Mayapan
Encyclopedia
Mayapan (in Spanish
Mayapán) is a Pre-Columbian
Maya
site a couple of kilometers south of the town of Telchaquillo in Municipality of Tecoh, approximately 40 km south-east of Mérida
and 100 km west of Chichen Itza
; in the state of Yucatán
, Mexico
. Mayapan was the political and cultural capital of the Maya in the Yucatán Peninsula during the Late Post-Classic period from the 1220s until the 1440s.
Mayapan is 4.2 square kilometers and has over 4000 structures most of them residences, are packed into this compound within the city walls, while built-up areas extend a half kilometer beyond the city walls in all directions. The stone perimeter wall has twelve gates, including seven major gates with vaulted entrances. The wall is 9.1 km long and is roughly ovate with a pointed northeast corner. The ceremonial center of the site is located in Square Q of the city's grid in the center of the wider western half of the walled enclosure. The ceremonial center has a tightly packed cluster of temples, colonnaded halls, oratories, shrines, sanctuaries, altars, and platforms (for oration, dancing, or stela display). Carnegie archaeologist A.L. Smith estimated 10-12,000 people lived within the walled parameter. A survey conducted outside of the city wall by Dr. Bradley Russell documented additional dwellings and revised the total population estimate to between 15,000-17,000 people. His survey results are posted online at www.mayapanperiphery.net. People living outside of the city wall engaged in agriculture, animal-raising, and specialized activities such as lime production. Russell also found a colonnaded hall outside of the city wall, revealing that there remains much to be discovered regarding the complexity of this urban landscape.
The Temple of Kukulcan is the main temple in Mayapan. It is located immediately to the east of the Cenote Ch'en Mul, which has caves radiating from it. In form, the Temple of Kukulcan (Structure Q-162 on the site map) is a radial four-staircase temple with nine terraces that is generally similar to the Temple of Kukulcan at the earlier site of Chichen Itza
. There are a number of other major temples in the ceremonial center including three round ones, which are unusual for the Maya area and are also linked to the deity Kukulkan/Quetzalcoatl in his wind god (Ehecatl) aspect. Unlike Chichen Itza, Mayapan has no ballcourts.
The extensive residential zones of the site are composed of dwellings and ancillary domestic structures. The houses are often arranged in small patio groups surrounding small courtyards. There are many cenotes, perhaps as many as 40, in the residential areas of the site, and settlement is the most dense in the southwestern part of the city where cenotes are more numerous.
The ethnohistorical sources - such as Diego de Landa's Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan, compiled from native sources in the 16th century - tell us the site was founded by Kukulcan (the Maya name of Quetzalcoatl
, the Toltec
king, culture hero, and demigod) after the fall of Chichen Itza. He convened the lords of the region, who agreed to found a new capital at Mayapan. The lords then divided the towns of Yucatán among them, and chose the chief of the Cocom
family as their leader.
The ethnohistorical sources recount multiple different histories of the rise and fall of Mayapan (Roys 1962). These histories are often confusing, chronologically implausible, and difficult to reconcile. For example, some sources say that the Maya revolted in 1221 against the Maya-Toltec lords of Chichen Itza. After a short civil war the lords of various powerful cities and families met to restore a central government to Yucatán. A decision was made to build a new capital city near the town of Telchaquillo, hometown of Hunac Ceel
, the general who defeated the rulers of Chichen Itza. The new city was built within a defensive wall
and named "Mayapan", meaning "Standard of the Maya people".
The chief of the Cocom family, a rich and ancient lineage that had taken part in the revolt against Chichen, was chosen to be king, but all the other noble families and regional lords were to send members of their families to Mayapan to play parts in the government. This arrangement lasted for over 200 years. (An alternative account is given in a Maya chronicle from the Colonial era, claiming that Mayapan was contemporary with Chichen and Uxmal
and in alliance with those cities, but archeological evidence shows this version to be less likely.)
