Chenes style
The Chenes style is a Maya architecture style from pre-Columbian Mesoamerica . The architectural style is mainly found in several former Mayan cities in the Mexican state of Campeche in the center of the Yucatán peninsula .
Surname
The name of the style and the style region is derived from the part in the northeast of the state of Campeche , in which place names ending in -chen (after the corresponding word in Mayathan ) refer to common pre-Hispanic wells that were dug in shallow underground pockets of groundwater. Important places are Hopelchen , Dzibalchen and Bolonchen , as well as Kankabchen, Pakchen, Konchen, Becanchen.
exploration
The exploration of the ruins began in 1840 with John Lloyd Stephens and his illustrator Frederick Catherwood . Inspired by his reports, which were widely read at the time, Teobert Maler undertook extensive archaeological research trips from 1886, which also took him several times through the Chenes region. Eduard Seler used his then largely unpublished reports together with some of his own explorations for an analytical work in which the commonality of the Chenes style was recognized for the first time. The first modern investigation is based on a research trip by Harry ED Pollock in 1936. The first architectural analysis, which brought the Chenes style in connection with the neighboring Puuc and Rio Bec styles , published the Mexican art historian and architect Paul Gendrop .
Chenes style
Similar to the Rio Bec style , the Chenes style is characterized by the execution of the central entrances of representative buildings as snake mouth entrances. They are supposed to give the impression that one enters the inside of the building through the open mouth of a huge reptile. The details of the depiction of the snake's mouth are highly abstracted and their meaning cannot be easily recognized at first glance. The best to see are the large teeth on both sides of the doorway, which also protrude on the outer edge of the entrance platform that represents the advanced lower jaw. Above the entrance the large nostrils can be seen, on both sides of the door the slightly inclined two parts of a nasal peg run in the dense pattern of volutes. Ear jewelery can be seen more at the edge. The structuring of the facades with indentations to which rounded corners lead is particularly typical of the Chenes style. This gives the impression that the building consists of several individually attached buildings, each with one room.
The corners of buildings show cascades of semi-plastic Chaac masks with a large, protruding trunk-like nose and deeply sunken eyes. Typical of the floor plan of the Chenes buildings is that a row of (usually three) adjacent rooms is added behind the central room with a single additional room that can be entered through the central room. The most typical example of the Chenes style is Building II by Hochob .
In the Chenes style, moderately high towers with very steep stairs that are difficult to climb and which lead to very small temples, which, however (in contrast to the Río Bec style) have an interior with vaults, are rather rare. There are also unclimbed false stairs in the Chenes style, such as those that lead up to the corner temples of the great palace of Santa Rosa Xtampak . At least in some cases, the temple towers were built over older, elongated buildings (as in Dzibilnocac ). This indicates that the temple towers, with the lush decor and snake mouth entrance, represent a later stage of development of the style.
For a comparison of the diagnostic characteristics of Chenes architecture versus the Río-Bec and Puuc styles, see Puuc .
expansion
The core area of the Chenes style is in the northeastern part of the Mexican state of Campeche around the modern town of Dsibalchen . In particular, little is known about the largely deserted area in the east of the town; isolated reports have documented local styles that have not yet been assigned to any of the larger architectural groups. The typical localities of the style include El Tabasqueño , Nohcacab , Dsibiltún , Pakchen , Dzibilnocac , Macobá and Chunlimón . Other sites in the region are too little known to be clearly assigned to the Chenes style.
The vast area between the Chenes style (e.g. Hochob ) and Rio Bec style (e.g. Xpuhil ) sites, which are around 100 kilometers apart, is almost unexplored archaeologically. The few ruins known there seem to indicate a gradual transition between the two styles. It is characteristic of the research situation that several ruin sites have been known by name for more than half a century and have even been visited and photographed in some cases (e.g. El Ínclito with great architecture in the area of Xmejía , about 80 kilometers from both Hopelchen and away from Xpuhil), without their approximate location being known or any investigations having taken place.
On the eastern edge of the area of the Puuc style, the Chenes style with the little-known sites of Huitzinah and Tzitz (both near Tzucacab ) extends far to the north.
Time position
In terms of time, the Chenes style can be classified into the late classical period (approx. 600–900 AD). Among the Mayan ruin sites attributed to the Chenes style, Dzibilnocac , Hochob and El Tabasqueño are open to tourism. A transition area to the Puuc style includes a. Santa Rosa Xtampak and the partially accessible places Xkichmook and Ichpich .
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ John L. Stephens : In the Mayan Cities. Travels and discoveries in Central America and Mexico 1839–1842 . Du Mont, Cologne 1980, ISBN 3-7701-1215-6 .
- ^ Teobert painter : Península Yucatán . Ed. Hanns J. Prem . Gebr. Mann, Berlin 1997. ISBN 3-7861-1755-1 .
- ^ Eduard Seler : The Quetzalcouatl facades of Yucatecian buildings . Academy of Sciences, Berlin 1916
- ↑ Harry ED Pollock : Architectural notes on some Chenes ruins . In: Monographs and Papers in Maya Archeology Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 1970. pp. 1-87.
- ↑ Paul Gendrop: Los estilos Rio Bec, Chenes y en la Puuc Arquitecturas Maya , Autonomous University of México, México, DF, ISBN 968-837-046-0 .
- ↑ Ursula Dyckerhoff et al .: Relocalización de Huntichmul II. In: Cuadernos de Arquitectura Mesoamericana 10 (1987) ISSN 0185-5131 . Pp. 84–92 ( PDF )
- ↑ Ricardo de Robina y Rothiot: Arquitectura insertiva. In: Cuadernos de Arquitectura Mesoamericana No. 15, 1991. ISSN 0185-5131 ( PDF ) (only the photos in the article refer to the location)