Temple of Alacran – Quintana Roo – Mexico

Posted on 12/12/2023 by Michael

Temple of Alacran

Temple of Alacran – Quintana Roo

The Templo del Alácran (Scorpion’s Temple), Mayan name Yamil Lu’um, was used between AD 1200 and 1550, and sits atop a beachside knoll in the park like grounds between the Park Royal and Westin Lagunamar hotels.

This was the last site I visited on my 2023 trip and it was, without a shadow of a doubt, the saddest site of all those I had the chance to see. Sadder even than those which had not seen any significant restoration.

It survives only because it was a condition for the hotels getting planning permission. Constructed as the hotels were after it wasn’t easy to just destroy the Mayan national heritage it was allowed to be dominated by commerce. Perhaps, in a way, it’s more of a symbol of what has happened to Mayan culture since the arrival of the Europeans, more than 500 years ago, than the major sites of Chichén Itzá or Uxmal.

How to get there:

Location:

Between the Park Royal and Westin Lagunamar hotels at Blvd Kukulcán Km 12.5, in the Cancun hotel district. Buses R1 and R2, to and from down-town Cancun, run regularly along the road. M$12 per journey.

Entrance:

Free.

More on the Maya

San Miguelito – Quintana Roo – Mexico

Posted on 12/12/2023 by Michael

San Miguelito

More on the Maya

San Miguelito – Quintana Roo

Site description

The site is divided into four groupings: North Complex, Chaak Palace Grouping, Dragon Complex and South Complex.

The North Complex was a residential area, with five raised platforms serving as foundations for thatch-roofed homes. Although the houses themselves have long since disappeared, more than 20 gravesites were found beneath the foundations; it was common practice among the ancient Maya to bury loved ones under family homes. Look for the two circular enclosures, thought to have been used for food preparation and storage.

The structures in the Chaak Palace Grouping served administrative functions. The most intact edifice is the namesake palace, which sits on the north side of a small plaza. An impressive 30-meters-long, it has well-preserved walls and 17 columns that once held up a flat wooden roof, a Mayan architectural feature also found at Tulum and Xel-Há, and an indicator of the strong ties among these coastal communities. If you look closely, you’ll see original stucco on some of the columns. The main stairway also contains stone etchings of Chaak, the Mayan god of rain.

The Dragon Complex is made up of several small structures, mostly alters, shrines and residential platforms that have not yet been fully excavated or restored. The most significant finding is a wall with remnants of a mural depicting fish and turtles – look for it under a protective awning. This grouping was named after two stone sculptures that were found nearby during the construction of the main boulevard along the Zona Hotelera.

The South Complex is the most impressive grouping of the site. Arranged around a central plaza are several residential platforms, altars and an east-facing palace with interior columns and two chultuns (stone cisterns used to catch rainwater). Just south of the palace is San Miguelito’s imposing pyramid, an 8m-tall structure crowned by a temple; its stairway faces south towards the El Rey ruins further along the strip.

San Miguelito is a Post Classic site (1100-1450 A.D.) located on Cancun Island. It is the northern extension of the larger site of El Rey separated by Avenida Kukulkan which runs the length of Cancun Island. It was part of the polity of Ekab (Black Earth) which ruled over the north-eastern portion of the Yucatan at the time of the Spanish invasion. The original name of the site is unknown. The modern name derives from a coconut palm plantation that once occupied the area.

San Miguelito was involved in an extensive trade network that extended from Central America around the peninsula to Campeche on the Gulf Coast and inland. Export items included dried fish, salt, honey, and stingray spines which were an important item in bloodletting ceremonies. Imported items included obsidian, quartz, flint, jadeite, basalt grinding stones and copper tweezers, as well as providing a conduit for evolving world views.

From Lonely Planet.

How to get there:

The archaeological site is located in the grounds of the modern building of Cancun Maya Museum, in the hotel zone of Cancun. Buses R1 and R2, to and from downtown Cancun, run regularly along the road of the hotel district. M$12 per journey.

GPS:

21.04.29 N

86.46.38 W

Entrance:

Included in the entrance cost for the museum, M$90

More on the Maya

El Meco – Quintana Roo – Mexico

Posted on 12/10/2023 by Michael

El Meco

More on the Maya

El Meco – Quintana Roo

Location

The pre-Hispanic settlement was built on a slight elevation 4 m above sea level, in an area of marshlands and mangroves. Although relatively small, El Meco is one of the largest settlements on the north coast of Quintana Roo. The site was split down the middle when the current road was built, with part of the residential area and a pre-Hispanic pier occupying the section closest to the sea. El Meco lies north of the city of Cancun, just 2.7 km away on the Puerto Juarez/Punta Sam road.

