Kabah

Kabah, meaning "Strong Hand" in Mayan, is the legendary birthplace of Uxmal's Dwarf Magician. The site was inhabited from about 350 B.C.E., but most of the architecture was built around 700-1100 C.E. While not as large as Uxmal, Kabah was once a thriving metropolis. It is thought that in early times it was an adversary of Uxmal, but that they eventually became allied.

Kabah is most known for it's Codz-Poop, or the Palace of the Masks (above). It is a building with an entire façade decorated with the face of the rain god Chaac with his long hooked nose. As is common in Puuc Mayan architecture, the wall was constructed as a jigsaw mosaic of hundreds of molded concrete blocks. The Maya had perfected the use of concrete as a building material and limestone, its primary ingredient, was abundant throughout the Yucatan.

The obsessive repetition of Chaac, "Protector of the Harvest", both here and at various other Mayan sites speaks strongly to the importance placed on this god, and of the scarcity of water throughout the region. With no cenotes found on this dryer northern side of the Yucatan, they were entirely dependent on the rain. Here they often built chultunes, which were reservoirs to collect rain water. They also constructed geometric drainage systems of canals to help irrigate the land. In spite of these innovations, by the 11th century this and the surrounding Puuc sites had all but been abandoned, with drought suspected as a primary cause of their decline.