In 1441, Ah Xupan of the powerful noble family of Xiu
became resentful of the political machinations of the Cocom rulers and organized a revolt. At the end of this most of the Cocom family were killed, Mayapan was sacked, burned, and abandoned, and Yucatán fell apart into warring city states.
Archaeological evidence indicates that at least the ceremonial center was burned at the end of the occupation. Excavation has revealed burnt roof beams in several of the major buildings in the site center.
Five years of intensive archeological investigations at Mayapan were conducted by the archaeologists of the Carnegie Institution in the 1950s, including A. L. Smith
, Robert Smith, Tatiana Proskouriakoff
, Edwin Shook, Karl Ruppert and J. Eric Thompson. Their work was published in a mimeographed series of Current Reports. The Current Reports have recently been republished in their entirety by the University of Colorado Press (John Weeks 2009). The final report was published by the Carnegie Institution as Mayapan, Yucatan, Mexico, by H. E. D. Pollock, Ralph L. Roys, A. L. Smith, and Tatiana Proskouriakoff (1962, Publication 619). Robert Smith also published a two-volume monograph on "The Pottery of Mayapan" in 1971 (Papers of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology 66, Harvard University).
In the early 1990s, Clifford T. Brown of Tulane University
carried out excavations in the residential zones of Mayapan as part of his doctoral dissertation research. Several years later, the National Institute of Anthropology and History
(INAH) began extensive architectural excavations and consolidation under the direction of archaeologist Carlos Peraza Lope. This work continues to the present and has resulted in the exposure and discovery of many important artifacts, murals, stuccoes, and architectural elements.
From 2001-2009, further investigations were begun at the site under the direction of Dr. Marilyn Masson from the State University New York at Albany, Carlos Peraza Lope of INAH, and Timothy S. Hare of Morehead State University. This "Economic Foundations of Mayapan" (PEMY) Project performed mapping, surface survey and collection, test-pitting, and horizontal excavation across the city. Major findings of this project include the identification of diverse occupational specialization among the city's commoners who worked as craftspersons, conscripted military personnel, farmers, and domestic servants. Great variation is now recognized in the types of work performed by commoners of different households and their degree of affluence. This project has also identified a probable major market plaza in Square K (between the site center and major north gate D); Richard Terry, Bruce Dahlin, and Daniel Bair have analyzed soil samples from this location to test the function of this locality. In 2008 and 2009, the PEMY project focused excavations on an outlying ceremonial group by the far eastern city gate (Gate H), known as Itzmal Ch'en, as part of its quest to study the economic and social links between governing elites and distant neighborhoods within the city.
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
Mayapán) is a Pre-Columbian
Pre-Columbian
The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic period to European colonization during...
Maya
Maya civilization
The Maya is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as for its art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems. Initially established during the Pre-Classic period The Maya is a Mesoamerican...
site a couple of kilometers south of the town of Telchaquillo in Municipality of Tecoh, approximately 40 km south-east of Mérida
Mérida, Yucatán
Mérida is the capital and largest city of the Mexican state of Yucatán and the Yucatán Peninsula. It is located in the northwest part of the state, about from the Gulf of Mexico coast...
and 100 km west of Chichen Itza
Chichen Itza
Chichen Itza is a large pre-Columbian archaeological site built by the Maya civilization located in the northern center of the Yucatán Peninsula, in the Municipality of Tinúm, Yucatán state, present-day Mexico....
; in the state of Yucatán
Yucatán
Yucatán officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Yucatán is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 106 municipalities and its capital city is Mérida....
, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
. Mayapan was the political and cultural capital of the Maya in the Yucatán Peninsula during the Late Post-Classic period from the 1220s until the 1440s.
