Get to know Sayil

One of best ways to know the architectural wealth of the Mayan civilization is by following the Puuc Route—the mountain area on Yucatan peninsula southern that the ancestral ethnic group chose to build palaces in honor of Chaac, the god of Rain, and other deities.

 

Puuc means “low hill” and was one of the seven Mayan architectural styles. It’s identified by structures that use crests, false and rounded columns, stones assembled as mosaics, decorative elements in pieces of stone with hand-carved edges, among other characteristics.

 

These details can be seen in the “Lugar de las hormigas arrieras” (“Place of the arrieras ants”), which Sayil means. The archaeological site includes the remains of one of Puuc region’s oldest cities, located in a long valley of low steep hills where were built “chultunes”, tanks for storing rainwater.

 

However, Sayil most representative are the findings of the Gran Palacio and the Mirador, with carved stone maskarons that represent the face of Chaac, easy to identify by the tongue and nose in the shape of an elephant trunk.

 

In the Archaeological Site of Sayil you can still see some stones that retain traces of their original colors: red and green. The rest are whitish but when touched by the sunbeams they turn an intense golden tone. You can also walk along a sacbé (white path) that connected the Gran Palacio with a ballcourt.

 

According to the studies carried out in Sayil, it has been testified that its splendor was in the Late Classic period, approximately in the year 900 AC. It came to be inhabited by more than 17 thousand Mayans and its pyramidal structures are oriented towards the four cardinal points.

 

Sayil is 33 kilometers from the Archaeological Site of Uxmal.