Francisco Pérez Ruiz travels every day to the past of one of the greatest civilizations in Mexico.
He is in charge of the research area of the archaeological zone of Chichén Itzá and through his hands pass recently unearthed pieces that shed light on the way of life of the Mayan culture, whose heyday and misfortune intrigue experts.
Pérez Ruiz works in the archaeological camp of this historic site, where he receives pieces of treasures such as vessels, drums, sculptures, incense burners or fragments of the enormous constructions that the Mayans created and with great care and great skill he assembles the pieces as if they were of a complicated puzzle.
“We try to restore its original state or as close as possible,” says the archaeologist.
Once the image that each of these jewels represents has been known, they travel to the exhibitions, mainly to the Great Museum that the authorities have opened in the archaeological complex of Chichén Itzá, a monumental work that reclaims the weight that the Mayans have had. in the history of Mexico.
Archaeologist Francisco Pérez Ruiz, in charge of the Research Area of the Chichén Itzá Archaeological Project. Aggi Garduño
The archaeological camp has been built next to the great buildings of Chichén Itzá, which dazzle tens of thousands of tourists.
It is a complex of square buildings that function as warehouses where archaeologists work to clean and analyze each of the pieces that come out of the excavations, the most recent started in 2022 and completed last December, which are part of a new project to rescue archaeological zones near the controversial Mayan Train, the great infrastructure project of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
In these warehouses, pieces of stone and ceramics are accumulated to be cleaned, classified and analyzed.
“We do the primary work, which consists of washing and marking the pieces, which are given a small number according to the place where they were collected,” explains Pérez Ruiz.
Newly unearthed treasures accumulate on the tables, shelves and even the floor of these warehouses.
There are also dozens of boxes with pieces waiting to be assembled to tell how they were used at the time.
Very few people have access to this space, because these pieces of history are carefully cared for.
Among the new finds are sculptures in the shape of snails, skulls engraved in stone, pots, plates, incense burners that reproduce images of warriors or beautiful figures in the shape of butterflies.
“It is a miscellaneous series that reinforces all the research we have done on the way of life in this region,” says José Osorio, director of Chichén Itzá.
Osorio says that these findings are part of the Program for the Improvement of Archaeological Zones (Promeza) promoted by the López Obrador Government to save large regions full of history and that are affected by the construction of the train, which has been in the crosshairs not only of environmentalists, but historians and archaeologists who regret that plots of land that could contain enormous heritage are ruined.
The Executive has invested more than two billion pesos in this effort, which has provided funds to carry out new excavations and build the Great Museum of Chichén Itzá.
Facade of the new museum Gran Museo de Chichén Itzá, in Yucatán, Mexico.Aggi Garduño
Here the archaeologists glue each marked piece together until they build a good volume, which allows them to identify what shape they had, whether it is a cajete —a pre-Hispanic hollowed container—, molcajete —a stone mortar with three short legs—, a phallic figure or a drum.
“If it can be assembled completely, it goes on to the restoration process, where the piece is integrated and undergoes very special work, since the cracks are treated, which are closed with pigments to give it the shape it had.
Then the pieces are registered, the corresponding studies for each one of them are completed and they are sent to the museums to be exhibited,” explains Pérez Ruiz.
“We identify types and varieties of ceramics, their chronology, the period of which they are part.
Many are telling us the peak that comes with the construction of Chichén Itzá,” says the archaeologist.
The works come out of these warehouses and are proudly displayed in the region's brand new museum, a concrete mass of more than 2,000 square meters that claims a place within the enclosures that protect Mexican history.
It is a construction that is reminiscent of Mayan buildings, with their pyramids and ceremonial centers.
It is flanked by an immense parking lot and a road that welcomes the visitor with enormous pre-Hispanic stone works in the shape of snakes or chacmools.
The design was in the hands of the National Coordination of Museums by the architect Juan Garibay.
The complex is made up of five large exhibitions with thematic lines that trace the life of the Mayans, their relationship with the environment and their space, their mysticism, the vision they had of the world, religion and sacrifices.
The architecture of the Great Museum of Chichén Itzá.Aggi Garduño
The large areas illuminated naturally by the light that enters through the high glass windows are the territory of the young archaeologist Julio César Alonso, head of the museum.
Alonso shows the same zeal as his colleagues at the archaeological camp in protecting the pieces, more than 500 now on display.
The museum was inaugurated at the beginning of March by President López Obrador, but there are still dozens of workers working to finish details of the central areas or the large gallery that will house the region's crafts and works merchants, many of them scattered throughout the archaeological area of Chichén Itzá, eager for tourists to buy their products, many of them imitations brought from China.
National Guard officers guard the premises and among its corridors you can see the uniformed men who supervise the works.
Here, vases, funerary drums, figures of Mayan deities or very unique pieces such as the so-called “bundle of years” are displayed in glass showcases, the graphic representation of the 52 years that was the Mayan measurement of time, the equivalent of “a the way we perceive a century,” explains Alonso.
“A ritual was performed to celebrate the beginning of a new stage,” says the expert.
