Puuc

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Puuc or Puuc style is a style of Maya in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica . The name Puuc comes from the Yucatec Maya language and is the name for the hill country ( pu'uk ) in the southwest of Yucatán . The northern edge of the hill country appears like a chain of hills and is therefore also called Sierrita de Ticul , it is located around 80 km south of Merida . The hill country is the main distribution area of ​​the Puuc style of late classical Maya architecture.

The Puuc archaeological zone

Important ruin sites of the Puuc style (black), the Chenes style (green) and the Puuc-Chenes style (blue)
Later Uxmal style ( Uxmal )
Mosaic style ( Labná )
Column style ( Chacmultún )
Early Puuc style (IIb) ( Kiuic )

From an archaeological point of view, the Puuc region is defined by the so-called Puuc style, with smooth transitions to the peripheral areas. In this sense, the Puuc area is roughly a square with the following modern places as corner points: Maxcanú, Tekax, Hopelchen and Tenabo. The Puuc style is defined by construction technology and, above all, the facade decor of the stone structures.

In the middle and especially in the late classical period , the limestone hill country experienced an astonishing population explosion. It can be seen in the emergence of a large number of small, medium-sized and several very large settlements with elaborate stone architecture. Their construction must have tied up a significant part of the available labor, presumably in the dry season, when no agricultural activities could be carried out. The supply of the large population with agriculture based on the Milpa system, which took up large areas and could not be intensified at will, must have reached its limits. The water supply in the karst area was also problematic, in which surface water in the form of aguadas (natural ponds, but developed by the Maya) was only available in a small area around the Mayan city of Uxmal . One had to rely on cisterns, of which there were a large number in every settlement, which were dug into the relatively easy-to-work rock. The settlements consisted of sometimes far apart groups of brick and perishable material, built around courtyards on low platforms. It is believed that there were several hundred small and large cities in the Puuc region, in which a total of around 500,000 people could have lived.

Early Puuc style (IIa) ( Xbalché )
Proto Puuc style ( Sayil )

The most famous Mayan ruins in the Puuc region are:

Other important places are:

Extension of the Puuc style

The Puuc style probably extended to the area of ​​today's capital Mérida and to the area of Chichén Itzá , where buildings in the Puuc style exist in Yaxuná . Exact evidence of the extent of the style is no longer possible due to the extensive destruction of the buildings in the lowlands (north of the Puuc range of hills). Outside of this area, however, there are still sites with architecture that imitates or cites the Puuc style, for example in Culubá east of Tizimín .

One-room, well-preserved building near the border between Yucatán and Campeche, pillar style, upper half of the wall never completed (Dolores Norte)

Despite numerous research projects, mostly tied to a site and its immediate surroundings, and a large exploration project in the 1970s, small sites with standing architecture that have not yet been registered are still discovered every year in the confusing, densely wooded hill country of the Puuc. They are known at best to the local hunters who sometimes spend the night in them.

Hallmarks of the Puuc style

The stone buildings of the Puuc style have a (but by no means exact) rectangular shape. The entrance is on the long side of the interior. Usually rooms were arranged in an odd number in a row, often there are two parallel rows that were accessible from one or both sides. More complex shapes with transverse spaces at the ends are common. The rooms were covered with a stone vault , whereby it is not a real vault with a pressure-dissipating keystone, but ultimately two wall panels that are increasingly approaching each other, which were connected by a capstone (without a frictional connection). This is a further development of the cantilever vaults that are widespread in the classical Mayan culture .

Facade construction

Section through a Puuc building

Characteristic for all phases of the Puuc style is the basically similar structure of the facade of the stone building, which from bottom to top consists of the following parts that run around the entire building, even if they are on the main facade, the sides and the rear of the building can be designed differently:

  • The base, which runs around the whole building and which at the same time defines the level of the external interior spaces (interior spaces that can be entered through a front room are usually at least one step higher),
  • the lower wall surface of approximately 2 m high, which also corresponds to the height of the entrance doors,
  • the middle cornice, located above the door joists, which rests on another smoothed layer,
  • the upper wall surface, the height of which corresponds to the vault of the interior,
  • the upper cornice, the upper edge of which is the same height as the flat, brick roof.

