Travelers Guide to Yucatán

DZIBILCHALTUN SPLENDOR IN THE STONE

At only a 22 kilometer distance from the city of Merida the  archaeological site of Dzibilchaltun is located, marvel identified as one of the most ancient Mayan Centers in the northern zone, the name signifies `Place where there is writing on the stones´. 

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Cohiba Hotel, Playa del Carmen Qroo. México

It was inhabited continuously from 500 years B.C. until the arrival of the Spaniards. Although its tourist attraction is concentrated in what is today its urban or ceremonial center, its territory covered close to 17 square kilometers and was connected to other Mayan centers by stone roads called sacbes. 

According to hundreds of vestiges found in the area, Dzibilchaltun had more than 40 thousand inhabitants in its apogee and carried on because of its  proximity to the seacoast, intensive trade with products such as salt and fish. 

Its principal source of water supply was the sinkhole X´lakah, which during the 1950´s was explored by a group of scientific investigators headed by the archaeologist, E.Willys Andrews, under the sponsorship of Tulane University. In the cenote´s depths they found fossils and Mayan ceramic shards.

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Colibri Hotel, Playa del Carmen Qroo. México

The Temple of the Seven Dolls is an outstanding relic to which the archaeologist, Victor Segovia, assigned the purpose of ceremonial rites dedicated to the sun and the moon which were celebrated with devout masses in attendance. This investigator advances the theory that the governing class carried out ceremonies of light and shade to reinforce their supposed positions as intermediaries between the sun god and the populace.

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Travelers Guide to Yucatan