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Eldar Kadymov | all galleries >> Galleries >> Viva Mexico ! > Pyramid of the Magician, Uxmal
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24-OCT-2009

Pyramid of the Magician, Uxmal

Temperature; +37.5C Wind; 2.5 m/sec Rain; None

Uxmal (Yucatec Maya: Óoxmáal) is a large pre-Columbian ruined city of the Maya civilization in the state of Yucatán, Mexico.

The place name is Pre-Columbian and it is usually assumed to be an archaic Maya language phrase meaning "Built Three Times". The city's dates of occupation are unknown and the estimated population (about 25,000 people) is at present only a very rough guess. Most of the architecture visible today was built between about 700 and 1100.

Maya chronicles say that Uxmal was founded about 500 A.D. by Hun Uitzil Chac Tutul Xiu. For generations Uxmal was ruled over by the Xiu family, was the most powerful site in western Yucatan, and for a while in alliance with Chichen Itza dominated all of the northern Maya area. Sometime after about 1200 no new major construction seems to have been made at Uxmal, possibly related to the fall of Uxmal's ally Chichen Itza and the shift of power in Yucatan to Mayapan. The Xiu moved their capital to Maní, and the population of Uxmal declined.

After the Spanish conquest of Yucatán (in which the Xiu allied themselves with the Spanish), early colonial documents suggest that Uxmal was still an inhabited place of some importance into the 1550s, but no Spanish town was built here and Uxmal was soon after largely abandoned.

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Eldar Kadymov25-Nov-2009 03:05
Sure we know...Be rich, dress sharp, drive fast, look smart, think tequilla, don't eat fast grasshoppers... just like we do, LOL
Sabine Stetson25-Nov-2009 02:49
amazing to image 25000 people there...guess we will never find out how they were living,
what their life was like...what they thought about...what fast food they ate...:)