Kohunlich: where the cohune palms grow

Costa Maya is a developing cruise ships stop in Southern Quintana Roo state of Mexico. The port itself is a tourist trap - a sort of village Disney would built if he were Mexican: there are thatched roofs and big pool with swim-in bar, there are dancing Maya and Maya playing ulama (traditional ball game), there are puppy lion and puppy tiger, there are dolphins, there are two popular Mexican eating franchises deafening everyone with blaring music and exclaiming MCs and to top this off - dozens of shops selling silver, leather, diamonds, tequila, making henna tattoos & weaving bracelets. 

We are not fans of things made specifically for tourists - we work on one such thing - and try to find either cute local places or historical monuments. Costa Maya offers both.

Just half hour walk (or 5 minutes by cab) away there is a local village of Mahahual with sandy beach, thatched palapas, a handful of bars and restaurants and very affordable beach massage under the palm trees.

There is something for history buffs too as a few important and a little less known Maya sites lay inland. For those who want to see the ruins the choice is usually between Chaccoben & Kohunlich.

Chaccoben is closer - about an hour drive from the port - which gives you an opportunity to either take a 4-hour tour and leave time for tiger & henna tattoos or combine it with a beach thus making it a 6 hour trip. 

Kohunlich (pronounced Koe•hoon•leech) is farther away: the drive takes more than 2 hours so the entire tour will last 6 hours and you will have no time for shopping and strolling. So if you are a shopper, family with small kids or cannot take 2 hours on the bus - opt for Chaccoben, Kohunlich is recommended only for hardcore Maya fans.
We chose Kohunlich as Chaccoben only offered several pyramids while Kohunlich was elaborately planned and engineered, with raised platforms and pyramids, citadels, courtyards, a ball court and central plaza fringed by pyramids, temple platforms and  stands for the spectators of religious ceremonies. But the real gem is a Temple of the Masks (also called Building of Figureheads). So, it is decided - we are going to Kohunlich.
After 2 hours drive we step into the Mayan site (mind it, it is really in the middle of nowhere and during almost two hours on the site there will be no toilets or ice cream vendors so grab your bottle of water (usually provided by the tour company) and take care of your 'business' at the entrance.
Speaking of tour companies. As much as we like to travel independently - and there is a bunch of taxi drivers offering to take you there - Maya site is one place you definitely want to visit with a guide. Without the narration about Maya culture and history it is just a pile of old rocks.
The site opens up by an enormous plaza surrounded by pyramids, acropolis and craftsmen's quarters. What is today a mowed green lawn at Maya times was covered with 'Maya cement' - mixture of burnt and crushed limestone with water and crushed seashells traded from coastal communities. 

All over the site you can see giant cohune palms that actually gave the modern name to the city. Despite the fact it sounds very 'Mayan' to our ear, it comes in fact from English expression  Cohune Ridge 'where cohune palm grew'. The Maya distorted English words in their way thus forming the name Kohunlich. In modern Maya it is called X-làabch'e'en but no one knows what it was called at its prime.

Cohune palms in Kohunlich

To the left - ruins of the palace. At the moment it does not really look up to royal living standards but at the time it was considered an elegant residence for Kohunlich higher society. Nowadays not much of the structure remains with trees and plants being its new inhabitants.

The next structure - Acropolis - attracts your attention by its staircase. Imagination starts working vividly, memory brings up the fragments of movies as you think of all the human sacrifices most probably commissioned here. This is true: Maya along with other Mezoamerican civilizationals were fond of Human sacrifices and came up with several elaborate ways : along with decapitation that is more usual for Europeans, Maya  also practiced opening chest and offering heart to gods, throwing down from the pyramid...

General public believe that all pre-Columbian architecture consists of pyramids but this is not true: apparently Maya built different types of structures - temples, ceremonial platforms, stands for the spectators, observatories and even multi-level living quarters. Multi-stores buildings were possible due to the invention of so called 'Maya arch' that supported structure and weight above it. But unlike in European arch with voussoirs directed radially and locked with keystone all rocks in Maya arch are laid horizontally. This requires the walls to be much thicker and made the rooms very long and narrow as they were basically elongated arches (Maya vault).

In Northern cultures most important things happen indoors: most of the year the weather does not cooperate. Just compare the the Southern carnival with the Northern ball. In Maya culture - until nowadays - main things happen outdoors with living quarters being rather small and basic. Ancient Maya were no exception: just look at the room in one of the living quarters and the Mayan bed...

