This Thursday, January 12, 2023, at the National Palace and before Mr. Andrés Manuel López Obrador, President of Mexico, the anthropologist Diego Prieto Hernández, general director of INAH presented the progress of the archaeological works of the Maya Train, among which stands out the integral project for the Archaeological Zone of Dzibilchaltún, originally known as ICHKAANTI’JOO, the ancient city of the “Kaan de Joo”, located in the municipality of Mérida in Yucatán.
During the conference, more details were given about the works to be built in the Archaeological Zone of Dzibilchaltún, which began on January 9, 2023 by the INAH Yucatán Center in Dzibilchaltún.
Through a video presented to the President of Mexico, an account of all the archaeological and restoration work carried out in the archaeological zone was given. Also presented were the beginnings of the construction of a CATVI Visitors’ Center, a new Site Museum and a Research Center that will provide a space for the Maya of yesterday but also of today.
ICHKAANTI’JOO, the ancient city of the “Kaan de Joo”, which is more than 3,000 years old, will receive a historic investment of 110 million dollars from the Federal Government, which will make it possible to accommodate a greater number of tourists.
In the video presented on the advances, it is related that the site is where archaeoastronomical phenomena confirm the precision and depth of the astronomical knowledge and calendar calculations that the ancestral Mayas possessed; which are the pride of Mexico and of the Mayan peoples of today.
It was also announced that the complete trousseau of the tomb of Lord Kalom Uk’Uw, Great Lord of Dzibilchaltún, will be exhibited in the new Site Museum where more than 350 archaeological pieces, most of them unpublished, are kept.
José Arturo Chab Cárdenas, director of the INAH Yucatán Center, said that thanks to the Program for the Improvement of Archaeological Zones, PROMEZA, more than 189 people have been hired, including day laborers, archaeologists, restorers and construction workers, most of whom are from the communities surrounding the archaeological site, so the site will soon show a new face with larger areas for the public to visit, including the South Plaza and the Dzibichaltún Ball Game.
The priority project of the Mayan Train “Jach séeba’an báalam”; for the conservation and enhancement of the site, is carried out hand in hand with the communities that inhabit the surroundings, in ancient times Dzibichaltún had more than 25,000 inhabitants who built around 9,000 domestic, ritual and communication buildings.
At the time, it maintained control of the products that circulated along the coast of the peninsula, particularly salt, a product that was exchanged for jadeite and ceramics from the Guatemalan Petén area and the Mayan cities of Guatemala, Honduras, Belize and Quintana Roo.
Of its layout, the stone-covered causeways or sacbeo’ob stand out, connecting different groups, while they are aligned towards the four cardinal points, in a symmetrical pattern that converges at the “Xlacah” cenote, whose crystalline waters shelter important archaeological and historical treasures.
The PROMEZA not only seeks the recovery of the historical heritage but also the natural heritage of the city of the Great Lord of Dzibilchaltún, Kalom Uk’Uw, considered the representative of the gods of creation and sustenance, whose title means “the one who opens“.
Thus, with the restructuring of the site museum, we will make room for the exhibition of his grave goods, in which a deer bone with a scene alluding to the underworld and a text of 12 hieroglyphic blocks stand out.
TYT Newsroom
