Kabah
Kabah (also Kabaah , Kabáh , Kahbah or Kaba ) is a Maya ruin in the Mexican state of Yucatán ( Central America ). It was first described by John Lloyd Stephens in 1841. After Uxmal, Kabah is the second most important Mayan ruin city in the Puuc region. Like most of the classic places in this area, it was deserted when the Spaniards came to Central America. The name Kabah can not be resolved in the Mayan language , only after changing to ahkab it means something like “strong hand” according to P. Carrillo (1846). The buildings visible today in Kabah were erected between the 6th and 9th centuries, they are located in an area of 1.5 km in an east-west, sometimes 1 km in a north-south direction. The ruined zone of Kabah is intersected today by the Mexican federal highway 261.
location
Kabah is located in the gently undulating karst hill country southeast of the ruined city of Uxmal and is connected to it by an 18-kilometer-long and five-meter-wide paved path ( sacbé ), which runs over the large, previously unexplored Nohpat ruins . The path begins in Kabah with a large archway next to the Gran Pirámide, which has not yet been restored. It runs, with small changes in direction, first to the small ruins of Xhaxché (called Sacbey by Stephens), then to Nohpat and finally towards the governor's palace of Uxmal. The exact end in Uxmal could not yet be located. The reason is that the sacbé is only marked here by a simple row of stones on both sides, while the filling of small stones and mortar no longer exists today. Today the Sacbé disappears under the flooded ground on flat terrain.
Research history
The first modern visitor to the city was John Lloyd Stephens, who published a report in his work in 1843. He was followed in 1887 by Teobert Maler , who left detailed descriptions, plans and photographs. The most detailed documentation so far comes from the years 1936–1940 by HED Pollock . Archaeological investigations, which began around 1960, consisted mainly of the consolidation of individual buildings. Particularly noteworthy are the more recent works under the direction of Ramón Carrasco Vargas on Codz Poop (back) and on Manos Rojas. The small group of inaccessible buildings (1A3 to 1A6) was uncovered in 2004 and the walls were reconstructed up to the cornice height.
Eastern group of buildings
The city consists of several groupings of buildings , which are usually arranged around rectangular courtyards. The complex east of the main road, the buildings of which have largely been restored, is open to tourism.
Codz Poop
Best known is the 45-meter-long Palace of the Masks ( Codz Poop , technical name 2C6, Stephens according to locals: First Casa), the undoubtedly dominant building of the eastern group. The building is located on a high platform (which compensates for the rising terrain there), to which a staircase in the middle led up from the front side in the west, but which has not been reconstructed. In front of the building is a 40 m wide area on which low constructions and an altar platform stand, which on the outside has two rows of hieroglyphs arranged one above the other . The actual building stands on a platform that is only around 7 m wider than the building itself and has a central staircase from the platform in front to the west. The building itself has a rectangular floor plan, which is common in Kabah, with a core of rubble stones in the center. Rooms are arranged around it on four sides: on the front (west side) and the two narrow sides there are rows of rooms, behind which another row of equally sized rooms is arranged. The east side consists of a simple row. Together with two transverse rooms at right angles to the row of rooms at the front (which have been almost completely destroyed and not reconstructed), there are 26 rooms. A second floor was not erected above the central core of the building, but a perforated roof ridge consisting of two registers runs parallel to the main facade . The richly decorated facade on the west side has given the building its name: the outside of the building platform (around 1.4 m high) bears an uninterrupted sequence of Chaac masks, on the other sides instead of the masks there are the usual horizontal decorative ribbons made of meanders and intertwined Ribbons to see. The actual facade on the west side consists of a continuous sequence of cascades consisting of three masks in the lower wall area and the same decor in the upper wall area. Altogether, including the base, there should originally have been at least 210 masks. The facade was partially consolidated again. The row of rear rooms is around 80 cm higher than the floor of the outer rooms. It is noteworthy that in the middle room on the west side no stairs are used to bridge the height difference, but a monumental mask, over whose trunk one climbs up. The decor of the east side of the building differs significantly from the other sides, including the west side. There are no masks here, but the lower wall surface is adorned with diagonal bands in fields, which are interrupted at intervals by vertical rows of triangular stones and cross stones. The middle frieze shows rosettes, inclined saw stones and a smooth band above. The three-dimensional, man-high stone figures in the upper wall surface are remarkable and extremely rare. They have expressionless faces covered with ornamental scars and are among the few three-dimensional, human stone figures in Mayan ruins. Two relief plates on either side of the central entrance on the east side show Mayan warriors with Toltec features in two registers , in a narrow middle band there are only partially legible texts that contain a date from the year 859.