Pixa'An residential compound 

Maya bed: the niches under the bed and in the walls were used to store things 

Religious ceremonies and public events were far from being humble: until now the heart of Kohunlich is an enormous plaza flanked with temples and the bleachers for the spectators:

Maya bleachers

The temples during the classic period had east-west orientation. The temples oriented to the east were used for religious ceremonies connected to birth whilst those oriented to the west - naturally those connected to death. But do not ask how to determine an orientation of the pyramid, one has to be a big Maya connoisseur to do that!

El Rey - Temple of the King

El Rey - Temple of the King

An amazing thing about Maya is that they abandoned their cities and then reoccupied them centuries later. Be it a drought, a war or en epidemic the citizens would leave the place and venture elsewhere. Centuries later another group of Maya that had abandoned their city would accidentally stumble upon a city in the jungle. They would clean it up and reoccupy. To celebrate their superiority they would build a bigger temple... by simply constructing it atop older ones. Or it could be a vanity of a new ruler. This is why most Maya pyramids have understructures: layers and layers of older buildings underneath, some up to 20.

If you look closer you can see the layers of older structures coming out:

With all due to respect to Maya in European history it was not common to leave the cities: after plagues, floods and wars people kept coming back and rebuilding their home towns. It took a volcano eruption to destroy Pompeii and Herculanum. As abandoning cities used to be a habit of Maya there could still be sites out there. For example, Kohunlich was only discovered in 1969 and Chacobben (also located next to Costa Maya cruise ship port) was only discovered in 1972 when an American archaeologists noticed from a helicopter an abundance of hills in predominantly flat area. Each hill turned to be a pyramid.
As to Kohunlich,  it was built in the early VI century, abandoned in the XII century and never re-occupied.  

Thanks to the recent buzz about 'Mayan Apocalypse' now everyone knows about Maya's keen interest in time-keeping and calendars. Usually calendars were prominently displayed in the places of public ceremonies - such as Plaza of the Stelae. 

Most probably this is where the calendars were displayed

But the real gem of Kohunlich is the Temple of the Masks. At some point there were 8 of them - 4 from each side flanking the staircase. But Maya's habit of covering previous structure with new temples atop the old ones actually helped to preserve the masks: this temple was also covered over, which protected the masks for the marvelous state of their preservation today.
Unfortunately - even though the site was unknown till the 60's of the XX century - apparently some locals knew (or guessed) that the lush hill conceals an ancient structure and one of the masks was looted.
Paradoxically, this looting actually helped discover the site as one of the local peasants noticed the site being vandalized and reported to local authorities. It has since been protected by Mexican National Heritage.
Another mask is still hidden under a protective layer - for future generations. 

Temple of the Masks - right flank, in the bottom - masonry covering the fourth mask

Temple of the Masks - left flank

Maya art was very symbolic and this is where a good guide comes in. Of course, you can still admire the beauty of the carving but you will never guess that for example the strokes and dashes in the eyes are in fact references to symbol kin - that could mean day, sun and time.

Or how would you know why many masks have jaguar's head underneath?
Well, according to Maya mythology the world was multi-layered. The Middleworld, the world of living consisting of 4 levels; above it lays the bright and sunny Upperworld with 13 gods and 13 layers (hens the number of months in Tzolk'in, Maya religious calendar), below us the wet & dark Underworld, world of dead ruled by 9 gods and consisting of 9 levels. 
Maya kings and priests (it was a theocratic society so the administrative and military ruler was also the main priest) were associated with sun. But as the sun dies and is reborn every day it must go through the unpleasant underworld where it is accompanied by jaguar representing the world of dead. This is why jaguar has such a spiritual significance in Maya culture.

It is believed that the masks depict the sun god Kinich Ahau however they differ in appearance so it is thought that they also represent the various rulers of Kohunlich. Or maybe they represent rulers in the form of the Kinich Ahau.

Some masks still preserved their original red color - color of sun on sunset (by the way, masks are directed to face the sunset). Red color was made from cochineal insect (traded from Central Mexico) and painted 'al-fresco' on top of wet cement.

It is hot and steps are steep but if you climb up and wait for your turn you will be awarded  by amazingly intricate details carved on them. It is even more amazing taking into consideration the fact that Maya did not know metal and all the carving and polishing was done using obsidian traded from Guatemala and Mexican state of Chiapas.

