My next stop in travels is San Ignacio, Belize. It is only a couple hours from Flores by car. Transport is inexpensive ($20) and easy but it could take a little longer depending on how many pick up stops there are.
Within a half hour we were at San Ignacio and after a walk up a big hill (a kind local man offered to take me and my carryon up the hill in his truck when I was halfway) I arrived at the Cahal Pech resort which is next to the local ruins of the same name.
After dropping off my luggage I headed to the ruins.
A good friend of mine, Candy Shively, commented on my Tikal post about what I observed about the building styles in different parts of the world. I had actually been thinking about that and some of the information in these ruins answered some of my questions.
The layout of pyramids here and in Cambodia were central to people’s lives (the wealthy were the only ones in the palaces but markets and delegations still happened in these places).
One could think that here in Mesoamérica they were not skilled or intelligent because of how they built. But in reality, every place in the world was constrained by what they had available to them. The concept of the wheel was known here and artifacts of children’s toys had wheels. But the lack of large animals like horses, etc. made the use of wheels not as efficient as in early Europe.
Locally available limestone was cut and moved on the backs of workers. The pyramids here are solid with smaller pyramid structures under the larger parts. They did not use metal tools for cutting as the resources for forging are not existent here. They were however skilled at making cement. Cementing helped keep the rock’s together though as you know, nature always wins.
In other parts of the world it is different. In the middle east (my only experience is Turkey), they used mud and baked clay bricks. In Europe, wood was abundant for building. In China, they used rammed earth methods for foundations and also used wood, especially in the north. In Cambodia they used large limestone bricks but did not use cement to hold them together. The rocks were cut and aligned precisely. In Egypt, their stones are much larger and moved using rollers and water to reduce the friction on the sand. The change in elevations and the availability of water here in Mesoamérica would make that impossible.
In Egypt and Cambodia, as here with the Mayans, they were precise and used astronomy to lay out the structures along cardinal points with remarkable accuracy. These aligned with astronomical events central to their lives and religious purposes.
The uses of the pyramids are also different. Pyramids in Egypt are used for the burial of pharaohs. In Mesoamérica and Cambodia, they are the center of daily life and used for rituals. Therefore, they are solid inside and more ornate on the outside, with steps for ceremonial purposes at the top. Both Cambodia and Mesoamérica were masters at water irrigation, constructing cisterns around and through their temple cities.
I really marvel at the layouts and imagine what life then would be like. I think the ingenuity of humans is similar everywhere using what they have available and using resources in different ways to solve problems.
Plazas, which are courtyards, are central to the life in these pyramid cities.
Residences had stone beds where ticking would be used for some comfort.
Other pictures of Cahal Pech
Ball courts were used for entertainment, competition between rival cities, and to settle disputes. Often these ended in sacrifice, and not always the losers.
The West Ball Court
Along the East Ball Court.
Certainly the Egyptian pyramid construction started one to two thousand years earlier than the other areas of the world but modern pyramids building in Egypt is roughly the same age as other pyramid construction. Obviously, these constructions show the development of those civilizations at that time.