Segunda Casa
Building 2C2, referred to by Stephens as the “second house”, is located on the east side of a courtyard that is on the same level as Codz Poop, but is accessible from the west via its own staircase. The building impresses with the precision in planning, execution and decor. The ground floor consists of a simple series of rooms that are laid out around a rectangular core of bulk masonry. The front (west) and the back are designed exactly mirror images and each have 6 rooms that are relatively wide. It is unusual for a large building to have the gate entrances on a main facade form an even number. The narrow sides in the north and south each have two rooms. A flying staircase jumps over the two main facades to the upper level, on which there is a long building that uses the entire safe building area and consists of two mirror-image rows of 7 rooms each that open to the east and west. The rows are closed on the narrow sides by a transverse space. The only deviation from the symmetry is that the second rooms on the front (calculated from the side) have an entrance supported by a column, while this is the case on the back with the first rooms. A roof ridge consisting of two registers stands over the dividing wall between the two rows of rooms over the entire length of the building. The facade decoration is kept simple: on a building plinth with a continuous row of columns between two smooth bands follows the lower wall surface, which is smooth but is interrupted three times by pairs of three-cranked columns between the doors. The central frieze and upper wall surface are hardly preserved and are therefore difficult to reconstruct. Presumably they were similar to the upper floor. This has a completely smooth lower wall surface, the only dividing element here are the doors. The upper wall surface is slightly inclined inward and smooth, with frequent interruptions by groups of three of three-cranked columns, which are also repeated in the upper frieze, of course much lower.
Teocalli
Teocalis, actually Teocalli, is what Stephens called this building (technical nomenclature 2C3). This is also a four-sided, almost square building around a large rubble core. The front faces north, towards the courtyard. There are five rooms on all four sides, they are a little longer on the front and back; with three on the front and one on the back, the entrance is particularly representative with columns. Nevertheless, the facade is very simple: the undecorated lower and upper wall surfaces (individual stone cones protruding from the latter, which held a decoration made of stucco) are only separated by a simple frieze made of two smooth bands, the base is also simple and consists of only one protruding one Row of stones. The upper frieze consisted of three simple rows of stones. The building can thus be assigned to an early phase of Puuc architecture, but combines elements of types I and II. The second floor was planned from the beginning due to the construction of the large bulk core, and flying stairs lead up to it on the north and east sides. The building sits on its own platform that is far larger than the building. This is so badly damaged that only the floor plan can be read off: Here, too, the symmetry is the main concept: On the north and south sides there are two opposite rows with three rooms each, with the rear one being accessed through the front one are. On the narrow sides there are two transverse spaces next to each other. An oversized partition between the rooms at the front and the back indicates a roof ridge, of which no traces have been preserved. Only the wall approaches of the outer walls of the inner rooms are left.
Building 2C1
Opposite the Teocalli, on the north side of the courtyard, there is an irregular building. It consists of a row of five rooms, to which two groups of rooms are added at the rear. The wall joints reveal several construction phases. First, a small building with three rooms and a central entrance with two columns to the south was built. Strangely enough, the left of these rooms has access from the rear, so it changes orientation. Three rooms were soon added to this room, one as an extension of the older building, with two transverse rooms behind it, which opened up to a small courtyard. The further construction sequence is somewhat unclear: on the opposite side of the small courtyard, another building with three rooms, also attached to the oldest building, was built: a large front, facing the courtyard, with an entrance with two columns, and two smaller rooms off it in the back row. At the back of this construction, a very irregular addition of three rooms was added, presumably later: one to the large courtyard as an extension of the oldest component, and two accessible from the east side. The reason for a particularly thick wall behind one of the side rooms is not explained. The facade shows wall surfaces without decoration everywhere, with a simple base and a simple band as a central cornice. This building also belongs to the Puuc I or II architectural type.