Venus is engraved on these bundles, revered by the Mayans, who called it the Red Star and was considered the most important celestial body after the Sun and the Moon.
“The importance of these rooms is to give the visitor an approach to the worldview of the Mayans.
Chichén Itzá was a very important religious and political center, but it was also a very important commercial corridor.
Here there were very skilled artisans who worked with raw materials to make tools and instruments for everyday use, which were then traded,” explains Alonso.
The archaeologist Julio César Alonso, responsible for the Great Museum of Chichén Itzá in Yucatán.Aggi Garduño
Among the oldest pieces is a jug set with small cups that dates back to 900 BC or 2,500 years BC.
There are also huge pieces of stone that show the power of writing in Mayan times, carved images that communicated specific messages from the rulers or prominent people of this culture.
“I like to call it propaganda from that time,” Alonso says.
“It is not something as special and refined as hieroglyphic writing, but rather images that people saw to obtain general information, because Chichén Itzá was a multicultural city, where people converged from central Mexico, from the north, from all over the world. Mesoamerica, and developed a system of political dissemination, this type of written languages and iconography,” explains the archaeologist.
It is the epigraphers, he adds, who are in charge of deciphering the messages contained in these stones.
The museum lovingly preserves the so-called Chac Mool, reclining sculptures that represent warriors and that were generally used in Mesoamerica in sacrifice and offering ceremonies.
The museum has four of these figures of the 18 that have been found in Chichén Itzá.
“That there are four of these chacmools in a museum is very rare,” Alonso is proud.
Some of them have engraved feathered serpents that represent the movement of the stars, rabbits, related to the uterus and fertility, and headdresses of Venus, the sacred star that protected warriors.
They also have containers where offerings were placed, such as turquoise discs.
Chac Mool found in the Palace of the Sculptured Columns in the Archaeological Zone of Chichén Itzá.Aggi Garduño
The architectural elements of Chichén Itzá are present in a room that exhibits beautiful reliefs from the palaces of the archaeological zone.
One of them is a fragment found in the southern part of the so-called House of the Caracoles, a set of rooms where the Mayan elite resided, recently rescued from the rubble.
The fragment is a magnificent piece, “one of the most beautiful in all of Chichén,” warns archaeologist Alonso.
It shows a perfectly carved character, sitting with his arms outstretched and with a vine-shaped penis, from which flowers sprout.
“We call it the flowery landscape, because life emanates from it.
The image also has the attributes of a ruler, which represents the lineage and legitimation of the ruler,” he explains.
A lintel is also displayed here showing a series of captives being handed over to a nobleman.
There are soldiers, known as snake captains, and an offering box.
The nobleman has a flint knife in his hand ready to make the sacrifice.
The lintel is supported by Atlanteans, representations of warriors, some of them dressed in butterfly-shaped pectorals.
A sample of the level of sophistication that Mayan art had achieved.
The piece most revered by Alonso, however, is a huge rock where a Mayan artist attempted to carve the head of a snake.
The visitor must pay close attention to notice the particularities of this piece, which narrates the entire work process that the so-called stonemasons did in that civilization.
In it, the archaeologist explains, you can see the cuts with the chisel, which are the outline of the snake's head, the nose, the eyes, or the lines that the artist made to later shape the rock.
The work is approximately 1,500 years old.
Why didn't the stonemason finish it?
"The most likely thing is that when he was working on it he came across a beta in the stone and when cutting it with the chisel a large fracture was generated, so he will have stopped working on it, because limestone cannot be glued back together and as This was the base of a column, it had to be very solid,” explains Alonso.
Mayan necklace that belonged to a ruler found in Chichen Itza, Yucatán.
Aggi Garduño
All these treasures are part of a heritage that fills archaeologist María Guadalupe Espinoza, director of the museum and the research center of the archaeological zone, with pride.
She does intense work to disseminate and conserve this region, which has been listed since 1988 as a world heritage site by UNESCO.
The project that she directs, she says, has brought development to one of the most depressed areas of Mexico, because it is local workers who have been involved in the excavation works and, led by archaeologists, have worked on the restoration of the new findings.
The people who work at the museum are also local, because the “ideal is for these people to manage their archaeological sites,” she says.
Espinoza is very confident that the Mayan Train will attract a large flow of visitors to the museum.
The nearest station is located four kilometers from the complex and already has buses that bring tourists, so large spaces have been provided in the parking lot.
He expects at least 500 visitors a day, he says, although the number could rise to 3,000 once the entire complex is completed.
The museum, unlike most venues of its type in Mexico, will be open from Monday to Sunday, from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
“This entire project has brought together very important research work, in addition to the conservation of the pieces and monuments.
This museum is very important, as it is the first in Chichén Itzá that protects pieces that belong to the entire world, a heritage that we take care of for everyone's enjoyment.
It is one of the best archaeological centers in the world,” says the anthropologist who, together with her colleagues, slowly reconstructs and jealously protects the treasures that explain the life of the mythical Mayan civilization.
The archaeologist María Guadalupe Espinosa.
Rodríguez, Director of Site Operations of the National Coordination of Archeology of the INAH at the Great Museum of Chichén Itzá. Aggi Garduño
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