Even though the excavations began immediately after its re-discovery in 1969 two-thirds of the area is still buried.  

One of the great things about Kohunlich was the freedom to explore and climb the structures compared to other Maya ruins in the area (famous Tulum being of them).  It was a pleasure to explore the site imagining it in the days of its grandeur.
Was it worth the long, four-hour round trip bus ride? For us - absolutely yes. We received wealth of info on Maya, the opportunity to climb and explore the structures and photograph the amazing masks up-close. The park-like setting with green lawns and cohune palms made a great impression. 

Last look at Kohunlich...

Despite the fact that we came here to admire architectural monuments,  local flora was not less interesting. Aside from the famous cohune palms... 

...there were other trees with intricate leaves and roots.

Ceiba - Maya 'sacred tree'

Make sure you note the Maya 'sacred tree' - the ceiba (pronounced say-bah) - called yaxché (green tree) in Mayan. It had many practical uses: its trunk was used to make canoes and its soft cotton-like inside was used to fill mattresses and vests used at battles and ball game.

Ceiba also had spiritual value: it connects the nine levels of the Underworld to the four levels of the Middleworld and upwards into the thirteen levels of the Upperworld. This is how the souls could travel between the worlds. Some versions of Mayan mythology believed that the heaven was held by five trees , four positioned at the cardinal points of compass, with the sacred ceiba the tree in the center. At the time of the Spanish conquest, the Yucatecan Mayans believed the ceiba tree would offer them protection from the Spanish invaders, allowing them to escape to another level...

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Ancient Maya: why the world did not end

What do we remember about ancient Maya from school? It was a mighty empire at its prime when European conquistadors came along and killed them all, together with Mayas vanished their language so until now we do not know much about them. Some even believe that the extraterrestrials came over and picked them up or even that Mayan civilization was so advanced that they built a spaceship and moved to another planet. Well, most of this is - to say softly - incorrect. Yes, Mayan culture was very advanced but there never was an empire, rather a constellation of cities constantly fighting with each other. But by the time Europeans came many of these cities had already been in decline for centuries - and it is still a matter of debate why. And for sure Mayas are not on another planet simply because... they are still alive, and there are between 5 and 7 million of them living in southern Mexico and the Yucatán Peninsula, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, and western Honduras. Their language is not gone either - even though the written tradition was lost and deciphered only a few decades ago - there are still many villages where people speak only Mayan. Nowadays most Maya are bilingual speaking both their tongue and Spanish but hold ancient Maya last names: Ak, Dzul, Hoil, Hau. Chuc. Ehuan etc.

Maya women on the streets of Antigua de Guatemala

So how will you recognize a Maya if you happen to see one? Unlike the actors in Mexican telenovellas Maya are short, have dark coarse hair, but only little facial hair and no hair on the chest, flat face with high cheekbones.

The Maya people are also known by their hand-woven garments - capes, skirts, dresses, blouses... Each village has its own distinctive pattern making it possible to recognize people's home town from a distance.

And most importantly - all Maya babies have wah. Wah is a dark purple spot on the end of the spinal cord that every newborn - even half-blood called mestiso -  has. It fades with age but nevertheless is the most reliable - and the most difficult to see - distinctive feature of Mayas.

They most probably still have their wah

But if you happened to see an ancient Maya the picture would be quite different: ancient Maya had very peculiar - by modern understanding - beauty standards. The way a person looked was a direct reflection of this person's social status and occupation. For example, ruling families practiced scull deformation: starting from baby age the kids' heads were tightly wrapped in order to elongate the scull and make it look like corncob. Maya called themselves 'people of corn' and believed that the civilizations before theirs were made of clay and wood. When you saw someone with a corncob head you could tell right away you were dealing with a royalty. When this person smiled at you there would be no doubt about it: ruling families also filed teeth and inserted jade - stone that had big spiritual value to Maya. Another trait of beauty was being cross-eyed. To achieve this the parents had to hang something between baby's eyes. The warriors had to be recognized as well. In addition their mere outlook was supposed to frighten the enemy. They cut their skin open and rubbed in pigment - sort of tattoo - on their face, arms and back of the shoulders. They also opened the skin on their face with stingray bone, after it started healing they did it again and again to look fierce. Next to it pierced noses and ears look kind of innocent.