The decoration has clearly defined positions, which are rarely deviated from:

  • The base is usually kept simple, in later phases it is more in line with the design of the cornices
  • The cornices consist of one to five horizontal bands. With two bands, the lower one protrudes diagonally downwards and outwards, with three bands the uppermost is arranged in a mirror image of the lower one, and both frames a recessed band. If there are more than three bands, the middle bands are designed differently. In the top cornice, the top band is always twice as high as the others.
  • The two wall surfaces are usually designed differently: the lower wall surface is usually without decoration, the upper wall surface (at least from the column style) always has a decoration in stone mosaic.

Construction engineering

The construction has the following typical characteristics from the pillar style onwards: The walls are built in bulk masonry, whereby the cladding stones have no load-bearing function, but rather serve as "lost formwork" for the wall core consisting of a mixture of lime mortar, lime sand and stones of different sizes. At the level of the upper edge of the stone door posts, the walls have a smoothed layer of mortar on which the door beams rest. Another layer of this kind follows over the door beam; This layer can be recognized in the interior of the building by the slight recess of the wall cladding stones. The large stones of the bottom row of the central cornice, which reach far into the wall, rest on this layer. They are held in their position by the wall core above. At the level of their upper edge there is an inward projection of usually around 10 cm, which is formed by a row of well-crafted stones. With them begins the inclined vault, which is often (especially in the late Uxmal style) formed from stones that are shoe-shaped in cross-section and anchored deep in the wall core. The inner surface of the vault inclines more and more towards the interior (but there are also completely straight vaulted surfaces). After about 9 rows of stones there is another, small and inwardly protruding ledge on which the up to 50 cm wide cap stones of the vault rest. So there is no real keystone and there is no frictional connection between the sides of the vault. The stability is solely due to the weight and density of the two sides of the vault. The central capstone in the longitudinal direction of the vault, which is opposite the entrance door, was often painted on the underside with the image of the god K'awiil , framed by two lines of hieroglyphics, painted in red.

At the level of the row of stones below the vault and at the level of the row below the topmost protrusion, thick (below) and thin (above) wooden beams were used, which spanned the interiors near the corners at right angles to the longitudinal direction of the vault. Sometimes there is another row in the middle of the vault height. Only the openings in the walls are preserved today. It is doubtful whether they had a structural or static function; in any case, they simply belonged to every room. The vault is closed to the outside by a construction wall that is slightly inclined inwards. In a later construction phase, the cladding of the upper wall surface, including the middle and upper cornice, was placed in front of this construction wall. The roof surface was finished with a slightly arched stucco floor, which was made waterproof by intensive tapping during the hardening process.

Façade, stone cladding intact on the left, fallen off on the right, only the construction wall of the vault ( Xkipché )

The stone mosaic facade was made in two steps. Initially, the outer wall of the vault was left raw; an almost vertical construction wall made of stones and mortar was created, which largely corresponded to the core of the wall. Later (and this step was omitted relatively often) the actual façade was constructed on the stones of the central cornice protruding far from the wall. It had no interlocking with the construction wall and therefore often fell partially or completely over the centuries. In this case, the construction wall was exposed to the elements unprotected, which then contributed to the further decay of the building.

Vault with shoe-shaped vault stones (Siho)
Vault with wedge-shaped vault stones (below) and plate-shaped (above) (Siho)

The design also had a negative and positive effect on stability and durability. There was no interlocking of the walls and wall parts at the corners and between the lower and upper half of the wall. In particular, the smoothed surfaces below and above the row of stones in the central cornice formed an ideal fracture surface. On the other hand, the walls and especially the vaulted halves were very stable and often fell into the interior as a homogeneous block, where they have sometimes been preserved in this form to this day. In contrast, vaults of the Early Puuc style collapsed as a whole and the inner lining stones that make up them are in their original context in the building rubble. The reason for this different behavior is likely to be the quality of the lime mortar used.

The inner and outer surfaces were covered with a layer of lime mortar ( stucco ), which also formed the basis of the painting. In the early phases of Puuc architecture there is often a dark red painting of the inner walls, partly also the outer surfaces, together with horizontal bands of black painted hieroglyphs. The floors, which were also made of stucco, were often yellow in color. The stucco covering was of different thicknesses, often to compensate for unevenness in the execution of the stone walls and sometimes had a relief in the form of rows of serrations over the doors and on the protrusions of the vault.

Building shapes

Floor plan of simple Puuc buildings: single and double rows of rooms and Chenes variant

The simplest and also the earliest form are simple chains of rooms that are arranged next to each other and all open to one side. The central rooms are usually longer than the side rooms; in the early styles they either had three entrances next to each other or a wide entrance with one or two columns. This chain of rooms is also often doubled. The rear rooms are accessible through the front ones. A variant that is rather rare in the Puuc area is a second room just behind the middle room in the first row. This variant is often found in the Chenes style . Buildings with one or two rooms also occur, especially in small places, usually an uneven number of entrances is aimed for so that a clear middle entrance arises.

