Chinkultic

After 32km/20mi along the turn-off from MEX 190 to the Montebello Lagoons a 2km/1.3mi-long unmade road across fields leads left to Chinkultic. This ruined site on the rocky escarpment of a forest-covered mountain (1600 m (5251 ft)) is surrounded by a charming landscape of lakes and pastures. It is remarkable that a cenote also exists here far from the Yucatan karst area.

Chinkultic (Maya: "cave of steps") was inhabited from about the beginning of the Christian era until the 13th c. Its heyday occurred during the Maya Classic period (ad 300-900). The first to visit this Maya site was the German archaeologist Eduard Seler in 1895. It was explored by the Dane Frans Blom and the American Oliver La Farge around 1925; during the 1960s Stephan F. de Borhegyl and Gareth W. Lowe led the excavations. Recently many exposed sites have become overgrown again. More than 200 mounds in this area, varying in size, still hold Maya constructions. Of the six main groups only a few remain visible. A museum associated with the site can be visited.