10-08-08 The Ruins of Ek´Balam

To beat the heat, i rode before the sunrise and arrived before the guards.

Finially made it to some ruins. I visited Ek´balam on my last trip. Although far from the largest ruin in the Yucatan, it really is on of the most interesting. I will only write some of my thoughts, but i have many more.

The styles are very unusual. There are a number of architectural styles visable, and likly more still hidden. Most people will not be interested in this, but after reading my posts in the future, you can come back to this post with a better understanding of the different styles present here.

The earliest is what is called the Ízamal´style (named for a ruin i will visit later). This style is not well understood, but consists of very large blocks up to 1 meter in length. It is dated to the early classic (250-600ad), but is closly realated to masonry found around the Mexican-Guatamalan boarder in structures dated to the late preclassic (400bc-250ad). This masonry is limited to only structure 7, but i saw a second block in the tumble of structure 3 and suspect more of this style buiried beneath other structures.

The next style many date to 550-600ad. It uses roughly worked stones and large, deeply set vault stones found only in the southernmost structure. I am unaware of other structures in the Yucatan built in this style.

The bulk of the constructions visable today date to the terminal classic period, in this case between 750-850AD. Recent work on structure 1, the acropolis uncovered unprecedentied amounts of preserved stucco sculpture and hyroglyphic writing. The style of these constructions is the well known Chenes-Rio Bec style. Strangly, these constructions are otherwise known with few exeptions only to Campeche. Evedence that the Maya had far reaching political networks.

There is also Puuc style masonry, and some architecture is influence by the Puuc.

the acropolis. A thatched roof protects the stucco from water which naturally melts the lime stucco.

A view of the compexity of the stucco. this doorway forms a huge monstermouth. I will see more examples of this type of structure, but this is almost perfectly preserved. No other examples in this state remains (unless buiried and still to be found). While very busy, most details are variations of monsters and vegitation. This structure was built sometime afer 750ad as a ´white house´by the founder of the Ek´balam dynasty. Although Ek´balam existed before 750, this probably represents a new style of constructions after a forgein ruler from the south concered Ek´Balam. The nature of takeover is unclear, but these rulers were part of a larger political network and the ruler who build this structure, although ruler of Ek´balam, was still a subordinate of a more powerful site. Upon death, this ruler was entombed in the structure and the structure was carefully buiried thus preserving it.

Another section.

Many fragments of these slighly smaller than life size sculptures have been found in the Chenes and Rio Bec regions, but a number exist whole here. The detail and preservation is almost unbelievable. The effort put into burying this structure is testiment to it´s importance.

Off a side trail found a patch of ground bottles. these will probably last longer than the ruins.

The small lump on the horizon is Coba, the next ruin i will visit. You can almost feal the steamy heat.

Distance traveled-60km

Total distance for the trip-225km