Uxmal

Uxmal is pronounced "Oosh-mahl". The place name is Pre-Columbian and it is usually assumed to be an archaic Maya language phase meaning "Built Three Times", although some scholars of the Maya language dispute this derivation.

While much work has been done at the popular tourist destination of Uxmal to consolidate and restore buildings, little in the way of serious archeological excavation and research has been done here, therefore the city's dates of occupation are unknown and the estimated population (about 25,000 people) is at present only a very rough guess subject to change upon better data. Most of the architecture visible today was built between about 700 and 1100.

Maya chronicles say that Uxmal was founded about 500 by Hun Uitzil Chac Tutul Xiu. For generations Uxmal was ruled over by the Xiu family, was the most powerful site in western Yucatan, and for a while in alliance with Chichen Itza dominated all of the northern Maya area. Sometime after about 1200 no new major construction seems to have been made at Uxmal, possibly related to the fall of Uxmal's ally Chichen Itza and the shift of power in Yucatan to Mayapan. The Xiu moved their capital to Mani, and the population of Uxmal declined.

After the Spanish Conquest of Yucatan (in which the Xiu allied themselves with the Spanish), early colonial doccuments suggest that Uxmal was still an inhabited place of some importance into the 1550s, but no Spanish town was built here and Uxmal was soon after largely abandoned.

Even before the restoration work Uxmal was in better condition than many other Maya sites thanks to being unusually well built. Much was built with well cut stones not relying on plaster to hold the building together. The Maya architecture here is considered matched only by that of Palenque in elegance and beauty. The Puuc[?] style of Maya architecture predominates. Thanks to its good state of preservation, it is one of the few Maya cities where the casual visitor can get a good idea of how the entire ceremonial center looked in ancient times.

Some of the more noteworthy buildings include:

• The Governor's Palace, a long low building atop a huge platform, with the longest fascades in Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica.
• The Adivino or "Pyramid of the Magician", a fine pyramid temple unusual in several ways. The layers of the step pyramid are oval, rather than the usual rectangular or square shape. It was a common practice in Mesoamerica to build new temple pyramids atop older ones, but here a newer pyramid was built centered slightly to the east of the older pyramid, so that on the west side the temple atop the old pyramid is preserved, with the newer temple above it.
• The Nunnery Quadrangle (a nickname given to it by the Spanish; it was a government palace) is the finest of Uxmal's several fine quadrangles of long buildings with elaborately carved fascades on both the inside and outside faces
• A large Ballcourt for playing the Mesoamerican ballgame

The site, located not far from Merida beside the road to Campeche, has attracted many visitors since the time of Mexico's independence. The first detailed account of the ruins was published by Jean Frederic Waldeck in 1838. Carlota of Mexico visited Uxmal in the 1860s; in preparation for her visit local authorities had some statues and architectural elements depicting phallic themes removed from the ancient facades. Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom visited in 1976 for the inaguration of the site's sound & light show; when the presentation reached the point where the sound system played the Maya prayer to Chac a sudden torrential downpour fell upon the gathered dignitaries, despite the fact that it was the middle of the dry season.

External Links

• Uxmal on mayaruins.com (http://mayaruins.com/uxmal01) with map and photos
• Uxmal Ruins (http://www.thresholds.net/uxmal/uxmalphoto) good photographs