Sayil

thumb|350px|Plan of the Palace

Sayil was a pre-Columbian city built by the Maya people of the Terminal Classic period. It is located in the Mexican state of Yucatán, in the southwest of the state, south of Uxmal. Sayil, Kabah and Labna were incorporated together with Uxmal as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996.

Sayil flourished principally, albeit briefly, in the Terminal Classic period. The city reached its greatest extent c. 900 and had a population of 10,000 with an additional 5,000–7,000 living in the surrounding area. A number of badly damaged monuments suggest that Sayil was governed by a local royal dynasty, with wealth among lineages based, at least in part, upon control of the best agricultural lands. The ruins of Sayil include a prominent example of monumental Puuc style architecture, the partially ruined Grand Palace of Sayil.

Location

The site is located in the karst limestone hills of the Puuc region of the northern Yucatan Peninsula.

Sayil is located south of the contemporary Puuc archaeological site of Kabah, from in Xlapak and from Labna. It was built in a shallow valley among low, steep hills.

The Puuc region that includes the site of Sayil possesses well defined wet and dry seasons and is characterised by a near absence of surface water due to the porous limestone bedrock.

Population

Sayil first was settled circa AD 800, in the Late Classic Period, The city reached its greatest extent c. 900, when it covered an area of approximately 5 km² and had a population of perhaps 10,000 in the city itself with an additional 5,000–7,000 living in the surrounding area. Additional agricultural produce probably was supplied from nearby satellite sites. Population estimates have been produced based on a count of structures, giving a result of 8,000–10,000 spread over an area of approximately 3.5 km². Population estimates based on a count of subterranean storage chambers known as chultuns produce a figure of 5,000–10,000. Economic rank has been analysed based on architectural scale, while political leadership was determined on the basis of the distribution of so-called altars, tall cylindrical stone features with elite associations. The brief occupational history of the site has raised the possibility that Sayil developed from an earlier settlement known as Chac II, a small archaeological site in the same valley that was occupied as early as the fifth century AD. Radiocarbon and obsidian hydration dating place Sayil relatively early in the Terminal Classic. Ceramic remains recovered from the Palace indicate trade with the Petén region of Guatemala during the Late Classic, and the Guatemalan origin of obsidian artifacts suggest that Classic-period trade routes were dominant when the monumental architecture at Sayil was built.

Various C-shaped structures around the Mirador Complex and the structure of the terrace of the Great Palace are evidence of continued occupation after the abandonment of the monumental structures of the site core and there was a brief period of continued occupation in the residential parts of Sayil. and published an illustrated description in their 1843 book Incidents of Travel in Yucatán, which referred to the site under the name "Zayi". (Stephens, John Lloyd, "Incidents of Travel in Yucatan", Harper & Brothers, 1843)

The site

thumb|upright|The ruined El Mirador temple

Archaeological investigations

The Mexican Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia carried out restoration work at Sayil in the first half of the twentieth century. Archaeologists have mapped 3.5 km² of the site's urban core. Jeremy Sabloff of the University of Pennsylvania and Gair Tourtellot carried out archaeological investigations that included architectural and topographic mapping, household-scale excavation, and intensive surface collections at Sayil from 1983 to 1988, when they were affiliated with the University of New Mexico.

The site features abundant and widely distributed surface artifacts and to study the organization of the community, from 1990 to 1992, Michael P. Smyth and Christopher D. Dore conducted a systemic large-scale surface collection of artifacts at a 25-meter interval across the entire site area. Nearly 30,000 ceramic fragments were recovered (representing 99% of all artifacts recovered) and 155 lithic artifacts, of which 90% were chert with the remainder being basalt, obsidian, and limestone. The obsidian artifacts recovered from Sayil derive largely from the El Chayal source in what now is southwest Guatemala,

Site description

The site is laid out along a sacbe, or causeway, running from north to south. The Great Palace stands at the northern end of the causeway, it is the largest and most well known building at Sayil. It consists of a half-collapsed two room building on top of a substructure. There is a phallic sculpture of unknown date near the Mirador Complex.

The remains of various other structures lie to both sides of the causeway system, with the majority located to the west.

The site is managed by Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH), and is open to visitors.

Gallery

<gallery widths="160" heights="140" perrow="5">

File:Sayil Ruins in Jungle.jpg|Collapsed ruins of the South Palace complex

File:Sayil Sur.jpg|South Palace doorways

File:Mexico-6537 (4714522869).jpg|Temple of the Hieroglyphic Doorway, partially buried

File:Sayil-North-Palace-False-Columns.jpg|Pilasters at the Grand Palace

File:Mexico-6518 - Palace Decorations - last of the palace (4713055760).jpg|Palace façade on the second level, depicting Ah-Muzen-Cab on the doorway

File:Chaac Mask on the Great Palace facade ... (49475036936).jpg|Palace façade detail - Chaac mask

File:Chaac Mask on the Great Palace facade ... (49474524213).jpg

File:Mexico-6515 - Sky Serpent (4713045164).jpg|Palace façade detail - Sky Serpent

File:Mexico-6517 (4712409347).jpg

File:Mexico-6525 - El Mirador (4715105592).jpg|Remains of El Mirador Temple

File:Mexico-6526 (4715111920).jpg

File:Utgrävningar i Teotihuacan (1932) - SMVK - 0307.h.0003.tif|Ruins of Sayil, 1932

</gallery>

Chac II

thumb|Pyramid of Chac II after excavation and partial restoration

Chac II is a small site located about from the Great Palace, in the northwestern corner of the Sayil Valley. In the Terminal Classic, Chac II was a part of the greater Sayil urban area,