Floor plan of extended Puuc buildings: transverse rooms at the ends

As a further embodiment, there is a transverse room at the end of the double row of rooms. This room can be entered from the respective side. This variant can also be open on all four sides, a type that is apparently more common, especially in the western Puuc area.

Example of a very complex building with stairs to the level of a second floor (Yaxché Xlabpak )

The much more complex buildings are based on these basic patterns. They were very often created in several construction phases, the long chain was mostly attached to an existing block of rooms. Often four rows of rooms are arranged around a massive core of rubble stones, as in the South Palace of Sayil . A second or even third floor was sometimes added as a further design. Examples of the then very complex architectural history are the main palaces of Sayil , Labná and Xkipché . A variant are buildings with an L-shaped floor plan, with the short leg often added later.

Classification of style and time

According to the American architect and archaeologist George F. Andrews, six style phases can be distinguished according to the construction technique, the quality of the stone work and the decor of the exterior walls : Early Oxkintoc (Early Oxkintoc), Proto-Puuc, Early Puuc (Early Puuc), pillar style (Colonette Style), Mosaic Style and finally the Late Uxmal Style, which is limited to the city of Uxmal . The classification of the styles by Andrews builds on the structure by Harry ED Pollock and extends it.

George F. Andrews arranges the style phases in the following periods:

  • Proto-Puuc from 550 AD
  • Early Puuc from 670 AD
  • Column style from 770 AD
  • Simultaneous column and mosaic style from 830 AD
  • Later Uxmal style from 1000 AD.

The approach of the late Uxmal style is particularly problematic because a vault capstone from the eastern building of the nuns' square in Uxmal , which can be assigned to this style, bears a date of the year 906. Dating of buildings of the Puuc style by means of radiocarbon dating has not yet been able to contribute to a more precise specification, since too few analyzes are available and the confidence interval of 2 sigma (which means a probability of approx. 95%) is around 100 years even with new measurements . Overall, however, George F. Andrews' approaches are probably 100 years too late.

In a radius of at least 70 km from Uxmal there are buildings with the structural characteristics of the late Uxmal style in many places, all of which (in contrast to Uxmal) were not completed. This fact is interpreted by individual authors as an indication of a political upheaval with the collapse of local rulers in the Uxmal area. However, there are also a few unfinished buildings in Uxmal itself (building on the top of the pyramid of the old woman, building in the complex of the phallic temple).

Another method for the chronological position of the Puuc culture is based on the ceramic (fragments) found during excavations or on the surface. The basic study up to now comes from Robert E. Smith. Because of the long duration and inadequate subdivision of the Cehpech ceramic complex, which encompasses the Puuc culture, the ceramic studies have not yet made a decisive contribution to the clarification of the chronology.

Downfall

The abandonment of the settlements in the end classical period is a complex process that takes place in stages, whereby the abandonment of the erection of monumental architecture by the local upper class preceded the complete depopulation by a long time. The causes cannot therefore have been factors that must have affected all strata of the population equally, such as epidemics or periods of extreme drought. Rather, the limited productivity of traditional agriculture has not been able to keep pace with population growth and the escalating effect of ever shorter recovery times for the usable areas and lower yield has led to a collapse of the entire order that cannot be controlled with the given possibilities.

Diagnostic characteristics of the phases of the Puuc style

The assignment of the diagnostic elements is based on George F. Andrews. Río Bec and Chene's styles are included for comparison. The division of the Early Puuc style is based on William M. Ringle. on.

