Idea # 138- Visit the Mayan site of Coba in Mexico
Cobá is an important archeological site belonging to the Mayan civilization. It is about the most important site of the peninsula of Yucatán which can be compared only with eternal rival Chichen Itza. The city extended over 70 km². The archaeologists think that Cobá would have had a population of 50 000 inhabitants, during its peak. The site would have been occupied by human groups from Ier century BC but the population of the site began to grow really from Ier century BC Nevertheless most of the monuments of the city were built in the Classical period of the Mayan civilization (between 500 and 900 AD). After the year one thousand, the city loses of its political importance but it seems to have kept a big symbolic and religious importance which allowed it to be reborn between 1200 and 1500.
Numerous buildings of the style “oriental Coast” date opf this period. When the Spaniards strengthened their occupation of Yucatán, Cobá had been totally neglected by its inhabitants. Today, only a small part of about 70 km² of the site was searched and few visitors went(surrendered) to it before the construction of a tourist road in the 1970s. Among all the dug up structures, the temple of Nohoch Mul, remarkable by its dimensions, probably dedicated to the God Descendant, whom we also worshipped to Tulum, is one of the highest pyramids of all the Mayan region, measuring at present 42 meters high, counting 121 stiff steps. One did not need more to transform its ascent into challenge!
Some Pictures
Where is it ?
Coba, Yucatan, Mexico
Larger Map
