the entrance is the beautiful 35-meter-tall pyramid called the House of the Magician, also referred to as the Pyramid of the Dwarf and the Pyramid of the Soothsayer.
Legend says that this pyramid, with its interesting cone-like shape and two facades facing east and west, was built magically overnight in response to a challenge by Uxmal’s ruler. The builder was said to be a dwarf who was the son of a sorceress and born from a turtle egg.
However, contrary to the legend, archaeologists have identified five building phases and multiple architectural styles within the House of the Magician. It is made up of five temples built in different periods.
A goal ring for the Mayan ballgame played in a court commissioned by Lord Chac. deposit photos
The pyramid’s western stairway is lined by long-nosed masks believed to be of the god Chaac. An upper area called Temple IV has a mask of the earth monster on its facade. Its open jaws create the entrance.
Near the House of the Magician is a square with four palace-like structures called the Quadrangle of the Birds. One building has a frieze with designs resembling a feather or palm-leaf roof and bird sculptures. This group of buildings has been identified as the residence of Uxmal’s ruler, Lord Chac.
Next to the Quadrangle of the Birds is a large palace complex with four structures situated around a courtyard called the Quadrangle of the Nuns — named by the Spanish priest, Diego López de Cogolludo. The Spanish had believed that Mayan priestesses resided in these rooms.
Vault lids discovered in the buildings have partial dates corresponding to the time of Lord Chac’s reign, according to INAH.
Although these buildings are called palaces, it is believed that this complex served administrative and non-residential purposes.
The main access to the Quadrangle of the Nuns is through a beautiful vault on the South Building. The facade designs are linked to deities and cosmogenic concepts said to inspire an intense sense of fertility. There are many decorative elements on the building facades, including masks of God Chaac, planet Venus symbols, double-headed snakes, human figures and houses. Tláloc, the ancient rain god of central Mexico, is also depicted here.
The Governor’s Palace is positioned to track the movements and declinations of celestial bodies.
The North Building, a 26-room structure constructed on a 100-meter-long platform, is believed to be the most important due to its higher platform than the others. The building has a wide stairway in front with two temples on either side.
The other three buildings of the quadrangle also have many rooms and beautiful decorative elements worth seeing. The views from the South Building’s arch are stunning.
South of the Quadrangle of Nuns is the ball court, with two parallel structures and a playing area. Lord Chac is believed to have ordered the ball court’s construction, and INAH says the rings have inscriptions dating to A.D. 905.
Near the Ball Court, the East Portico, featuring a row of columns, is thought to have been where rituals and ceremonies were conducted before the ball games. Other speculated uses of the building include accommodating the players and storing their protective gear.
Towards the south of the site, on a large platform, is a spectacular 98-meter-long rectangular building called the Governor’s Palace, also built during Lord Chac’s reign. Considered a royal residence and the city’s principal administrative center, it is an extraordinary architectural creation with plenty for the visitor to observe. It’s also positioned to track the planet Venus’s movements as well as the maximum solar declinations that define solstices.
A large stairway provides access, and it has three sections separated by high vaults. The building’s facade is richly decorated and includes depictions of rulers and masks of Chaac.
Uxmal’s Dovecote structure features an impressive roof comb. deposit photos
In front of the Governor’s palace is the Throne of the Jaguar. Situated on a small platform, it is a throne made of a double-headed Jaguar sculpture.
Next to the governor’s palace is another interesting structure called the House of the Turtles. This building, which has multiple entrances, has rooms with stools where occupants could sit or lie down. The facade’s top is decorated with columns and features a cornice with turtle sculptures. Turtles were important animals associated with the rain and earth. The views across the site from this area are magnificent.
The next notable building in this section is the Great Pyramid, measuring around 30 meters in height. It has a wide stairway, and at its top is a platform with a crowning structure called the Temple of the Macaws because of the macaw figures on its facade.
West of the site is a partially preserved building called the Dovecote with a beautiful roof comb. Unfortunately, this area was completely cordoned off during our recent visit.
There are several other structures to see on the site. After you’re done exploring, check out the Choco-Story Ecopark Chocolate Museum nearby to experience the history of cocoa, a Maya ceremony to the rain god Chaac and other park activities.
Thilini Wijesinhe, a financial professional turned writer and entrepreneur, moved to Mexico in 2019 from Australia. She writes from Mérida, Yucatán. Her website can be found at https://momentsing.com/
Highway damage at the Juluchuca bridge in Petatlán, Guerrero. Civil proteciton guerrero
Hurricane Rick made landfall in Guerrero as a Category 2 hurricane Monday morning, bringing strong wind and heavy rain to that state and Michoacán.
Rick reached land at approximately 5:00 a.m. in La Unión de Isidoro Montes de Oca, a municipality that borders Zihuatanejo to the north and Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoacán, to the south.
The National Meteorological Service said the hurricane, which has since been degraded to a tropical storm, brought sustained winds of 165 kph with gusts of up to 205.
The hurricane caused flooding and toppled scores of trees in both Guerrero and Michoacán. Some homes were flooded while wind ripped the roofs off others. Strong swells were reported on Mexico’s southwest coast.
There have been no reports of injuries or loss of life since the hurricane made landfall, but scores of families took refuge in government shelters. Cars were stranded in floodwaters in Zihuatanejo and Acapulco.
Debido al paso del huracán #Rick por #Guerrero se produjo un corte sobre la carretera Acapulco-Zihuatanejo, a la altura de Petatlan, por lo que no hay paso hacia ese puerto. Se desbordó el Río Petatlan, inundando varias colonias de la cabecera municipal. pic.twitter.com/jW9WfsMdcA
The Petatlán River overflowed, shutting down the Acapulco-Zihuatanejo highway Monday morning at Petatlán.
The Guerrero Civil Protection service reported landslides on at least six roads, and the Acapulco-Zihuatanejo highway was cut off by floodwaters in the municipality of Petatlán. Authorities warned that several rivers and creeks in Guerrero and Michoacán were at risk of overflowing.
Blackouts were reported in the Costa Chica and Costa Grande regions of Guerrero as well as in Acapulco. Schools were closed in several municipalities in both Guerrero and Michoacán due to the dangers posed by the passing of the storm.
The United States National Hurricane Center (NHC) said that Rick was about 170 kilometers north of Lázaro Cárdenas at 1:00 p.m. Central Time and that maximum sustained winds were 95 kph. It said the storm was expected to produce five to 10 inches (12-25 cm) of rain with isolated amounts of up to 20 inches (51 cm) across sections of Guerrero and Michoacán.
“A generally northward motion is expected over the next 12 to 24 hours. On the forecast track, the center of Rick will move farther inland over Mexico today and tonight,” the NHC said.
“… Continued weakening is expected this afternoon and evening, and Rick is forecast to dissipate over the mountainous terrain of Mexico tonight,” it said.
