Uxmal Archaeological Site

Uxmal is located in the Santa Elena Valley south of the Puuc hill country in the southwestern Yucatan Peninsula. The zone was first settled in 500 B.C., but between the ninth and twelfth centuries A.D. it became the seat of Mayan political and economic power in the Puuc region. An estimated population of around 25,000 inhabitants was distributed across 37.5 square kilometers with enormous agricultural potential but no permanent water sources, leading the Maya to construct chultunes, or underground cisterns, and a complex system including aguadas and bukteoobob to use rainwater. Its architecture is one of the most authentic examples of the Puuc style, and decorative features such as three-dimensional masks of the god Chaac, colonnades, the two-head jaguar, and other iconographic symbols show Uxmal’s place in the most important cultural and commercial circuits of the Maya Classic Era. The walled civic-administrative area extends one kilometer from north to south and 0.6 kilometer from east to west, with palace-type structures arranged around courtyards to form quadrangles. Its decoration is among the richest and most varied of the archaeological zones, with representations of gods, animals, dignitaries, and geometric forms, and residential structures stand in the surrounding area.

Yucatán · Mexico