Yaxchilán Pyramids

Building 33 - by far the topmost structure, a good climb

Detail of Building 33

Looking down from Building 33 with telephoto


View down from Building 33


Yaxchilan – Usumacinta River.
These ruins have no car roads to them, so we went on a boat.

Boarding the boat


We had a guide, Juan, with us, who is from the Chol tribe.

Our guide Juan the Chol

Our captain at the tiller

There were houses on the riverbank, in Mexico and Guatemala. They travel on boats or on their foot/donkey/bike trails through the jungle. The river Usumasinta was about 50 meters deep in the middle. That’s 25 meters deeper than how it normally is, but in these few months it’s pretty deep. And there has been flooding the past couple weeks all over this area, so the river rose a couple meters. And the cocodriles that live in it are about 35 meters long – good thing they don’t eat people!
It took us about an hour to get there, and when we did, first thing we saw were the monkeys.

Monkeys in the trees

Monkeys on the vines



There were howler and spider monkeys. The howlers sound like a monster barking. The spiders have white chests, kind of like black widows. We went in a tunnel, and there were bats! Lots of wildlife. In the tunnels were beds – stone, of course, used for resting and meditating in the temple. Next to the temple was another one of those temescales like in Xochicalco – the sauna. The elite folks used it for purification before going to ceremonies. And next to that was the ball court, a small court. There were a few stellas, showing the ambitious governors. One guy, Bird Jaguar IV, was 30, and facing his dad, Shield Jaguar II, who was 90, and giving him the governorship. Shield Jaguar II had 32 wives, but the second couldn’t have kids, so she approved a 3rd one, who bore Bird Jaguar IV. And there in the Gran Plaza were three houses for his 3 wives. This town was not a warrior town – maybe that’s why it was able to flourish so much. It was mostly into religion and commerce. There is Tikal up the river and Piedras Negras down the river, and Palenque not too far north, and they did a lot of trading.
- Angela

We left the Lacanja village, going over roads even poorer to Yaxtchilan, a name created by someone that means 'green rock' in the Chol language. It is not the name the people who built it called it, they know that name, somehow. It is one of several names the finders/archeologists/governmental officials have given it and the one which they agree upon. That seems to be the case of the names for all of these ruins, the original name may not be the one we use now.



Yaxchilan has the same history as the rest, beginning about 200 B.C. developing with pyramid building over the years having smaller pyramids periodically covered over to make them larger at different times and ending with a huge and impressive building project memorializing some person and the prisoners of war he took followed by a period of decline and less elegant buildings that lasted about 100 years culminating in complete abandonment about 900 A.D. One of the stele looked like a log. Normally the steles are large rectangular slabs of limestone but this one was cylindrical and it had a pattern that looked a little like growth rings of long, well weathered and carved. I thought it was a petrified log used and asked the guard about it. It was a stalagmite (or stalactite) from a nearby cave. There are lots more, some even bigger, according to the guard. This one was 20 inches in diameter and 15 feet high.
We got to Yaxchilan via a 30 minute boat ride on the Usumacinta River. It was in full flood stage. At times we were over what previously was dry land in Guatemala. We could see the tops of trees and it looked as if it might be as much as 10 feet above the ground where the trees grew. I asked two people how much higher the river was, one said 45 meters and the other said 25 meters. Neither of them spoke Spanish well, nor did I, so I think they may not have known the answer or understood the question. The 25 meter answer probably was 25 meters along the slope of the bank making the rise around 10 meters, 30 feet, a reasonable amount to me. No matter, the river was wider, deeper and swifter than the Mississippi at Memphis and I'd guess it has several times the volume.
We passed two military checkpoints. The military presence appeared mild but obvious. We also saw some signs erected by the Zapatists, the group who oppose the Mexicans.
We went back to Palenque for the night and spent it in a typical tourist hotel. Gusty said there was an airport near, he saw so many suitcases just like you see at airports. There were several buses around. The area was well landscaped with picturesque streets and vegetation. About 10 acres were occupied by several hotels and other tourist attractive places, an oasis in the usual Mexican city, isolated from the mercado by a few streets.
- Grandpa

Yaxchilan was perhaps the most remote of all the ruins we have visited, being accessed only by a boat ride down the swollen river. Our guide, Juan, is a Chol Indian. Chol are Maya, also, as are the Lacondon we just left. I proudly said the greeting to him that I had learned from the Lacandones, but it ends up each tribe has a different language. Although many Maya have converted to Christianity, generally not Catholic, Juan is not a Christian. He follows the traditional worship of his fathers, which emphasizes a worship of beasts, and sacrificing chickens.
Yaxchilan means “green rock,” but the original name meant “Place where the sky opened.” I wonder if that is why our friend who is a student of Book of Mormon archaeology believes it to be Zarahemla. Yaxchilan is encircled by the Usumacinta river, being built on a peninsula that looks more like a protruding puzzle piece than a finger. That would explain the ubiquitousness of the River Sidon in the Book of Mormon.
-Naomi

Big jungle tree