{"id":1120,"date":"2009-12-06T12:56:55","date_gmt":"2009-12-06T16:56:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/richard.rathe.org\/?p=1120"},"modified":"2010-04-23T17:05:39","modified_gmt":"2010-04-23T21:05:39","slug":"yucatan-trip-2009-uxmal-ruins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/2009\/yucatan-trip-2009-uxmal-ruins","title":{"rendered":"Yucatan Trip 2009 – Uxmal Ruins"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Just back from a short vacation in the Yucatan<\/em><\/strong><\/a> with my brother and sister-in-law<\/a>. We started and ended our tip at\u00a0Merida<\/strong><\/em><\/a>, which has a delightful old city center to explore. [photo gallery<\/strong><\/a>] First on our list was Uxmal<\/strong><\/em><\/a>, my personal favorite! Located in the gently rolling Puuc Hills<\/strong><\/em><\/a>, it is one of several significant Late Classic Mayan<\/strong><\/em><\/a> centers in that area. [photo gallery<\/strong><\/a>]<\/p>\n

The so-called Pyramid of the Magician<\/a> <\/strong>dominates the modern entrance to the site (showing its less elaborate back side<\/a>). The main temple entrance takes the form of a huge mouth<\/a>, still intimidating even today. The pyramid was actually built in five stage<\/em>s<\/a>, each covering older parts of the structure. Next to this lies the Nunnery Quadrangle<\/strong><\/a>, actually a palace or government building, with its cross-hatched facades<\/a> and numerous masks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The site has many other attractions including:\u00a0a huge rectangular building called\u00a0the Governor’s Palace<\/strong><\/a>;\u00a0a taller Grand Pyramid<\/strong><\/a> that sort of blends into the forest; the Dovecote Temple<\/strong><\/a>; a\u00a0Ball Court<\/strong><\/a>; and a double-headed Jaguar Throne<\/strong><\/a>. There were also plenty of lizards<\/a> and birds<\/a> in residence. Here’s a panorama<\/a> from the top of the Grand Pyramid (large file).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The site had many intact rooms<\/a>, all based on the Corbel Arch<\/em><\/strong><\/a>.\"\"<\/a> The example shown here<\/a> is particularly beautiful\/impressive. Note how the walls gently curve toward the center where the tiny “ceiling” fills the gap.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Apparently there is new insight into the ubiquitous masks at Uxmal<\/a>, Chichen Itza<\/a>, and other Mayan sites in the Yucatan. Rather than representing the rain god Chaac<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, scholars\u00a0propose that they denote hill or mountain beings (witz)<\/em><\/a> and confer sacred status to the structures on which they appear.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just back from a short vacation in the Yucatan with my brother and sister-in-law. We started and ended our tip at\u00a0Merida, which has a delightful old city center to explore. [photo gallery] First on our list was Uxmal, my personal favorite! Located in the gently rolling Puuc Hills, it is one of several significant Late … Continue reading “Yucatan Trip 2009 – Uxmal Ruins”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,27,20,14,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds","category-critters","category-history","category-photography","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1120"}],"version-history":[{"count":47,"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1120\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1162,"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1120\/revisions\/1162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}