Building 2C4
At the northwest corner of Teocalli, directly adjoining this, a building was reconstructed up to the roof approach, which consists of three rooms, of which the front, facing the courtyard, has an entrance formed by two brick pillars. While the wall thickness would allow vaulting in the Mayan cantilever vault, the room width of around 3 m is hard on the limit of the span of a Mayan vault. Therefore, there are some arguments in favor of a late construction that was provided with a wooden roof. Below the building, a row of 5 rooms runs north along the high platform edge next to the stairs that lead up to the platform.
Unnamed building below the platform
Below the platform of the eastern group is a simple building, consisting of two mirror-inverted rows of three relatively small rooms and a cross room at each end.
Distant Eastern Group
Building 1C1 is located almost 200 m east of the Segunda Casa and consists of a simple row of five rooms running in a north-south direction. As can be seen from the remains of the front facade and, above all, the well-preserved facade on the back, it belongs to the pillar style of the Puuc style. The lower wall surface was probably smooth, interrupted in the middle between the doors by a group of three massive columns with three cranks. At the corners the group of pillars is placed around the corner. The back gives a very impressive example of the pillar style: a completely undecorated lower wall surface and above it a continuous sequence of high, three-cranked pillars. The three frieze bands are basically constructed in a similar way: a continuous row of low columns between two smooth bands.
Around 150 m south-south-west of the building just described stands a remarkable construction: a building (2C7), the lower frieze of which is decorated with very high columns between two bands and a smooth wall surface with pairs of high cranked columns. The corners are formed by a column inserted into a recess in both the frieze and the wall surface. The quality of the stones is exceptionally good. The building, however, was never completed; there are no vaulted stones in the rubble, and the southernmost room was not started either. The basic plan shows a peculiarity of the Chenes area: In the (planned) five-room building, there is another room only behind the middle room, the outer walls of which protrude over the rear facade.
Western group
The buildings to the west of the street that cuts through the ruins are not open to the public except for the reconstructed archway at the beginning of the Sacbé. The way to the archway leads past the Grán Pirámide , the only pyramid in Kabah, which is located directly on the street, with a courtyard in front of it in the south with an altar in the middle. The pyramid and the surrounding structures have not yet been exposed. Outside the exposed and accessible area, especially on a range of hills to the west of the center, there are complexes of temples and palaces, for which it seems to be characteristic that not all of them were completed in ancient times.
Manos Rojas
The partially reconstructed two-storey building "Manos Rojas" (1A1), which was not completed in the old days, is significant. It consists of a rectangular building built around a core of rubble with rooms on all four sides. In one of the rooms, the back wall is covered with ocher-colored prints of hands - which is what gave the building its name. On the main or east facade there is another row at the corners behind the rooms in the first row, which is accessible through the front rooms. Broad stairs from the east and west lead to the level of the second floor. They jump over the facade of the ground floor as flying stairs with a vault, leaving a corridor parallel to the facade free, which allows access to the two rooms below the stairs. From this structure it can be concluded that a small second floor was planned on the east as well as on the west side from the beginning. However, only that on the east side was carried out. It is a small temple with two rooms one behind the other. It has a very splendid facade that is stylistically closer to the Chenes style . The stone slabs provided for the entrance to the unfinished temple room on the second floor bear a date from the year 876, which can therefore be assumed as the time for the demolition of the construction work.
Group 1A3-6
This group of small buildings, inaccessible to the public, is an early settlement core of Kabah, which is located in the flatter terrain east of the Manos Rojas building. The building 1A3 is in the north of a small, irregularly shaped courtyard. It has three rooms side by side in a back row, in front of which there seems to have been a room extending over the entire length, which presumably had a row of columns to the front, of which, however, no traces could be found during the excavations. South of the courtyard is building 1A6 , which consists of two parallel rows of three rooms opening to the north and south, respectively. The room on the southwest corner has been almost completely preserved. Here, the wall technique and the lack of decor show that the building belongs to the early Puuc style, subtype I. Building 1A4 , which is typical for this phase, is centrally located on the west side of the courtyard and is raised by a few steps. It also has two parallel, north-south rows of rooms. The rear rooms can be reached through the front ones, the entrance of which is designed with two pillars. Between the southern and northern rooms there is a core of bulk material on which a double room (entrances from east and west) is located on a second floor. Flying stairs led up to this from both sides, but in the old days these were already closed, probably for static reasons. To the south of it, slightly eccentric to the courtyard, is the three-room building 1A5 . This is also an early building: the frieze, which jumps up above the central entrance and is supported by a column, consisting of a simple, protruding band is a characteristic of the early Puuc style, subtype IIb. The building is the smallest of the group, it only consists of three rooms in a row.
