Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 26, 2025
Mayapan may have stood upon the foundations of a very ancient city which was several times rebuilt, but the city destroyed in 1420 could not have been as old as either Palenque or Copan. The ruins of Uxmal have been regarded as the most important in Yucatan, partly on account of the edifices that remain standing, but chiefly because they have been more visited and explored than the others.
If we are to judge by the great number of ruined cities scattered everywhere through the forests of the peninsula; by the architectural beauty of the monuments still extant, the specimens of their artistic attainments in drawing and sculpture which have reached us in the bas-reliefs, statues and mural paintings of Uxmal and Chichen-Itza; by their knowledge in mathematical and astronomical sciences, as manifested in the construction of the gnomon found by me in the ruins of Mayapan; by the complexity of the grammatical form and syntaxis of their language, still spoken to-day by the majority of the inhabitants of Yucatan; by their mode of expressing their thoughts on paper, made from the bark of certain trees, with alphabetical and phonetical characters, we must of necessity believe that, at some time or other, the country was not only densely populated, but that the inhabitants had reached a high degree of civilization.
Nearly all the monuments of Yucatan bear evidence that the Mayas had a predilection for number SEVEN. Since we find that their artificial mounds were composed of seven superposed platforms; that the city of Uxmal contained seven of these mounds; that the north side of the palace of King CAN was adorned with seven turrets; that the entwined serpents, his totem, which adorn the east façade of the west wing of this building, have seven rattles; that the head-dress of kings and queens were adorned with seven blue feathers; in a word, that the number SEVEN prevails in all places and in everything where Maya influence has predominated.
It served as cloak. To-day the natives of Yucatan wear the same dress, with but slight modifications. While the aborigines of the Tierra de Guerra, who still preserve the customs of their forefathers, untainted by foreign admixture, use the same garments, of their own manufacture, that we see represented in the bas-reliefs of Chichen and Uxmal, and in the mural paintings of Mayab and Egypt.
The numerous pueblos in ruins scattered through the forests of Yucatan and southward are so many monuments of Spanish misrule, oppression, and rapacity. The most extensive group of ruins in Yucatan is that at Uxmal.
The rooms and corridors in these edifices were finely and often elaborately finished, plaster, stucco, and sculpture being used. In one room of a great building at Uxmal Mr.
In both cases they are pyramidal in shape, and have level summits of considerable extent, which were reached by means of stairways on the outside. The great mound at Chichen-Itza is 75 feet high, and has on its summit a ruined stone edifice; that at Uxmal is 60 feet high, and has a similar ruin on its summit; that at Mayapan is 60 feet high; the edifice placed on its summit has disappeared.
These destroyed Chichen, and established their capital at Uxmal. There they erected in all the courts of the palaces, and on the platforms of the temples the symbols of their religion, taking care, however, not to interfere with the worship of the sun and fire, that seems to have been the most popular. Bancroft in his work, “The Native Races of the Pacific States,” Vol.
They worshiped the divine essence, and called it KÚ. In course of time this worship may have been replaced by idolatrous rites, introduced by the barbarous or half civilized tribes which invaded the country, and implanted among the inhabitants their religious belief, their idolatrous superstitions and form of worship with their symbols. The monuments of Uxmal afford ample evidence of that fact.
Examine carefully any good map of Mexico and Central America, and consider well that the ruins already explored or visited are wholly in the northern half of Yucatan, or far away from this region, at the south, beyond the great wilderness, or in the southern edge of it. Uxmal, Mayapan, Chichen-Itza, and many others, are in Yucatan.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking