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33.0. Quintana Roo 549 Immediately east of Calotmul, we stopped to observe a small ruin site of four mounds. Two of the mounds are each about 8 m in height, one being a pyramidal structure , the other probably having been a two- or threestoried palace-type building. On both structures Puuctype stones are lying about, and part of a vault of very crude masonry is visible near the bottom of the second . The vault cannot be placed as to type in this relatively unknown area. Possibly it is to be associated with the crude vaulting, seemingly of late period, seen subsequently at Okop. The remaining two mounds at Calotmul were smaller and without notable features showing. Ichmul,whichliesjustovertheborderinQuintana Roo, is an old settlement, as is shown by Ciudad Real’s mentionofthetowninthesixteenthcentury.Atpresent 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 in all directions from a large central plaza. Two imposing churches, the second and bigger one never completed, T H E C A R N E G I E M A Y A 33.1. GUSTAV STRÖMSVIK, H.E.D. POLLOCK, AND HEINRICH BERLIN Exploration in Quintana Roo YB 53:289–292. 1954 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 obtain some 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 Mérida to the last-named town. The second trip left from Mérida, 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. 550 QUINTANA ROO a cuartel, and an unfinished cabildo face on the plaza. The more important aboriginal remains, consisting of three large pyramidal mounds and the ruins of an enclosed quadrangle, all rising from a large terraced platform , lie just south of the plaza. Other terraces, courts, and smaller mounds lie farther south, and another group of ruins was observed east of the plaza of the town. 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 eighteenth century 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 the fortifications on each pyramid have leveled theremainsofanybuildingsthatmayhavestoodthere. In the eastern and largest of the pyramids about halfway up the mound, we observed and explored a system of vaulted passages that ran into the center of the structure. These were of crude construction, built entirelyofroughlyshapedbutotherwiseunworkedstone . Toward the western edge of the ruins, just south of the colonial cuartel, the section of a partly fallen vault protruded from the side of a large platform. This was of interest in showing a sequence of different kinds of masonry. The primary vault, which was of Puuc-type construction, was built against, and was clearly later than, a battered wall, apparently the old face of a terrace , of well cut and dressed veneer masonry. This wallmightbeofPuucPeriodorearlier.Insidethevault, and secondary to it, was a smaller vault of crude masonry comparable to that seen in the eastern pyramid. This sequence suggests that the crude style of masonry...

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