Kohunlich

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the site, or of the neighbouring Río Bec area. Kohunlich was undoubtedly occupied for several centuries before the beginning of the Christian era and continued in occupation until the 13th c., i.e. from the Formative to the Post-Classic period. Its heyday as a religious and political centre lay between ad 400 and 930; basically, therefore, it is a site of the early Maya Classic period.

The site was first recorded by the U.S. archeologist R. E. Merwin in the course of an archaeological survey of southern Campeche in 1912. The real discovery of the site, however, came in 1968, when plunderers were caught in the act of stealing the large masks on the Temple of the Masks. Since then exemplary excavation and restoration work has been carried out by Mexican archaeologists under the direction of Victor Segovia.

The Ruins

The area so far explored at Kohunlich covers more than 2sq.km/.75sq.mi. The earlier occupants of the site levelled and consolidated almost half the total area, using and extending natural ditches and depressions to channel rainwater into collecting basins for use during the dry period.