There are over 70 Indian groups (by the way, in Mexico Indian is not considered a derogatory term, unlike in the US). Along with Aztecs Maya represent the two biggest Indian groups of so called Mesoamerica - a cultural area in Central America where tribes shared several distinct features:


- domestication and cultivation of maize (corn) - we already know that Maya called themselves 'people of corn

- elevated structures - what we refer to as pyramids.

However to a trained eye they are not the same: there are also ceremonial platforms, palaces, temples, observatories... In addition to that they differ depending on the area and the time of construction.

Pyramid in Kohunlich, Quintana Roo, Mexico

Limestone used for construction was cut into blocks and polished using obsidian tools - Maya did not know metal.

The blocks were then mortared using 'Maya cement' - mixture of burnt and crushed limestone with water and crushed seashells traded from coastal communities. The same mixture was used as stucco and then painted 'al fresco'.

By the way, the architectural problem of building an arch - one of the most  important achievements of Ancient Rome - was solved by Maya in their own way giving birth to so-called Maya 'false arch'. The Maya arch is quite different from Roman that uses a curvilinear shape with a key stone, instead it utilizes a linear inverted "V" shape.

Maya 'false arch' in San Gervasio, Cozumel, Mexico 

Elongated Maya arch formed Maya vault thus creating clear span interior space. The vaults could be adjacent to each or placed vertically forming multi-level structures.

Maya vault in Kohunlich, Mexico

- theocratic society: the main priest Jalach winik was also territorial and military ruler. The power was inherited and - probably to ensure the line does not break - multiple wives were permitted. However only Maya had female rulers.

Jalach winik from Quiriguá, department of Izabal, Guatemala

- great interest in ulama (another name Pok-Ta-Pok) - ball game that was athletic and ceremonial event at the same time. Ball courts of different shapes and sizes are found in most Mesoamerican cities: early courts were simple and had marks on the walls that the players had to touch with ball. Later on the walls grew higher and the rings appeared. Unlike in basketball, the rings were positioned not horizontally but vertically and the ball weighed 6 to 11 pounds.

Ball court in Kohunlich, Quintana Roo, Mexico

It was not just game, it had a great religious importance: the sacral meaning of the game was to achieve balance between the worlds of live and dead. Before the match players had to purify themselves by fasting, praying and taking steam bath with herbs. During the game they were dressed as animals.
The captain of the winning team was honored to be... sacrificed, best blood had to go to gods! What was the bonus to win - one might ask? Well, according to Mayan mythology all humans were tested by underworld gods before they are granted access to heaven while human sacrifice goes straight to Mayan paradise along with babies and women who dies at childbirth. And this brings us to the next feature:

- human sacrifice. All Mesoamerican cultures were extremely fond of it and came up with several elaborate ways: decapitation, opening chest and offering heart to gods, throwing down from the pyramid...

Imagine how it would feel being thrown down these stairs...

The most common way on  Yucatán peninsula was 'humans in sinkholes'. There is no fresh water in Southern  Yucatán, the only river - Rio Hondo - starts in the mountains of Guatemala and serves as border with Belize. All fresh water Maya used was rainwater they collected in underground cisterns but in nature it was absorbed by the ground creating underwater caverns and rivers. When the ceiling of such cavern collapsed it created a sinkhole - what Maya believed to be a gateway to the world of dead.

Until recently it was believed that only virgins were thrown in sinkholes but recent archaeological findings discovered bones of men, women and even children. It is now believed that those used as human sacrifice were captives from multiple wars between cities as well as children depending on their birth date. When these children were born the parents were informed that their kids were specially chosen by gods to be sacrificed and they grew knowing about their future destiny. This seems horrifying nowadays but the parents were happy and felt honored.
Of course if a kid from a noble family and a peasant's kid were born on the same day the 'honor' was passed to a kid from simple family...
But nobles also had their ways of sacrifice. Ruler, priests and priestesses practiced bloodletting: female priestesses would pierce their tongues and press it with a rock to collect blood, men pierced their penises. The blood was then dried and offered to gods. As painful as it was - at least they did not die, but even nobles had to do it at some point of their lives.

Most probably humans were sacrificed right here

The spectators gathered on the bleachers (Kohunlich, Quintana Roo, Mexico)

- another feature that unities all Mesoamerican cultures is interest for keeping of time. There were 18 different calendars - supplementary ones observed lunation, Venus cycle, moon age etc but the two main calendars were Tzolk'in and Haab'. Both had circular shape.

