Dzibilchaltún

Altitude: 12 m (39 ft)

How to get there

By bus from Mérida to the Dzibilchaltún turn off where taxis wait; by car on the MEX 261, turning right after 15km/9.3mi.

Situated just off the Progreso road only 17km/10.5mi north of Mérida, the Dzibilchaltún archaeological site lay neglected for a long time because of its less than spectacular buildings. It is only really in the last 20 years or so that archaeologists have come to recognise Dzibilchaltún as having been one of the largest pre-Columbian cities on the Yucatán peninsula as well as one of the longest occupied.

History Sporadic investigation in the 1940s had already shown the site to be an area of extensive and very ancient settlement. In 1956 Tulane University and the U.S. National Geographic Society began a new phase of excavation under the direction of E. Wyllys Andrews IV. It was established that Dzibilchaltún (Mayan: "where the flat stones are inscribed") had been inhabited since at least 600 bc and covered an area of more than 50sq.km/19sq.mi. Taking into account the more than 8000 buildings recorded, Dzibilchaltún has proved to be one of the largest, most ancient and perhaps the longest settled Old Indian city not only in Yucatán but in the whole of Mexico. It is even possible that a community existed here during the Archaic period, i.e. prior to 1500 bc. The city is known, furthermore, to have still been inhabited when the Spanish first arrived. Historians now believe Dzibilchaltún to have had major religious significance as a place of pilgrimage, as well as being a politically important metropolis. The population during the city's golden age is thought to have exceeded 40,000. Many of the buildings so far uncovered date from the pre-Classic era (3rd to 1st c. bc), though some have had more recent structures superimposed on them (e.g. in the late Classic, ad 600-900). A considerable number of dated stelae have also been found, the first such stelae to be discovered in this area - as opposed to in the southern central Mayan region (Chiapas, Tabasco, Guatemala, Honduras). They included one with the relatively early date of ad 327. All the evidence points to a very early Mayan civilisation having developed independently here in the Yucatán. Such a finding conflicts with previous assumptions that Mayan culture in the more northern areas post-dated and was derivative from that of the southern central region, which later flourished in the Classic period (ad 300-900). The Spaniards destroyed the ancient buildings and, using the rubble, erected a chapel in the centre of the site. For a long time thereafter the ruins continued to be treated as a convenient source of stone.

The Ruins

Dzibilchaltún encompasses a number of ceremonial centres, linked at one time by sacbeob ("white roads"). Only a few of the structures on the vast site have been sufficiently restored to warrant visiting.