DZIBILCHALTUN MAYA CITY

After touring Merida the day before, we decided to use our free day to set out with friends Ted and Ann Lane to explore the ancient Maya city of Dzibilchaltun. This city was continuously inhabited from about 500 bc to the time of the Spanish conquest of Yucatan in the 1500's. Like most Maya cities they were centered around one or more cenotes--outcropping of subterrainin rivers.

This city is one of the oldest Maya cities. It happens to be within the outside rings of the impact zone of the meteorite that destroyed the dinosaurs.

Cenotes are upwellings of underground rivers that criscross the Yucatan peninsula. There are NO surface rivers in Yucatan! All water must be retrieved from cenotes or man-made wells.

This is the beautiful cenote shown in the city plan. People are swiming in its crystal clear warm waters.

Seismic studies show that the meteorite that caused the extinction of 70% of life on earth, including the dinosaurs impacted in deep water just off the coast of Yucatan near the town of Chicxulub, not too far from the site of Dzibilchaltun and Progreso on the present coast.

Much of the original city has been ravaged by time, the Spanish conquerors, who used the stones from Maya cities to build their churches, often on top of Maya temples to show the natives just who was in charge. Here is evidence. See the wall of an early Catholic church below. Notice engravings from an earlier Maya structure in it.

Below, I am walking on the roadbed of the central Maya highway to the Temple of the Seven Dolls. The highways were quite broad - this one is as broad as a US highway - and raised in this case 3 feet above the surrounding terrain. The highways were tiled with white square stones, and were used mostly at night because it was cooler for transportation. Of course, the traffic was foot traffic, because the Maya did not know the wheel, except in toys, and had no pack animals.

The white paving is long gone, looted for other construction. The Maya term for these highways is sacbeo, or highways, and sacbe for a single highway.


Here Teri and I are looking into the central chamber aligned with East - West cardinal points.

The descent is steep for Ann and Teri.

Here are the cotton balls from the kapok tree. These fibers were used by the Maya for their fabrics. The trunk of the kapok is fearsome to climb.
This is the heneken plant - a type of agave from which the sisal fiber is extracted. The genuine Panama hat I am wearing in the pictures above is made from the fiber from this plant. The fiber is ultra fine and strong, and tolerates salt water well, so it was used until the polyester and other synthetic fibers became dominant in seafaring.