Puuc
The Puuc or Puuk in Maya ) is a region of low limestone hills of about 6000 km in the north west of Yucatan. Land is one of the most fertile of Maya and accessible only by a few caves. To overcome this lack of water, the Maya of the late classical period have built an impressive number of underground cisterns called Chultun. The biggest Chultun had a capacity of 35,000 liters, smaller 7000 liters .
The area is still inhabited by Mayan Yucatec.
At the end of the Classical period, while the sites of southern Lowlands declined, the Puuc was one of the main population centers of the Mayan civilization that developed with the specific local architectural style known Puuc. The latter is characterized by long buildings with walls made of a very solid core of stone and mortar which was thin veneer stone cladding forming large carved mosaics in varied mesh, star, Greek or columns or masks of the god with the long nose.
The American archaeologist Michael Smythe believes that the region in the period from roughly the years 800 to 1000 , had up to 150 cities and key as Uxmal , Kabah and Sayil housed perhaps as many as 500,000 people.
John Stephens and Frederick Catherwood visited the region for eight months in 1841-42 and uncovered many sites. Among these sites are:
- Chac
- Chacmultun
- Chuncanob
- Chunhuhub
- Itzimt
- Kabah
- Kiuic
- Nohpat
- Labn
- Nohcacab
- Oxkintok
- Ruin
- Sayil
- Uxmal
- Xculoc
- Xkalumkin
- Xkichmook
- Xkipch
- Xkukican
- Xlapak
There are of course still many others, forgotten Maya themselves buried in the forest waiting to be discovered.
Summary |
References
- Michael D. Coe, The Maya (7th ed.) Thames & Hudson, 2005, p. 166
- Nikolai Grube, The Maya. Art and Civilization, Knemann, 2000 324
- HED Pollock, The Puuc: an Architectural Survey of the Hill Country of Yucatan and Northern Campeche, Mexico, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, 1980, p. 561
See also
Related articles
External Links
- (En) The Maya civilization
- (En) The history of Maya
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