Edificio de las Grecas
The building, designated 1A2 in the technical nomenclature and not open to the public, stands on the same elevation as the Manos Rojas building, at a distance of around 100 m to the south. It occupies the highest of several tiered terraces and, like the other buildings on the hill, is oriented towards the center, to the east. It consists of three structurally independent, but physically connected structures. The first is a building with two parallel rows of seven rooms facing north-south. With the exception of the central one, the rooms are open on the respective sides; only the central room of the western row of rooms is accessible through the eastern room. This component was erected in two sections: the first phase comprises from the central room to the northern end, a total of two by four rooms. This can be seen in the heavily decorated south facade of the central room, which was partially covered by the rooms later added to the south. The southern extension must have been intended from the start, because it was the only way to create the important symmetry of the facade. In addition, as in the Chenes style , the central space protrudes slightly and with rounded corners. The southern extension is less precise, its northeast corner with a corner column is also a reference to the Chenes style. The facade cladding of the entire building has fallen off, only on the west side a large piece of the upper wall surface is preserved, which sits on a three-part central cornice and shows an angular meander (hence the name) and an inclined row of decorative stones. This means that the building belongs to the late Puuc mosaic style type. Further details speak for the late classification of the building: On the rear wall, four rooms have been added in parallel in an oblique direction (to the west), which create a connection to a high, but obviously unfinished platform. There are no traces of buildings on the platform.
Southwest group
In the southwest of Kabah, on the hill range mentioned above, there is a complex of buildings, the center of which is the two-story building 2A1. In front of it in the east is a slightly rectangular courtyard with two mirror-image buildings on the north and south sides. Building 2A1 consists of a series of rooms arranged on all four sides around a rectangular core of rubble. The eastern row with 7 rooms protrudes far beyond the rectangular structure to the sides. This is the oldest component to which the rectangular part was later added. The rubble core also forms the foundation for the unusually large, second floor, the third phase of construction. This component is in turn formed by a sequence of 10 spaces arranged on all four sides around a relatively narrow core of rubble material. There is one room behind the front one on the south and east sides. Access was via two flying stairs, which were stretched over the facade of the first floor in the middle of the west and east sides, but left a vaulted corridor along the facade through which one could enter the rooms below. In this passage, the entire facade has been preserved on the east side. It is characterized by protruding cornice panels, followed by coil-shaped column elements and a row of an intertwined ribbon. On the south-east corner of the long eastern part, the facade is still well preserved over the entire height. There the two elements described lie above a smooth lower wall half, followed by an upper wall surface filled with diagonal bands. Their decor is interrupted at intervals by pairs of columns with triple binding decor. The actual corner was formed by a cascade of masks of the rain god. The two mirror-image buildings on the terrace consisted of three rooms in the front part and a long rear room, both sides of which were separated as small chambers. Remnants of stucco reliefs have been preserved here.
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ HED Pollock : The Puuc. Cambridge (MA), Peabody Museum 1980, ISBN 0-87365-693-8 , p. 140.
- ↑ John L. Stephens : In the Mayan Cities. Cologne, Dumont 1980, ISBN 3-7701-1215-6 .
- ^ Teobert painter : Península Yucatán. ed. by Hanns J. Prem . Berlin, Mann 1997, ISBN 3-7861-1755-1 , pp. 25-37.
- ↑ HED Pollock : The Puuc. Cambridge (MA), Peabody Museum 1980, ISBN 0-87365-693-8 , pp. 140-204.
literature
- George F. Andrews: Maya cities, placemaking and urbanization. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman 1975, ISBN 0-8061-1187-9 , pp. 322-339.
- HED Pollock : The Puuc. Peabody Museum, Cambridge 1980, ISBN 0-87365-693-8 , pp. 140-204.
Web links
Coordinates: 20 ° 14 '53.6 " N , 89 ° 38' 52.3" W.