Acanceh, Tecoh, and Mayapan

-          Today, instead of having class, we went to go visit three different Mayan locations.

-          First on our trip was Acanceh.  It was a small town near Merida.  At the center was a plaza square, just like the one in Merida.  There was church that was being renovated.  It was really nice.  I really liked the architecture of the churches in Mexico.  It is very simple, yet very beautiful.  (insert picture)

-          Near the square was a small, preserved Mayan temple. (insert picture)  It was really interesting that a Mayan temple was sitting in the middle of a town.  I would have thought that with the development of the town, the temple would have been destroyed.  I was really impressed at how preserved the temple was.  We climbed the temple and we saw stucco masks on the pyramid.  I was also impressed at how well preserved they stucco was.  Given the harsh conditions in Mexico, especially during the rainy season, I thought that Mother Nature would have had its way with the stucco masks, but the masks were well preserved.  The masks were on the west, north, and east sides of the temple.  The masks were a bit disfigured, but Rebecca told us that some of the damages on the masks were intentional and may have been done long ago during the age of the Maya as a termination ritual.  However, for stucco, which is virtually like plaster, it was well preserved.

-          We also went to El Palacio de los Estucos, which was further down from the square and was another Mayan ruin.  This site had very nicely preserved Mayan stone carvings.  It depicted figures with zoomorphic features.  Some believe that it could be the Mayan zodiac, but there is no evidence to back it up.  (insert picture)

-          The sites were really beautiful but I found it a bit upsetting that the site was not being taken care of.  The carvings on El Palacio de los Estucos were slowly being warn away.  The only thing covering it was a metal sheet to act as a roof over it.  This was the same for the stucco masks on the temple at the square.  Hugo, our tour guide said that many small local sites were getting little funding to preserve these sites.  The only sites that were getting the most funding, especially for restoration of the various buildings and artifacts, were those that were big touristy areas, like Chichen Itza.  Chinchen Itza is a nice place, but places like Acanceh is just as beautiful and has equally nice carvings for people to see.  It was upsetting that these sites were not getting the money to help care for them.

-          We also went to Tecoh.  We stopped by a church, which was build over a Mayan temple.  This goes back to the whole idea of the Spanish replacing the old Mayan religion with their new Catholic religion.  The church was built on a Pre-Columbian foundation.  The church was beautiful but I what upset me was that there was a bull fight ring build near the church.  At this point in the year, they were celebrating with a bull fight.  Here in Mexico, it is still practiced that the bull would be killed in the ring.  I completely appalled that this was being celebrated near a church.  The ring was also a makeshift structure made of sticks and sheets of metal.  If that bull gets lose, there is a possibility that the bull could go towards the church and ruin it.  I thought that the idea was completely idiotic, but that is the custom here in Mexico.  (insert picture)

-          The final site that we went to was Mayapan.  I really enjoyed this site.  It was like a miniature version of Chichen Itza.  Chichen Itza was a nice place to visit, but it was too touristy.  It was overrun with so many tourists.  Also, the place was huge.  Mayapan was smaller and everything was close to each other.  I also liked the fact that not that many people were there.  I understand that tourists bring in money and that money helps to restore the site, but it was nice to have the place to ourselves with not that many people walking around.

-          At Mayapan, we scaled the Castillo, which is the central temple in the site, and the largest as well.  The Castillo had 9 levels with 260 steps, which corresponds to the Mayan calendar round.  We also so the round temple, which was used for astronomical observations.  We also got to see a very well preserved example of a corbel vault.  I really liked this site.  (insert picture)