Uxmal

Listen first. The cicadas in the scrub forest keep up a long electric hum. Somewhere close, an iguana scrapes across warm limestone and settles into the sun. The ground under your shoes is pale and dusty, and the light comes off the stone almost white. Ahead of you, a pyramid rises with smooth, curving sides. It does not look quite like any other pyramid you have seen. Welcome to Uxmal, in the hills of the Yucatán.

This was a Maya city. It reached its height roughly between the seventh and tenth centuries of the common era, long before the Spanish arrived. The name is often translated as "thrice built", though scholars debate the meaning. What is not in doubt is the scale of the place. Uxmal was a major regional capital, and its buildings are some of the finest work the Maya ever produced. In 1996, UNESCO listed it as a World Heritage Site.

Look at the landscape around you. This region is called the Puuc, a Maya word that means "hills". Here is the first surprise. Uxmal had almost no surface water. There are no rivers here, and unlike much of the Yucatán, there are few cenotes, the natural sinkholes full of groundwater. So the people of Uxmal collected rain. They carved underground cisterns called chultunes and plastered them to hold water through the long dry season. A whole city lived on what fell from the sky.

That explains something you will see again and again on these walls — the face of Chaac, the Maya god of rain. He appears as a stone mask with large round eyes and a long, curled nose that hooks outward like a trunk. Some façades carry dozens of these masks, stacked one above another. In a city with no river, a prayer for rain was not decoration. It was survival, carved in stone.

Now turn back to the great pyramid in front of you. It is called the Pyramid of the Magician. Notice its base. Most Maya pyramids stand on square or rectangular platforms. This one has rounded ends, almost oval in shape. Archaeologists have found that it was built in several stages, with newer temples raised over older ones. You can see traces of those phases in the different doorways and levels on its sides.

The name comes from a story, and it is a legend, not history. Locals tell of a dwarf, born from an egg and raised by an old woman who was a sorceress. The local ruler challenged him, and the dwarf raised this whole pyramid in a single night. In the tale, he became the new king of Uxmal. It is a wonderful story to remember as you look up at those steep stairs. Climbing is not allowed today, to protect the stone.

Walk beyond the pyramid and you reach a large courtyard enclosed by four long buildings. The Spanish called it the Nunnery Quadrangle, because the many small rooms reminded them of a convent. That name is a European guess. Nobody knows exactly how the Maya used these rooms. Some researchers suggest a school, a palace, or a place for ritual. Stand in the centre of the courtyard and turn slowly. Each of the four buildings has its own design.

This is the heart of the Puuc style. Look at the lower walls. They are plain, smooth and simple. Then look higher. The upper half of each building is covered in a dense stone mosaic. Thousands of small cut pieces fit together to form lattices, zigzag patterns, stepped frets, and the masks of Chaac. On some walls you can also find carved serpents and small figures of simple thatched Maya houses. The contrast between the plain lower wall and the busy upper frieze is the signature of this whole region.

Here is the second surprise. That mosaic was not carved on the wall. Masons cut each piece separately, often in a workshop, and then set the pieces into the façade like tiles in a puzzle. The walls behind them have a core of rubble and lime concrete. It is a method closer to prefabrication than to sculpture. When you walk close, look for the joints between the stones. You can still see how precisely they were fitted.

Further along, you will pass a small ball court. Two parallel walls face each other across a narrow alley. Players struck a heavy rubber ball with their hips, and the game carried deep religious meaning for the Maya. Look high on the walls for the stone rings. Getting the ball through one of those rings was extremely difficult. Even standing here today, you can imagine the sound of a crowd echoing between these walls.

Then climb the broad terrace to the Governor's Palace. Again, the name is Spanish, not Maya. Many experts consider this building one of the greatest works of architecture in the ancient Americas. Its long façade carries a continuous frieze of masks and geometric patterns. Some researchers have noted that the palace faces a slightly different direction from the buildings around it. They suggest it was aligned with the point on the horizon where the planet Venus rose. The Maya watched Venus closely and built their calendars around its cycle.

From the terrace, look out across the forest. To the south rises the Great Pyramid, which you can still climb in some areas, and a crumbling building known as the House of the Pigeons, with a tall, pierced roof crest. Small stone turtles decorate the cornice of the nearby House of the Turtles, perhaps another link to water and rain. Further away, an ancient raised road called a sacbe once linked Uxmal to the smaller city of Kabah. The Puuc hills held a whole network of related cities.

Uxmal faded in the centuries before the Spanish came, and the forest slowly covered much of it. What you see now is the work of patient restoration. Before you leave, find a patch of shade and look once more at the stone. Watch the light move across those masks of Chaac. Notice the iguanas, still sunning themselves on the old steps. And if a cloud passes overhead, think of the people who stood here, looking up, waiting for the rain.