House of the Grimaces

The Temple of the Five Storeys

A group of 6 of us who where staying at the Monkey Hostel [link] in Campeche Mexico caught an old purple and chrome 1950's looking bus and headed off on a nerve wracking speed fest for the Mayan ruins of Edzna, located about 37 miles away. It was a really great excursion, especially since we had the whole site to ourselves, there were no other tourists around the whole time! Unlike at Chichen Itza, which, due to vandalism has some structures restricted, we were able to climb all of the pyramids and buildings here. This center building, with a splendid roof comb is the "5 level pyramid", it's outer façade, is supported by columns, and has stucco decorations of masks and jaguar and serpent heads. It dates to 652 A.D. and was done primarily in the Puuc architectural style. The smaller building on the right of the grand acropolis is called the House of the Moon.

Edzna is a Mayan name which means House of the Grimaces. The city was founded around 600 to 300 BC as a small agricultural community. Edzna reached its most important era as a grand regional capital between 600 and 900 AD and was abandoned round 1500 AD. It was along the main trading route from the highlands to the coast. Edzna was "discovered" in 1906, but no one returned until 1927.

Here is another shot : [link]