11-17-08 Ruins of Chacmultun

Chacmultun is just a few hours by bike from Tekax. I got a flat from a thorn on the way, the second of only two flats on the entire trip (the other was from my last ride to Nadzcaan).

I was not originally planning on going to this site, but it was so close and I was not able to find much information about this site, other than it has Classic Puuc buildings, and at least at one time has a painted mural in one or more rooms. I was hoping it may have some interesting, like early buildings or any sign if influence from the nearby Chenes Region.

After the ruins I rode on to Oxkutzcab to meet back up with Manuel.

I home now, so I uploaded a lot of photos showning some of the details that I look for, and make many of these buildings unique.

A Classic Puuc building.

The site is among milpas, and you have to pass though feilds to get to some groups like this one.

A carving of a monkeys head. The Maya typically built their stone roofs with wooden beams for additional support, most of these have rottened away. This is funny because this tree is growing from a beam socket. It looks like the wooden beam has come to life.

Tunnels.

This is detail unque to the Puuc region and only remains in a few buildings. It is a hanger built into the ceiling of a number of rooms here, but it is also carved to look like a human foot.

Chacmultun is very unusual in that it has many loop holes on both the outside and inside of the building. The most typical type was to make a hole in a stone placed in the wall and plaster around it to make a nice loop. The end of the room shown above has at least three visable (the pairs of black dots).

The single cubby high on the end of this room is very atypical and the few other exaples are scattered over the lowlands.

Here is an seam were an addition was built.

Part of an interior ceiling built in an Early Classic style. The presevation is so good its hard to believe its very old.

This is the bottom of a door. The drilled dents in the side of the doorway are called rod sockets. These are highly common in palace type buildings throughout the lowlands.

A super rare loop. This one of only 3 examples of loops I saw.