Mayapan is 4.2 square kilometers and has over 4000 structures most of them residences, are packed into this compound within the city walls, while built-up areas extend a half kilometer beyond the city walls in all directions. The stone perimeter wall has twelve gates, including seven major gates with vaulted entrances. The wall is 9.1 km long and is roughly ovate with a pointed northeast corner. The ceremonial center of the site is located in Square Q of the city's grid in the center of the wider western half of the walled enclosure. The ceremonial center has a tightly packed cluster of temples, colonnaded halls, oratories, shrines, sanctuaries, altars, and platforms (for oration, dancing, or stela display). Carnegie archaeologist A.L. Smith estimated 10-12,000 people lived within the walled parameter. A survey conducted outside of the city wall by Dr. Bradley Russell documented additional dwellings and revised the total population estimate to between 15,000-17,000 people. His survey results are posted online at www.mayapanperiphery.net. People living outside of the city wall engaged in agriculture, animal-raising, and specialized activities such as lime production. Russell also found a colonnaded hall outside of the city wall, revealing that there remains much to be discovered regarding the complexity of this urban landscape.
The Temple of Kukulcan is the main temple in Mayapan. It is located immediately to the east of the Cenote Ch'en Mul, which has caves radiating from it. In form, the Temple of Kukulcan (Structure Q-162 on the site map) is a radial four-staircase temple with nine terraces that is generally similar to the Temple of Kukulcan at the earlier site of Chichen Itza
Chichen Itza
Chichen Itza is a large pre-Columbian archaeological site built by the Maya civilization located in the northern center of the Yucatán Peninsula, in the Municipality of Tinúm, Yucatán state, present-day Mexico....
. There are a number of other major temples in the ceremonial center including three round ones, which are unusual for the Maya area and are also linked to the deity Kukulkan/Quetzalcoatl in his wind god (Ehecatl) aspect. Unlike Chichen Itza, Mayapan has no ballcourts.
The extensive residential zones of the site are composed of dwellings and ancillary domestic structures. The houses are often arranged in small patio groups surrounding small courtyards. There are many cenotes, perhaps as many as 40, in the residential areas of the site, and settlement is the most dense in the southwestern part of the city where cenotes are more numerous.
The ethnohistorical sources - such as Diego de Landa's Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan, compiled from native sources in the 16th century - tell us the site was founded by Kukulcan (the Maya name of Quetzalcoatl
Quetzalcoatl
Quetzalcoatl is a Mesoamerican deity whose name comes from the Nahuatl language and has the meaning of "feathered serpent". The worship of a feathered serpent deity is first documented in Teotihuacan in the first century BCE or first century CE...
, the Toltec
Toltec
The Toltec culture is an archaeological Mesoamerican culture that dominated a state centered in Tula, Hidalgo in the early post-classic period of Mesoamerican chronology...
king, culture hero, and demigod) after the fall of Chichen Itza. He convened the lords of the region, who agreed to found a new capital at Mayapan. The lords then divided the towns of Yucatán among them, and chose the chief of the Cocom
Cocom
COCOM A/S was a cable modem company founded by Henrik Hvidtfeldt. It was based in Copenhagen, Denmark, prior to its acquisition by Cisco Systems on September 15, 1999. It is currently organized as Cisco Cable Products and Solutions A/S.-References:...
family as their leader.
The ethnohistorical sources recount multiple different histories of the rise and fall of Mayapan (Roys 1962). These histories are often confusing, chronologically implausible, and difficult to reconcile. For example, some sources say that the Maya revolted in 1221 against the Maya-Toltec lords of Chichen Itza. After a short civil war the lords of various powerful cities and families met to restore a central government to Yucatán. A decision was made to build a new capital city near the town of Telchaquillo, hometown of Hunac Ceel
Hunac Ceel
Hunac Ceel Cauich was a Mayan general from Telchaquillo who conquered Chichen Itzá and founded the Cocom dynasty...
, the general who defeated the rulers of Chichen Itza. The new city was built within a defensive wall
Defensive wall
A defensive wall is a fortification used to protect a city or settlement from potential aggressors. In ancient to modern times, they were used to enclose settlements...
and named "Mayapan", meaning "Standard of the Maya people".