History of the explorations

We owe the earliest mention of El Meco to Alice and Augustus Le Plongeon, who visited the site briefly in 1887 and described the plaza and main pyramid. In 1891, Teobert Maler published a few notes and a map, as well as the first known photograph of the central building. A few years later, in 1895, William Holmes made a short expedition to the site and contributed new descriptions and sketches, and also discovered two new serpent heads. The British researchers C. Arnold and F.K.T. Frost passed through the site between 1907 and 1908. The most important work of the early 20th century was conducted in 1918 by Samuel K. Lothrop, of the Carnegie Institution in Washington, who contributed descriptions and detailed drawings of the main structure. Thomas Gann, a member of the same expedition, published his impressions in 1924. Thirty years passed before the first stratigraphic wells were excavated, shedding light on the first ceramic sequence at the site; we owe this knowledge to William T. Sanders, who worked at the site in 1954. In the 1970s, a team of archaeologists from the INAH, led by Fernando Robles C. and Anthony P. Andrews conducted the first official excavations at the site, and since the 1990s Luis Leira G. (INAH) has been in charge of the works.

Pre-Hispanic history

The research conducted to date has confirmed that the first human occupation of El Meco dates back to the Early Classic, when it must have been a small fishing village that owed allegiance to a larger site further inland, such as Coba. Everything suggests that the site was abandoned for an interval of some 400 years and then reoccupied around 1000 to 1100 AD. Judging from the architectural style and ceramics corresponding to that period, the new population appears to have been of Itza and Cocom descent, from the western part of the Yucatan Peninsula. Between AD 1200 and the arrival of the Spaniards in the 16th century – namely, the period known as the Postclassic – El Meco experienced a construction boom and developed closer political and economic ties with all the sites on the east coast. We do not know the original name of the site. El Meco is a reference to the limp of a local resident in the 19th century who owned a coconut palm plantation near the lighthouse by the beach and whose nickname was adopted for the ruins. Some researchers have suggested that El Meco might be the Belma of the 16th century mentioned by the chronicler Oviedo y Valdes as the administrative centre of Ecab, one of the most important provinces in the region on the arrival of the Spaniards.

Site description

The orientation and layout of the buildings in the core area of El Meco confirm their dual ceremonial and administrative function. All of the constructions are arranged around a plaza, at the centre of which stands the most important structure of all, known as the Castillo. This building faces east, towards Isla Mujeres (‘Island of Women’), with which it maintained close ties. Square in plan and standing 12.50 m high, it is the tallest building on the north coast of Quintana Roo and probably served as a reference for the ancient seafaring Maya. It displays three construction phases and is composed of a four-tier platform with a balustraded stairway in the middle culminating in two serpent heads, nowadays greatly eroded and barely recognisable as such. At the top of the structure is a temple with a tripartite entrance in the East Coast style. The excavations revealed the existence of a substructure – a single-tier platform and a small temple with a single entrance. Nowadays, part of this substructure is exposed and visible on the west side of the building. Flanking the building are two constructions; the smaller of the two corresponds to a temple and the other, fronted by columns and small altars, probably to a residence. The architecture around the main plaza is defined by elongated buildings with hypostyle rooms, which may have been used for political or administrative purposes. Given the importance of the site as a commercial port, some of the buildings may well have served as warehouses for products or a market.

Ceramics

Three ceramic groups have been identified at El Meco, providing us with an insight into the cultural development of the site:

Cochuah ceramic group (AD 400-600).

This is the earliest manifestation of human activity and the ceramics found suggest that during the Early Classic their relations were limited exclusively to sites in the north of Quintana Roo.

Hocaba-sotuta ceramic group (AD 1000-1200).

Between the former period and this one, the site was vacated. During this time, El Meco appears to have maintained relations with communities in the Peten/Belize region.

Tases ceramic group (AD 1200-late 16th century).

This period corresponds to the last pre-Hispanic occupation and increased construction activity. The site must have had connections with sites on the east coast of Quintana Roo, although there are certain stylistic similarities with the architecture of the western part of the peninsula. El Meco was abandoned in the late 16th century, like most of the sites on the east coast, due to the new economic, political and religious patterns that accompanied the Spanish Conquest.

Importance and relations

El Meco almost certainly operated as a religious centre during the Postclassic. Due to its coastal location and close ties with Isla Mujeres, it may well have played an important role as a trading port and part of an important trade network along the coast of Quintana Roo during the Postclassic.

Maria Jose Con Uribe

From: ‘The Maya: an architectural and landscape guide’, produced jointly by the Junta de Andulacia and the Universidad Autonoma de Mexico, 2010, pp 433-435.

El Meco

1. The Castle; 2. Structure 3; 3. Structure 6; 4. Structre 8; 5. Structure 12; 6. Structure 18.

How to get there:

From Cancun. Combis leave Parque el Crucero to the north of the main ADO bus station in downtown Cancun. Their destination is Puerto Juarez and/or Puerto Sam. It’s a short 10-15 minute journey. Cost M$10 each way.