Archaeological Sites

The city of Campeche is an ideal starting point for exploring the magical world of the Mayans. The remains of a culture that continues to astonish us can be found to the north, east and south.

Calakmul, World Cultural Heritage Site

The largest Mayan city discovered to date was continuously inhabited for over three thousand years. It is the site of the most important archaeological findings of recent years, and comprises buildings, walls, cement-lined brick cisterns, watering places and tombs.

Edzná

Its Mayan name means “House of the Itzaes”. The city became the regional capital of the west of the Peninsula between the years 400 and 1000 of our time, reaching high level in architecture as well as engineering. The Great Acropolis is important to this place, it is a wide square shaped space with an area of seventeen square kilometeres which holds several monumental structures such as the Edificio de los Cinco Pisos (Building of the Five Floors), the most important construction of the site.

Balamkú

Found in the southeast of the State, this archaeological zone stands out due to its huge embossments or relieves of modeled and polychrome stucco, unique in the Maya region, on a frieze dating from the years 550  to 650 of our time.

Studies made of these works of art, which are iconographic treasures, have shown that they are representations of people and jaguars related to the complex conceptual world of the ancient Mayans.

Chicaná

It is known as the House of the Serpents Mouth due to a huge mask in the central façade of Structure II. It is located in the south east of the state. According to archaeologists, the mask represents Itzamná, the reptile form taken by the god of creation.  Due to the elegance and opulence of its building, one can assume that Chicanná was an elitist site in the region.

Becán

In the southeast of the state, 302 km from Campeche City, is Becan, which means in Mayan “cliff of canyon formed by water”, pointing out the most outstanding characteristic of the area: a pit 1.9 kilometres long surrounding the main architectural structures of the site.

Santa Rosa Xtampak

In olden times, this place was a huge city with more than ten ceremonial centers. It is located in the municipality of Hopelchén. It means in Mayan, “facing the wall”.

Xpuhil

Its name comes from a hebaceous plaant which is very abundant in the region and is also known as “cats tail”. The site is located in the southeast of the state and reached the height of its splendour in the Late Classic Period (500-800 A.D.)

Xpuhil is made up 17 architectural groups and platforms where dwellings existed in a terrain of 5 km² .

Dzibilnocac

Its Mayan name jeans “Painted Vault” or “Painted Great Turtle” and it describes this archaeological zone located to the east of the city of Campeche very well. The first evidence of human occupation in this site date to 500 to 50 B.C.

Hochob

Archaeological site in the north of the state, 35 kilometers from Hopelchén. Its name means “place where the ears of corn are kept”. The city was constructed in an elevated area artificially flattened on top where the structures have been distributed around three squares.

     Tabasqueño

 According to archaeological data, the Maya City of Tabasqueño reached its peak   between the years 750 and 900 of our time. The site was discovered by the German explorer Teoberto Maler in 1895. It is located east of Campeche and 39 kms from Hopelchén.

      El Tigre

Near the Salsipuedes Lake (Leave-if-you-can Lake) and Laguna Vieja (Old Lagoon) one can find this site in the southern region of the Candelaria River. The El Tigre archaeological site is found 260 kms from Ciudad del Carmen. The place had been part of the Maya settlement of Acalán and considered the most important in the Mayan World.

La Isla de Jaina

Lying on the coast north of the city, this island was the original site of the thousands of ceremonial figures displayed in most of the country’s archaeological museums. We know more about the everyday life of the ancient Mayans from these figurines than from their magnificent ceremonial centers.

Rio Bec style archaeological zones

To the east lie the beautiful, mystical cities built in the Rio Bec style, such Becán, Chicanná, Xpuhil, El Hormiguero and Edzná with its five-story pyramid and technologically advanced irrigation system.