The chief of the Cocom family, a rich and ancient lineage that had taken part in the revolt against Chichen, was chosen to be king, but all the other noble families and regional lords were to send members of their families to Mayapan to play parts in the government. This arrangement lasted for over 200 years. (An alternative account is given in a Maya chronicle from the Colonial era, claiming that Mayapan was contemporary with Chichen and Uxmal
Uxmal
Uxmal was dominant from 875 to 900 CE. The site appears to have been the capital of a regional state in the Puuc region from 850-950 CE. The Maya dynasty expanded their dominion over their neighbors. This prominence didn't last long...
and in alliance with those cities, but archeological evidence shows this version to be less likely.)
In 1441, Ah Xupan of the powerful noble family of Xiu
Xiu
Xiu is a Chinese language web site for online shopping, operated in the People's Republic of China.Founded by Mr. Ji Wenhong and Mr. Jin Huang in March 2008, it's a vertical e-commerce company, offering middle to luxury brand name fashion products - clothing, shoes, bags, ornaments, cosmetics and...
became resentful of the political machinations of the Cocom rulers and organized a revolt. At the end of this most of the Cocom family were killed, Mayapan was sacked, burned, and abandoned, and Yucatán fell apart into warring city states.
Five years of intensive archeological investigations at Mayapan were conducted by the archaeologists of the Carnegie Institution in the 1950s, including A. L. Smith
A. L. Smith
Sir Archibald Levin Smith was a British judge and a rower who competed at Henley and in the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race.-Biography:...
, Robert Smith, Tatiana Proskouriakoff
Tatiana Proskouriakoff
Tat’yana Avenirovna Proskuriakova was an American Mayanist scholar and archaeologist who contributed significantly to the decipherment of Maya hieroglyphs, the writing system of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization of Mesoamerica.-Early life:...
, Edwin Shook, Karl Ruppert and J. Eric Thompson. Their work was published in a mimeographed series of Current Reports. The Current Reports have recently been republished in their entirety by the University of Colorado Press (John Weeks 2009). The final report was published by the Carnegie Institution as Mayapan, Yucatan, Mexico, by H. E. D. Pollock, Ralph L. Roys, A. L. Smith, and Tatiana Proskouriakoff (1962, Publication 619). Robert Smith also published a two-volume monograph on "The Pottery of Mayapan" in 1971 (Papers of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology 66, Harvard University).
In the early 1990s, Clifford T. Brown of Tulane University
Tulane University
Tulane University is a private, nonsectarian research university located in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States...
carried out excavations in the residential zones of Mayapan as part of his doctoral dissertation research. Several years later, the National Institute of Anthropology and History
National Institute of Anthropology and History
The Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia is a Mexican federal government bureau established in 1939 to guarantee the research, preservation, protection, and promotion of the prehistoric, archaeological, anthropological, historical, and paleontological heritage of Mexico...
(INAH) began extensive architectural excavations and consolidation under the direction of archaeologist Carlos Peraza Lope. This work continues to the present and has resulted in the exposure and discovery of many important artifacts, murals, stuccoes, and architectural elements.
From 2001-2009, further investigations were begun at the site under the direction of Dr. Marilyn Masson from the State University New York at Albany, Carlos Peraza Lope of INAH, and Timothy S. Hare of Morehead State University. This "Economic Foundations of Mayapan" (PEMY) Project performed mapping, surface survey and collection, test-pitting, and horizontal excavation across the city. Major findings of this project include the identification of diverse occupational specialization among the city's commoners who worked as craftspersons, conscripted military personnel, farmers, and domestic servants. Great variation is now recognized in the types of work performed by commoners of different households and their degree of affluence. This project has also identified a probable major market plaza in Square K (between the site center and major north gate D); Richard Terry, Bruce Dahlin, and Daniel Bair have analyzed soil samples from this location to test the function of this locality. In 2008 and 2009, the PEMY project focused excavations on an outlying ceremonial group by the far eastern city gate (Gate H), known as Itzmal Ch'en, as part of its quest to study the economic and social links between governing elites and distant neighborhoods within the city.