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Sayil (900 CE)

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Shalis Morthanien's Avatar Shalis Morthanien
Level 41 : Master Architect
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First things first
I cannot make a perfect 1:1 scale for several reasons. The available maps are often not extremely detailed and the models and reconstructions are themselves also representations of what it might have looked like. Moreover, different sources give different measurements, with height of structures being by far the most diverse. Furthermore, large sections of the ruins haven't been excavated and restored yet. Regarding the details of the buildings, many walls contain art such as statues, decorated panels and masks, of extraordinary complexity. Especially the Puuc architectural style is known for its intricate art in for example façades. Yet with 1 block being 1 cubic metre, detailed art on buildings is almost impossible to recreate. This is just the nature of reconstructing a ruin with Minecraft.

The Puuc

The Puuc region, located in the southwest of the Mexican state Yucatan, is dominated by a long ridge of hills running west to east. It is an area with temperatures reaching up to 50 degrees C, and long, precarious dry seasons. The landscape here is in essence a limestone shelf and although it has some of the most fertile soils, large swathes of impenetrable limestone bedrock and few permanent water sources have posed severe water problems for both the consumption and agricultural needs of large human populations. And yet, for its seemingly inhospitable climate and landscape, early people have settled in this region thousands of years ago, with tangible archaeological remains dating back to at least Middle Preclassic times (1000 – 300 BCE). In order to cope with the regional shortage of drinking water, the early inhabitants constructed large underground cisterns (chultunes) and considerable hydraulic works to capture and store rain water. And without major water sources for large-scale irrigation and having steep, nearly soilless hills precluding agricultural terracing, highly productive yet labor-intensive infield gardening was the only viable means to intensify argiculture in the region. Yet, despite all its apparant obstacles, the Puuc region became one of the most densely-populated areas in the entire Maya region.

The culture that arose in this part of the Maya area shared many of its political and religious ideologies with that of the Southern Lowlands. What sets it apart though, is the radically different style of art and architecture. Contrary to the more fluid execution of the southern traditions, Puuc architecture is notorious for its angular and rectalinear shape, preferring range-type structures over tall pyramids and vast acropoli. Coupled with core-veneer masonry, corbeled vaulting, and elaborate decorative elements, Puuc architecture represents the most advanced building style in Mesoamerica.

Sayil
With an estimated core population of some 10.000 inhabitants and another 6000 in the surrounding sattelite communities, Sayil is one of the larger Puuc sites, only dwarved by giants such a Kabah and Uxmal. “At Sayil, there are three major building complexes (and several minor ones) attached to the site's central causeway (sacbe)… The North Palace, a large, three- storied, stone-roofed building with 94 rooms, is the most accessible, visible, and impressive structure at Sayil. About 500 m south along the site causeway is the Mirador Complex, a group of structures centered around the "Mirador," a four-room, vaulted stone building with a rooftop flying buttress set atop a tall raised platform. Just south in an area known as the Mirador "Flat" are numerous linear stone features interpreted as market stalls, suggesting an area that functioned as a central marketplace. Continuing 600 m south, the causeway passes several smaller feature clusters and arrives at the site’s ballcourt. This area marks the beginning of the South Palace Complex, characterized by an elaborate 22-room, two-storied, vaulted building attached on the north to an enormous (about 1 ha), raised platform and a courtyard group immediately to the southeast.” (Smyth et al., 1995).

As mentioned earlier for most Puuc sites, Sayil was a garden city with a low-density settlement and with most areas devoid of architecture being used for infield agriculture. Studies on architectural features, ceramics and other goods have shown that Sayil’s elite residents were not concentrated around the monumental architecture of the site, but outside of these areas, and perhaps “may be the result of settlement history, with elite status being gained through the early acquisition of high quality land. In any event, it appears that societal elites were residentially positioned around the site, in part, to control garden agriculture, a pattern implying that much of Sayil's nobility was spatially dispersed and not residing within the central districts of monumental architecture.” (Smyth et al., 1995).

Further reading
Carmean, K., McAnany, P. A., & Sabloff, J. A. (2011). People who lived in stone houses: local knowledge and social difference in the Classic Maya Puuc region of Yucatán, Mexico. Latin American Antiquity, 143-158.

Dunning, N. P., & Kowalski, J. K. (1994). Lords of the hills: Classic Maya settlement patterns and political iconography in the Puuc region, Mexico. Ancient Mesoamerica, 63-95.

Smyth, M. P., Dore, C. D., & Dunning, N. P. (1995). Interpreting prehistoric settlement patterns: lessons from the Maya center of Sayil, Yucatan. Journal of field archaeology, 22(3), 321-347.

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Update #5 : by Shalis Morthanien 03/06/2021 10:54:58 amMar 6th, 2021

First Early Version of the map made available for download. Note that this map is far from finished and prone to heavy modification.
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