In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

 Introduction There are numerous references in the Maya chronicles and early Spanish colonial historical accounts of Yucatán relating to Mayapán. Few, however, give specific information concerning the Great Wall surrounding the ancient city. Nevertheless, statements in two sources are pertinent to this study, one in Relación de “Quinacama” and Muxuppipp and the other in Landa’s Relación de las Cosas de Yucatán. The first, speaking of Mayapán, says (Tozzer 1941:24, no. 131): “This city conquered all these provinces, for it was very strongly built, walled in like those of our Spain, and within the walls there are reckoned to have been more than sixty thousand dwellings, not counting the environs.” Landa writes (Tozzer 1941:23–26): This Kukulcan established another city after arranging with the native lords of the country that he and they should live there and that all their affairs and business should be brought there; and for this purpose they chose a very good situation, eight leagues further in the interior than Merida is now, and fifteen or sixteen leagues from the sea. They surrounded it with a very broad stone wall, laid dry, of about an eighth of a league leaving in it only two narrow gates. The wall was not very high and in the centre of this enclosure they built their temples, naming the largest, which is like that of Chichén Itzá, the name of Kukulcan, and they built another building of a round form, with four doors, entirely different from all the others in that land; as well as a great number of others round about joined together. In this enclosure they built houses for the lords only, dividing all the land among them, giving towns to each one, according to the antiquity of his lineage and his personal value. And Kukulcan gave a name to this city—not his own as the Ah Itzas had done in Chichén Itzá, which means the well of the Ah Itzas, but he called it Mayapán, which means ‘the standard of the Maya,’ because they C u r r e n t R e p o r t s Carnegie Institution of Washington Department of Archaeology No. 2 December 1952 [First issued December 4, 1951] The Great Wall of Ma yapán Edwin M. Shook Edwin M. Shook 10 called the language of the country Maya and the Indians (say) Ichpa which means “within the enclosure. Therefore, the existence of an enclosing wall at Mayapán has been known since colonial times. When Stephens (1843:1:131,143) briefly visited the site in 1841, he saw part of it and learned from the majordomo of the nearby Hacienda Xcanchakan that this strong wall, 4.8 km in extent, encompassed the ruins. Modern investigations were first undertaken in 1938 by Ralph T. Patton (Morley 1938:5–6), who traversed and mapped the entire wall, established its circumference to be 9.1 km, and identified nine entrances. As a result of Patton’s survey , Tozzer (1941:24, no. 131) subsequently pointed out for the first time the probability that there were two walls at Mayapán, the larger one explored by Patton capable of having “within the walls . . . more than sixty thousand dwellings,” and a smaller, inner walled enclosure to which Landa apparently refers, inside of which were “built the temples and . . . houses for the lords only.” The next field work producing significant information concerning the Great Wall was done by Morris Jones (1952) who mapped in detail the area within and for a short distance outside the enclosure. His map provided the basis for my further investigations during the 1952 field season. This report is limited to the results of a complete reconnaissance of the Great Wall and the excavation of certain of its major and minor gateways. Preliminary search to date for traces of a small inner enclosure around the tightly grouped ceremonial precinct has been unsuccessful. Wall The Great Wall of Mayapán for the most part now appears as a white ribbon of stone rubble meandering more than 9 km through the low, dry, and exceedingly thorny Yucatán bush. This secondary growth, typical of the north-central and western portions of the peninsula of Yucatán, covers a seemingly soil-less and deceptively flat plain, The terrain actually is incredibly rough, as small, low hillocks of limestone bedrock follow one after another. What meager soil there is collects in the pot holes, crevices...

Share