Sayil

Sayil, an ancient Maya city located in what has been called the "breadbasket" of Yucatán that flourished in the Terminal Classic period (800–1000 ce). Sayil rose to prominence in the hilly Puuc region following the collapse of the southern dynastic centers of the Maya in the Petén during the ninth century. At its height Sayil covered more than 1.5 square miles and housed from eight to ten thousand people. Research has shown that this thriving urban center might best be described as having been a "garden" city where urban and agricultural space were mixed in a pattern well adapted to the food needs of the people and to the health of a forested environment.

Picking up the fallen standard of Classic Maya civilization, Sayil and other Terminal Classic centers of the Puuc represent some of the finest examples of monumental architecture anywhere in the ancient world. The elaborate decorative motifs of the Puuc style, which dominate the façade of the three-story palace at Sayil, commemorate the major Maya deities, including the peculiar "diving god," who ruled over honey and beekeeping, as well as curly-nosed Chac, the god of rain. Ancient Sayileños did well to honor Chac, for surface streams are nonexistent and water was at a premium in this dry, karstic landscape. To assure a good supply of drinking water, the Maya of Sayil excavated water cisterns (chultunes) in the soft, limestone substrate. Around the chultunes they piled rubble into large platforms upon which they erected massive cut-stone buildings that survive to this day in the Yucatán forest. Recently completed maps of this site represent one of the most detailed records available for any ancient urban center in the Maya world and provide a blueprint for research in the years to come.

See alsoMesoamerica .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Harry E. D. Pollock, The Puuc: An Architectural Survey of the Hill Country of Yucatán and Northern Campeche, Mexico (1980).

Thomas W. Killion, et al., "Intensive Surface Collection of Residential Clusters at Terminal Classic Sayil, Yucatán, Mexico," in Journal of Field Archaeology 16 (1989): 273-294.

Jeremy A. Sabloff and Gair Tourtellot, The Ancient Maya City of Sayil: The Mapping of a Puuc Region Center (1991).

Additional Bibliography

Andrews, George F. Pyramids and Palaces, Monsters and Masks: The Golden Age of Maya Architecture: The Collected Works of George F. Andrews. 3 v. Lancaster, CA: Labyrinthos, 1995–1999.

Demarest, Arthur A., Prudence M. Rice, and Don S. Rice. The Terminal Classic in the Maya Lowlands: Collapse, Transition, and Transformation. Boulder, CO: University Press of Colorado, 2004.

Michelet, Dominique, Pierre Becquelin, and Marie-Charlotte Arnauld. Mayas del Puuc: Arqueología de la región de Xculoc, Campeche. México: Centre Français d'études mexicaines et centraméricaines: Gobierno del Estado de Campeche, 2000.

                                    Thomas W. Killion