Architectural element Río Bec Chenes Chenes-Puuc Proto Puuc Early I Early IIa Early IIb Pillars mosaic Late Uxmal
Base 1 band + + + + + + + (+)
2 bands: smooth and oblique (+)
3 ribbons, middle: row of columns + +
3 bands, middle: columns in groups + +
3 ribbons, middle: Greques (+)
3 bands very high: middle: row of columns interrupted +
Lower wall surface smooth + + + + + + + + + +
Pillars +
Columns in groups + + +
Step meander +
recessed fields with decor ++ + +
other + (+)
Entrances (outside) 1 per room + + + + +
> 1 per room, with a wall in between + +
Doors wide + +
Door with pillars (+)
Door with pillars + (+)
Door with columns and capitals + + + + + + +
Door elements with figural relief +
Portico +
Door post > 1 stone / wall thickness + + + + +
1 stone / wall thickness + + + + + + +
Frames around outside entrances +
Door beam stone + + + + + + + + + +
Wood ++ + ++ ++ ++
Middle cornice protruding 1 row of stones +
1 volume + + +
Outstanding stone cones + + + +
Jump up 1 volume above the entrance (+) +
Decorative elements above door +
2 bands +
3 bands smooth, middle one protrudes +
3 bands: oblique, smooth, oblique + + +
3 bands: smooth, columnar, smooth + +
With balls + + (+)
3 ribbons: center chimez in zigzag +
3 bands: middle of rattle stick
With rosettes (+) +
4 bands (+) + +
5 bands (+)
Upper wall surface in front of lower wall, smooth +
unclad (raw stones with stucco) ++ ++ + +
smooth +
smooth with stone cones + ++ + +
smooth with recessed fields + +
rough stone mosaic +
smooth, protrudes, obliquely inward +
smooth, protrudes, vertically +
smooth with stucco cover +
Columns continuously +
Columns in fields / groups + +
Column with binding + +
diagonal grid + +
chimez grid + +
Meander / step meander + +
Wall inclined inwards ++ ++ + + (+) (+)
Masks over entrances (+) +
at the corners (+) +
Houses + +
characters + +
snakes +
Upper cornice is missing +
2 bands: smooth +
2 bands: smooth and oblique + +
3 bands: oblique, smooth, oblique +
With rosettes +
3 bands: oblique, column, oblique + + +
4 bands (+)
Corners with 1 thick column + ++ ++ +
With 3 pillars +
Snake head from middle. / above cornice +
Wall technology : load-bearing wall stones (+) (+) (+) + +
Cladding stones over the wall core + + + + + +
small stones, square / rectangular ++ + +
medium-sized stones + + + + +
very large stones +
Vault low (<1.5 m) + +
Vault normal (1.5 - 2.5 m) + +
Vault high (> 2.5 m) +
Protrusion under capstone + + + +
Foot stones in the vault area +
Vault technology Cantilever vault stone slabs (stepped) ++ +
combined with cladding stones +
Cladding stones irregular + + +
Cladding stones good, wedge-shaped + + + + + +
Cladding stones good, shoe-shaped + (+) (+) +
Stucco decoration on the vault ++ + +
Roof ridge on the rear wall (+) (+)
on center wall ++ ++ + ++ ++
on the front wall + +
raw masonry + ++ ++
with facing stones + + + +
with figures ++ ++ ++ ++ ++
Stairs
outside, with passage + + +
Inside ++ + +
Facade structure in room units ++ ++ ++
Benches indoors
with niche below +

(+) to ++ = intensity of occurrence

See also

Individual evidence

  1. Silvia Garza Tarazona de González, Edward B. Kurjack Basco: Atlas arqueológico del Estado de Yucatán . Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, México, DF 1980.
  2. George F. Andrews: Los estilos arquitectónicos del Puuc, una nueva apreciación . Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, México, DF 1986.
  3. a b Harry ED Pollock : The Puuc. An architectural survey of the hill country of Yucatan and northern Campeche, Mexico . Peabody Museums of Archeology and Ethnology, Cambridge, Mass. 1980, ISBN 0-87365-693-8 .
  4. ^ Hanns J. Prem : Un escenario del Clásico Terminal in Yucatán. In: Wiltrud Dressler et al. (Ed.): Culturas en Movimiento. Universidad Autónoma de México, México 2007, ISBN 978-970-32-4452-2 , pp. 131-161.
  5. ^ Robert E. Smith: Pottery of Mayapan , including Studies of Ceramic Material from Uxmal, Kabah, and Chichen Itza. Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 1971.
  6. Nicholas P. Dunning: Lords of the hills: ancient Maya settlement in the Puuc region, Yucatán, Mexico . Prehistory Press, Madison 1992, ISBN 1-881094-04-9 , p. 156.
  7. George F. Andrews: Architectural survey of the Rio Bec, Chenes, and Puuc regions: progress and problems . In: George F. Andrews: Pyramids and palaces, monsters and masks . Volume 3, Labyrinthos, Lancaster, CA 1999, ISBN 0-911437-82-7 , pp. 311-319.
  8. ^ William M. Ringle: Temporada de Campo 2001 del Proyecto Arqueológico Labná-Kiuic . Online publication: www.famsi.org/reports/00019es/section02.htm