Haab' is solar calendar consisting of 365 days: 18 months, 20 days in each plus 5 days at the end of the year known as Wayeb'. It was considered a dangerous time of the year, time when the borders between our world and underworld dissolved and all evil could come it. Maya had an elaborate set of rituals designed to protect them from bad spirits during Wayeb', for example, people avoided leaving their houses and washing or combing their hair.  Haab' ran counter-clockwise.


Tzolk'in is Maya Sacred Round or 260-day calendar. It consisted of 20 groups of 13 days and ran clockwise. Until now the researches debate why it was decided to have 260 days: some believe it is the multiplication of numbers 20 and 13 that were important in Mayan culture, some link it with the period of human pregnancy, some - with agricultural time between planting and harvest while other have an astronomic explanation as the time between zenithal passages is 260 days.

So where did the all the buzz about the end of the world come from? 

Both calendars ran simultaneously so each days had names from both. The two cycles coincided only every 52 days.  As this cycle repeated roughly once each lifetime, a different method of dating was needed to record historical events. To specify dates over periods longer than 52 years, Mesoamericans used the Long Count calendar.

Stelae like these were a perfect spot to display Long Count calendars

Now read and memorize: one day is k'in, twenty k'ins are winal, eighteen winals make one tun, twenty tuns are known as a k'atun, twenty k'atuns make a b'ak'tun. December 21, 2012 was simply the day that the calendar went to the next b'ak'tun.
But on the stelae at two Mayan sites - in Koba (Quintana Roo state, Mexico) and in El Tortugera (Tabasco state, Mexico) - the calendar ended after this b'ak'tun. Why did they both end on this day? Who knows, maybe stela was not big enough? Anyway, if someone were to check our calendars - does anyone plan anything for the year 3044? Does anyone know which city will host Olympic games in 4046? So why do you expect Maya to think so many millenniums ahead?

And if the Maya still followed their calendar December 21st would most probably be the day of joy and celebration - remember all the fireworks and pop concerts on the year 2000 celebration? - not a doomsday.
And for those who like to predict the end of the world - here is the new threshold: the date on which the calendar will go to the next piktun (a complete series of 20 b'ak'tuns) will be on October 13, 4772. Any plans? Start booking hotels in Mexico!

Of all the Mezoamerican groups Maya are considered to be the most advanced in  mathematic, astronomy, medicine, arts and engineering, they are the only known pre-Columbian civilization with fully developed written language, meaning they were the only civilizaton that could write everything they could say.
But even though Maya languages are still alive today the decipherment of Maya writing was a long and tedious process. It started at the end of XIX century and involved archaeologists, art historians linguists...

Fragment of stella with Mayan script from Quiriguá, department of Izabal, Guatemala

The breakthrough happened in the mid-XX century when it was suggested that Maya symbols were syllabic, not alphabetic. By now most symbols have been deciphered.

Mayan script from Quiriguá, department of Izabal, Guatemala

So what made Maya so smart? Travel! In order to built a temple the materials were traded from different parts of Central America: seashells for 'Maya cement' - from coastal communities, obsidian to polish stones came from Guatemala and Mexican state of Chiapas, red dye came from cochineal insect traded from Central Mexico. Maya built a network of roads, some 2 meters high. Visiting different tribes they absorbed their best ideas and put them to use.

Mayan roads survived until today

So why did they collapse?
There are a lot of theories: some believe the growing population depleted scarce resources, some suggest it fell as a result of a foreign invasion or peasant revolt. Ecological hypotheses include environmental disaster, epidemic disease, and climate change.
But we believe that the fall of this mighty civilization was a direct result and logical continuation of what made them strong. Their religion made Maya build beautiful temples, travel long distances to obtain necessary materials but it also made them lead unceasing wars with their neighbors in need of captives for human sacrifices, it made them kill the strongest and most able men, women and kids - the future of every nation. So eventually when something out of ordinary happened the weakened nation was not able to defend itself. All the knowledge - including the written language - was not shared with simple people. So when fell the nobles who had been inbreeding for centuries simple peasants were an easy prey for European conquistadors.
So there is something we can learn from the ancient Maya: travel makes people smarter, education makes nation stronger. 

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