Uxmal
Puuc-style Maya city south of Mérida, with the oval Pyramid of the Magician and long mosaic façades.
Uxmal lies in the low Puuc hills about 78 kilometres south of Mérida and was among the largest Maya settlements of the northern Yucatán peninsula. Its main civic and ceremonial buildings were raised between roughly AD 700 and 1000, when the city controlled a group of nearby centres linked by raised causeways. Without rivers or cenotes, the inhabitants relied on rainwater collected in plastered underground cisterns known as chultunes. UNESCO added Uxmal to the World Heritage List in 1996, together with the neighbouring Puuc towns.
The site is the classic expression of the Puuc architectural style, in which plain lower walls support upper friezes assembled from thousands of precisely cut stone elements. Long-nosed rain-deity masks, lattice patterns and colonnettes recur across the façades. The Pyramid of the Magician rises on an unusual rounded plan; the Nunnery Quadrangle encloses a courtyard with four richly decorated ranges; and the Governor's Palace stands on a vast artificial platform. A ball court, the House of the Turtles and the partly explored Great Pyramid complete the central group.
Highlights
- Pyramid of the Magician, built on a rare rounded-corner plan
- Nunnery Quadrangle with four decorated ranges around a court
- Governor's Palace and its long mosaic frieze on a raised platform
- House of the Turtles and the ball court in the central group
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