El Tabasqueño

Main building before the hurricane

Main building after restoration

Ramp with a brick pillar

El Tabasqueño is a small Mayan ruin site in Mexico . It is located on the Yucatán peninsula in the state of Campeche , 28 kilometers south-southeast of Hopelchén near the village of Pakchen. The name is derived from the previous owner from Tabasco of a small rancho of the same name that has long since disappeared and on whose grounds the ruins are.

Research history

Teobert Maler was the first to visit the ruins in 1887, describing it in detail and illustrating it with photographs. Eduard Seler relied exclusively on painters in his study of the snake mouth portals . Harry ED Pollock's information from 1936 is also rather brief. The severe damage caused by Hurricane Gilbert on September 14, 1988 was repaired by Antonio Benavides Castillo. Large-scale excavations and restorations have been taking place since 2004.

main building

In fact, the central building of Tabasqueño is a building that consists of a series of adjacent rooms, in the middle of which the actual temple of two rooms rises on a pyramid-like base. As in Dzibilnocac , for example , there are two small chambers under the temple, partly under the small platform in front of the entrance, which are accessible from the closest rooms. Behind the rooms near the center there is another room so that the first floor comprises six rooms and two chambers. The facade of the rooms shows a stucco relief of two lying figures on the right component. They seem to be grasping hands that are stretched out from a little house. The meaning is completely in the dark. The temple building shows a snake-mouth portal on the still-preserved northern side facing the large square in front of it. The corners show cascades of masks of the rain god Chaak . On the roof of the building, above the dividing wall between the two rooms, rests an only partially preserved roof ridge. The rear, south-facing room has been destroyed.

The massive pillar

To the southeast of the temple palace are some buildings that have been reconstructed. A remarkable feature is a steep and high ramp, in the middle of which there is a massive brick pillar with a square floor plan.

tourism

The archaeological site is open to tourism. Access to a parking lot at the foot of the hill from the road to Dzibalchen about 4 kilometers after the village of Pakchen to the right. From the parking lot ascent approx. 20 minutes. There is an ecological (waterless) toilet near the ruins.

Individual evidence

^ Teobert painter : Península Yucatán . Ed. Hanns J. Prem . Gebr. Mann, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-7861-1755-1 , pp. 102-105.
^ Eduard Seler : The Quetzalcouatl facades of Yucatecian buildings . Treatises of the Royal. Academy of Sciences, Berlin 1916, pp. 36–47.
^ Harry Evelyn Dorr Pollock : Architectural notes on some Chenes ruins . Papers of the Peabody Museums of Archeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, vol. 61, part 1. Cambridge, MA. 1970. pp. 19-22.