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271 The explorations described below were carried on by Strömsvik and Pollock between February 23 and 28, and by Berlin and Strömsvik between May 24 and 29, 1954. Previously, one of our workmen from the village of Telchaquillo, Yucatán, had been sent into the area to gather information on the location of ruins and to report on roads and living conditions. His report assured us that we could make the trip by truck and that we could secure food supplies and camp facilities at the village of Ichmul, the site of certain ruins we wished to observe. The first trip started from Telchaquillo, going by way of Tekit, Teabo, Ticul, and thence to Peto over the newly built highway from Merida to the last-named town. The second trip left from Merida, using the highway to Peto. Beyond Peto, and the end of road normally considered passable by automobile , our course was generally east through the village of Progreso (12 km from Peto), Dzonotchel (24 km), and Calotmul (31 km) to Ichmul (43 km). This is the old road from Peto to Santa Cruz de Bravo, now known as Carrillo Puerto. Immediately east of Calotmul, we stopped to observe a small ruined site of four mounds. Two of the mounds are each about 8 m in height, one a pyramidal structure apparently facing west, the other probably having been a twoor three-storied palace type of building. At the top of the first mound are remains of walls built of Puucstyle masonry. Near the bottom of the second there is visible part of a vault of very crude construction, and there are stones of Puuc-type lying higher up on the mound. The vault cannot be placed as to style in this relatively unknown area. Its position in the mound suggests that it may be of earlier construction than the Puuc-type masonry that must have stood higher on the structure. The walls below the vault are hidden beneath debris, however, and it is possible that they may be of Puuc type, similar to the veneer masonry walls supporting a crude vault seen subsequently at Ichmul (Figs. 23.1f; 23.2a). The C u r r e n t R e p o r t s Carnegie Institution of Washington Department of Archaeology No. 23 February 1955 Exploration in Quintana Roo Gustav strömsvik, H.E.D. Pollock, anD HEinricH BErlin Gustav strömsvik, H.E.D. Pollock, anD HEinricH BErlin 272 remaining two mounds at Calotmul are smaller and without notable features showing. Puuc-type stones were again observed on one of them. Ichmul, which lies just over the border in Quintana Roo, is an old settlement as shown by Ciudad Real’smentionofthetowninthe16thcentury(Noyes 1932:323–325). At present it is more notable for its colonial than for its aboriginal ruins. Overgrown streets and tumbled-down remains of colonial buildings extend a kilometer or more north, east, south, and west from the large central plaza. Two imposing churches—the second and bigger never completed —a cuartel, and an unfinished cabildo face on the plaza. The more important aboriginal remains, consisting of three large pyramidal mounds 8 m or more in height and the ruins of two enclosed quadrangles , all rising from a huge terraced platform, lie just south of the plaza (Fig. 23.1a). A road of colonial or later construction cuts through the ancient platform from north to south. Other terraces, courts, and smaller mounds lie farther south, and another group of ruins was observed about 150 m east of the older, northern church. A short distance north of the well in the plaza is a huge sascab cave, mute witness, if such were needed, to the intensive building activity of earlier times. On each of the principal pyramids are elaborate fortifications in the form of head-high walls of stone, clearly of colonial or later origin. Tradition in the settlement, which consists of a schoolmaster and possibly a dozen families that seem only recently to have taken up residence in the abandoned town, is that the fortifications were built at the time of the War of the Castes. The 18thcentury date of the unfinished church, however, suggests that the place was abandoned at an earlier time. As might be expected in a town of the size that Ichmul once was, the ancient Maya structures are in a shocking state of ruin. They were undoubtedly used as quarries to build the impressive colonial structures, and...

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