Mayan Ruins Explored: Yaxuná

Mayan woman carries tortillas on her head as she walks past the old church in the Pueblo of Yaxuná.

Yaxuná (Yah-shoo-nah') in Mayan means "The turquoise colored house". The ruins are located twenty kilometers south of Chichén Itzá, Estado de Yucatán. Archeologists have discovered PreClassic era temples from 400 BC underneath the pyramids. The nomadic Mayans who again inhabited the site hundreds of years later built around and on top of the original temples. In the past twenty-five years there has been a lot of exploration of the site. It was found to be an important agricultural site and still is surrounded by corn fields and other crops.

The sacbe here, or raised causeway, is the longest known Mayan road in existence. It extends 100 kilometers leading directly to Coba. Yaxuná's temples were some of the highest and grandest pyramids of their day, built of monolithic stones. There is proof that this was a major area of inhabitation in PreClassic days.

This is probably a PreClassic piece, as the carvings are difficult to decipher.

Several temples had walls of carved stones on the bottom, and the rows of columns on top. My best reference states these are consistent with the Puuc style, similar to Labna, Sayil, Edzná,Uxmal, etc. Most archeologists think these structures were built from 400-650 AD, but this is an unknown that is currently being researched. There are some gray areas in the history of the Maya, and different influences, or styles, have been noted of people from as far away as Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, as well as outside the Yucatán, México. I am reading a book about the excavations at Yaxuná but it doesn´t have any photos so I am not sure what is what. It's fun to try to imagine what these places looked like twenty-five hundred years ago or a thousand years ago, but sometimes it is just overwhelming. This is one of the things I like most about visiting all the sites, the chance to sit and try to imagine life in the past.

When we climbed the first pyramid, which you can see is not completely excavated or maintained, we saw a snake slither by. This made us hesitant to stray too far from the beaten path. Had we gone into the brush a little farther we would have found some of the many excavations of recent years. But after crossing the line at Palenque, we decided we were not showing enough respect to the Mayan gods and have altered our ruin exploration behavior.

Many of the heirogyphs have the symbol of the cross, which signifies north, south, east and west to the Maya. This symbol is often seen at the older sites.

This is probably another temple. The area around Yaxuná is flat, so any protrusions like are sites awaiting excavation. The history that is buried in places like this will supply archeologists new and useful information in the near future. Much interest has been sparked in Mayan ruins since they named Chichén Itzá one of the Modern 7 Wonders of the World. According to the Diario del Yucatán newspaper, there are plans to continue work on this site and others that are situated around the area (like Ek Balam, where excavations were begun but not completed).