Dzibilchaltun

This past Saturday we had another field trip to the archeological site and Cenote of Dzibilchaltun. Dzibilchaltun is (was?) a small Mayan city of which many of the ruins have been restored. The reason that the ruins needed to be restored, and many are only foundations is because the stone from this city was used to build larger cities when they were colonized. Dzibilchaltun is approximated to date back to 300 B.C. making it an extremely old city. I have never seen ruins before and walking around them is a very strange feeling. Thinking about the fact that many years ago there was an entire civilization living here with completely different rituals than us is a little amazing to me. I know that wherever you are in the world that statement is true, however since the city is now abandoned and their civilization is on display it seems much more interesting. The fact that buildings have been able to withstand hundreds of years is amazing to me. Before we entered the site our tour guide gave us a brief history of Dzibilchaltun, and within it he mentioned something that really struck me. He said to keep in mind as we learn about the Mayan culture, and read things and see things that history is always written by winners. It is commonly taught that Mayan people sacrificed women and children, however he does not believe this is the case. Apparently, (in Chichen Itza I believe) there was a well found with women and children seemingly sacrificed. However, it is more likely that these people were not actually sacrificed and instead had died and were put there after death not as a sacrifice. While I did always know to be weary of things taught in history classes, I never actually thought about it in a way such as that. Rather than looking at Mayans as savages, it is important to keep in mind the people we learned about their culture from are the people who colonized them.

            Before entering the ruins we went through a small museum which contained many pieces of Mayan sculpture. Depicted below is the sculpture of a Jugador (ball player) which we saw here as well as in the museo de antropologia in Merida. Also below are 2 more things I found to be interesting. The one called “La Raza” is depicts an indigenous woman with idealized Mayan features. In all different cultures beauty is different and that has always been something that is interesting to me, so the ability to see what was considered beautiful to the Mayans is very interesting. It is also interesting because Friday at the Museo do Antropologia we saw various head shapes that the Mayans had. The reason they had different head shapes is because they believed it to be beautiful to have a distorted skull and went through great measures to change the shape of their skull. Similar to when people wear rings on their necks to make their necks longer as the idealized version of beauty. While it seems inhumane to me now to go through painful measures in order to change the shape of your skull, to the Mayans, it was beautiful. The other thing I found particularly interesting is that they had a wall of classic cultural clothing, and since it was in a museum I expected it to be something extraordinary which I had never seen before. However, it was actually quite to the contrary. The costumes were created with clothing I have seen every day that I have been in Mexico. On the bus women wear the clothing; in El Centro people wear them. For men it is a white button down shirt and a sombrero and for women it is called a Treno. The treno consists of a white shirt with a flower design along the collar and the bottom of the shirt/dress. These outfits seem like commonplace to me here, however they are in a museum!

            The last thing in the museum that caught my eye is the crosses which are pictured below:

Ceiba Crosses

The reason these crosses were so interesting to me is because as I mentioned in my previous post about the Jardin the Ceiba is the sacred tree of the Maya. This tree was depicted as “a cross long before the conquistadores brought the cross of Christ as the symbol of the religion they imposed on the Maya” (Dawley Taxonomy). The Ceiba Crosses are green or blue, as are the ones below and are sometimes adorned with flowers (as the one on the right). As soon as I saw these crosses the Ceiba cross immediately came to mind. If you look closely you can see Jesus on the cross on the right; however that was likely just to abide to the conquistadors. The cross in reality seems to have represented the Ceiba, rather than be of religious meaning. Also, right outside of the museum was a sapling Ceiba tree, which showed the spines it has on its trunk. Pictured below: insert picture

            After leaving the museum we walked into the part of Dzibilchaltun containing the ruins. We walked down long dirt like path and eventually, over a group of trees a magnificent building could be seen in the distance. I was in the front of the group which was nice because no one was in my pictures (haha).

The first building we saw had been restored since many of the stones I suppose were used to build cities such as Merida. The buildings name is Las Siete Munecas (the seven dolls) due to the fact that 7 dolls were found inside of the building. It is one of the only buildings, or at least the first that contains actual windows. One faces east and one faces west which gives it a characteristic look of an astrological observatory.  This building was huge and beautiful and officially the first ruin I have ever seen. While it may not have been as vast as many of the ones we will see, or as famous it was still great to see one. After we were finished with the seven dolls we walked to the center of the town (hypothesized by Robert Dawley due to its set up of 4 buildings around a center point).  This part of the city contained a church which was a catholic one, showing the influence of the conquistadors on this Mayan city. The chapel was named the Capilla Abierta and is pictured below.

Capilla Abierta

As we walked past the chapel, all of a sudden a BEAUTIFUL cenote popped out of nowhere. It was like stumbling along a gem in the middle of a forest. It was a completely open cenote which was very different than the ones at Chelentun we saw last week. This one had lily-pads all in the center with shallow and clear water along the sides. The water was so clear and that surprised me a lot because of the amount of tourists I can imagine come through here each day. Each time I see a new cenote my breath is still taken away, they are the most beautiful things I have ever been able to see. This one was exceptionally clear and impressive because of the amount of life in it. There were lots of fish and lily-pads and flowers. I have never been a person impressed by nature, but now I can officially say I am. 

Another thing that I liked about this cenote was that when we got there I saw that one of my host brothers was there. It made me feel a little less like a tourist than I usually feel. He was there relaxing with some of his friends after his exam he had that morning. Everything about Dzibilchaltun made me extremely excited to start the Maya course next Monday. I keep finding more and more things I am excited to learn about and the fact that I get to experience the sites I am learning about is the most amazing thing of all. Every day that I am here I get a little scared to leave. Caitlin and I were just talking about how incredible it is to be able to write three pages on something that took only 2 hours to experience. Our experiences here are in a certain way indescribable, and something that can never fully be understood without living it. From going to salsa clubs such as the Mambo Café and dancing with locals who are nice to you even though you are clearly extremely white and can’t dance, to swimming in cenotes which exist only in the Yucatan with people who are just relaxing after a test. The fact that Merida is just the first of many different places we are able to experience is even more exciting. We have just 3 weeks left and already I have fallen in love with this city, the culture and the experiences I am having. I only wish everyone reading this also has the same opportunity to one day experience something like this.