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  Archaeological Sites
chiapas Palenque
chiapas Bonampak
chiapas Yaxchilan
chiapas Tonina

chiapas INAH chiapas
Mexican Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (National Institute of Anthropology and History known as INAH for its Spanish abbreviation) is the federal government bureau established in 1939 to guarantee the research, preservation, protection, and promotion of the prehistoric, archaeological, anthropological, historical, and paleontological heritage of Mexico.

This bureau is responsible for the over 110 thousand historical monuments, built between the 16th and 19th centuries, and for 29 thousand archaeological zones found all over the country, although is it estimated there must be 200 thousand sites with archaeological remains. Of these 29,000, 150 are open to the public.

chiapas travel intro RECOMMENDATIONS

We recommend visiting all four ruin sites in Chiapas northern area. This can be done over a period of one week if you are in a hurry and ten days if you are taking in other sites of interest.

  • If you only wish to visit one ruin site go to Palenque.

  • If it is a question between Bonampak and Yaxchilan then go to Yaxchilan, there is much more to see there and the river trip is fun.

  • If you visit Tonina you can visit Agua Azul and Misha Ha which are two large waterfalls in the region.

  • The water is blue before July then after the rains start the water turns a murky brown. The water is at its highest level at the end of the rainy season in September. This is a great time to visit the Chiapas because many flowers are in bloom and the vegatation is in its greenest stage. Many of the small waterfalls and streams are running which makes walking in the jungle exciting and refreshing.

  • Instead of staying in Palenque city stay at Mayabell or El Natural or Yax Kan which are hotels/camp sites located just outside of Palenque ruins. From your hotel you are a quick busride to the ruins. This is also where all the action is. For mor information read Palenque » Getting There.

  • We find it less complicated to take the 1st class bus instead of renting a car.
  • MAYA TRIVIA
    Today's Maya number more than six million, are divided in to many differnt ethnic groups and speak more than 30 distinct indigenous languages.

    Natural wells are called cenotes from the Mayan word dsonoot.

    The Maya describe the Yucatan as "u luumil cutz, u luumil ceh, mayab u kabah" - the land of the pheasant, the land of the deer and Mayab is its name.

    The word puuc means "hilly country" in the Maya language of the Yucatec.

    The first three rows of a Mayan corn field were for travelers.

    True windows are rarely found in Maya architecture.

    Contorted acrobats appear in Maya art, frequently with their legs arching over their heads and supplied with snake markings, as if alluding to the sinuous contortions of a serpent.

    The Maya conceived the afterlife to be a journey, a harrowing that one might successfully overcome.

    Only at the Maya site of Yaxchilan are women depicted in association with the ballgame.

    In the Mayan calendar, each month has supernatural patron; the water lily jaguar, for example, oversees the first month, Pop.

    In Maya icongraphy, canoes carry the dead through their precarious passage from the world of the living to the world of the dead.

    The skeletal remains of many Maya royal burials reveal that bodies were liberally coated with cinnabar.

    The Maya identified the colour white with the North and the colour yellow with the South.

    Among the Maya, upper incisors were sometimes filed to the T-shape of the Sun God.

    There is a widespread Maya belief that the soul travels in dreams while one is asleep.

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