No. 109 Mayapán Walled City

The walled city of Mayapán is known as the “Maya People Flag” and it is considered the last great Mayan Capital City. It is a 1.5 square miles area with around 4,000 structures.

Its beginnings go back to the start of our times, reaching its glory in the Post-Classic Period (1200 – 1450 a.C.). It is believed that this city had a population of 12,000 inhabitants. It was founded by the cocom group, whom experts relate to the so-called Maya-Tolteca culture. It was host of the “Mayapán League”, a confederation that gathered Uxmal and Chichén Itzá chiefs. The disputes over the control ended with the itzáe people defeat, who were governors of the region. They escaped towards Petén, where they founded the city of Tayasal. Hegemony of the League was in effect from that moment (late 13^th century) by cocome people from Mayapán, although with a strong opposition from inhabitants of other Mayan kingdoms in the Peninsula. Such alliance seems to have been dismantled around 1440, when cocomes abandoned the square and settled in Sotuta.

Worthy of admiring is the work of their expert sculptors, which can be distinguished from the considerable number of pieces of modeled stucco, reflecting the high quality of their artworks. It is worthwhile to highlight the mural paintings, where you can see scenes of war and events related to the worship to Death, what makes evident the cultural relation with the Altiplano from Central Mexico.

The city of Mayapán was built resembling Chichén Itzá. Its main buildings are a copy of the ones of the itzáes capital city. The construction style included elements of the architecture from central Mexico, combined with features inherited from ancient Mayan cities. However, with the Chichén decline, Mayapán developed its own style, focused on the reprocessing of ancient shapes. Its main building is called El Castillo (The Castle), and it is a pyramid base of 9 departments with a height of 49.2 ft, where an interesting light and shadow phenomenon takes place during the winter solstice (December 21^st), identical to the one in Chichén Itzá.

You can also see civic, administrative, and religious buildings, as well as residences from the governing social class. There are buildings constructed over foundations that have aisles with columns, temples, and oratories with an altar at the bottom and sidewalks on the sides. There are round buildings which are also representative and known as Observatories and the small sanctuaries.

It is in the southern part of the State of Yucatán, on mile 27.9 of Mérida-Acanceh freeway, on the same direction of the so-called Convents Route.