Chunchucmil

Chunchucmil was once a large, sprawling pre-Columbian Maya city located in the western part of what is now the state of Yucatán, Mexico. Although the famous explorer and author John Lloyd Stephens traveled within a few kilometers of Chunchucmil during his historic journey across the Yucatán Peninsula (he even met with the owner of the nearby haciendas), the archaeological site went relatively unnoticed by Maya scholars for more than a century because virtually no monuments (stelae) or other grand sculptures have been found there. The lack of royal monuments, combined with other archaeological data, may indicate that Chunchucmil was not a city ruled by a single divine king, as most other Maya polities. Instead, it may have been a commercial center, organized by various lineages and focused upon funneling goods between regions—such as the trade between the Gulf of Mexico and the interior of the Yucatán Peninsula. Chunchucmil was most populous in the Middle Classical Period (400-650 AD), with an estimated 31,000 - 43,000 (within the central 25 km2 area) people. The site center is located ca. 27 km (16.8 mi) inland from the Gulf of Mexico and approximately halfway between the coast and the next largest archaeological site of Oxkintok. It was named in the late 1970s after the nearest modern settlement (the Hacienda and village of Chunchucmil), however the archaeological site is so large that it extends onto the ejido lands of at least five modern communities: Chunchucmil, Kochol, San Mateo, Coahuila and Halachó. The majority of the ancient Maya site is located within the municipality of Maxcanú, however a portion of it is situated on land pertaining to the municipality of Halachó. The site of Chunchucmil is located on a narrow band of semi-arid terrain that parallels portions of the western and northern coastlines in Yucatán and Campeche. This particular environmental zone is considered the driest in all of the Maya area, with less than 800 mm (31.5 in) of annual rainfall.