Uxmal — archaeological site
Image by KAIRONVOSS from Pixabay

Uxmal

  • 2 min read
  • 20.359° N 89.771° W
  • UNESCO World Heritage

Interesting facts

  • At its height Uxmal is thought to have been home to about 25,000 people.
  • The Pyramid of the Magician holds five temples nested one inside another; the oldest has been radiocarbon-dated to around AD 560.
  • The pyramid stands about 35 metres high on an oval base of roughly 69 by 49 metres, with stairways climbing at a steep 60 degrees.
  • The pyramid's western stairway was oriented to face the setting sun at the summer solstice.
  • On one upper temple of the pyramid the doorway is formed by the open jaws of a giant Chaac mask, so the entrance is the god's mouth.
  • Above the main entrance of the Governor's Palace run eight two-headed serpents, echoing the eight-year cycle of Venus built into the building.
  • The Governor's Palace is aligned on a small pyramid at Cehtzuc, nearly 5 kilometres to the south-east, from where Venus appeared to set behind it.
  • In 1930 a Tulane University expedition made plaster casts of the Nunnery facades, used to build a full replica for the 1933 Chicago World's Fair.
  • Queen Elizabeth II opened Uxmal's sound-and-light show in 1975; reportedly a sudden downpour broke as the Maya prayer to the rain god was played.
  • Jean-Frédéric Waldeck published the first detailed account of the ruins in 1838, prompting Stephens and Catherwood to come and record them.

Why it is worth it

The Pyramid of the Magician rises above the scrub of the Puuc hills with rounded, oval sides, a rare form in Maya architecture, and around it spreads one of the most refined ancient cities of the Yucatán Peninsula. Uxmal flourished in the Classic period and is regarded as the finest expression of the Puuc style: plain, smooth lower walls topped by dense stone friezes of lattices, colonnettes, serpents and stacked masks of the long-nosed rain god Chaac. Together with the neighbouring Puuc cities of Kabah, Sayil and Labná, it was inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage List in 1996.

The Pyramid of the Magician was built in several phases, each new temple raised over the last, and on its west side an earlier temple survives beneath the later one. It takes its name from a Yucatec Maya tale popularised by John Lloyd Stephens in 1841: in one version, a dwarf, son of a witch, raised the pyramid in a single night to win a contest against the ruler of Uxmal. The Nunnery Quadrangle, named by the Spanish in the 16th century for its resemblance to a convent, is a group of four palaces at different levels around a courtyard, with carved façades on both the inner and outer faces; painted vault stones bear dates from 906 and 907 AD. A ballcourt nearby was dedicated in 901 under the ruler known as Chan Chak K'ak'nal Ajaw, or Lord Chac.

The Governor's Palace stands on a vast artificial platform and has the longest façades in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. Its frieze carries hundreds of Venus glyphs set into the Chaac masks, and the building is aligned towards a point on the horizon where Venus, as evening star, set at its northernmost extreme every eight years, around the start of the rainy season. The name Uxmal is usually read as "three times built", though this is disputed. Sylvanus Morley mapped the site in 1909, and Mexican restoration work began in 1927 and continued from 1936.

Getting there

Uxmal lies in the Puuc region of Yucatán state, about 62 km south of Mérida. The nearest town is Ticul, about 25 km away. Mérida's Manuel Crescencio Rejón International Airport (MID) is about 65 km to the north.

Plan your visit

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Nearby places

On these lists

The Most Beautiful Places in Yucatán 7The Most Beautiful Places in Mexico 56The Greatest UNESCO-Listed Archaeological Wonders in Mexico 7The Most Remarkable Archaeological Sites in Mexico 12The Most Beautiful UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Mexico 14The Most Remarkable UNESCO-Listed Archaeological Sites 114The Greatest UNESCO-Listed Archaeological Wonders 149The Most Remarkable Archaeological Sites 193The Greatest Archaeological Wonders 306The Most Beautiful UNESCO World Heritage Sites 557

From the encyclopaedia

Uxmal is an ancient Maya city of the classical period located in present-day Mexico. It is considered one of the most important archaeological sites of Maya culture, along with Palenque, Chichen Itza and Calakmul in Mexico, Caracol and Xunantunich in Belize, and Tikal in Guatemala. It is located in the Puuc region of the western Yucatán Peninsula, and is considered one of the Maya cities most representative of the region's dominant architectural style. It was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site along with the nearby ruins of Kabah, Sayil and Labna.

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