MAYAPAN, the ancient capital of the Maya kingdom in Yucatan. According to tradi tion it was founded by Zamna, the ancient highpriest, ruler and culture deity of the Mayas. Zamna divided the Maya kingdom among his leaders whose descendants formed the Maya nobility of Yucatan. In later days the Tutul Xiu, high nobles, became the ruling power under the sovereign, who was chosen from among them. Many years later Kukulcan, another traditional demigod, according to traditional history, became king and high priest of Maya pan. As this name is a literal translation of the word Quetzalcoatl (q.v.), the name of the Nahuatl god of culture, and as the story of the latter and that told of Kukulcan are almost identical, it is probable that this tradition re cords the conquest of Mayapin by the Toltecs or some Nahuatl race who introduced into Yucatan the worship of Quetzalcoatl. Accord ing to the Maya traditional history this Kukul can formed a confederacy of the rulers of Mayapin and Chichen Itza, the latter the ruling party among the Itzas. Of this confederacy he seems to have been the pontifical head and the ruling spirit, though with him the other two sovereigns were legally joint rulers with equal powers. On his departure from Mayapan, which seems to be mythical, Kukulcan left the kingdom to princes known afterward as the Cocomes, under whose seven successive rulers Mayapin enjoyed a period of wonderful pros perity during which many cities throughout the country subject to this capital are supposed to have been built. The ruins of these ancient cities are still found in the vicinity of Mayapan.
In the meantime, the city of Uxmal (q.v.) rose to power in another part of the isthmus. In a sanguinary war with this latter Mayapin was finally defeated and destroyed. Uxmal became the head of a new confederacy, with the Tutul Xiu the ruling royal family. The latter ruled wisely and well at first and rebuilt Mayapin, which continued to flourish for sev eral centuries. It was, however, finally razed to the ground about the middle of the 15th century, or shortly before the discovery of America, in a civil war in which the vassal lords fought against and finally overthrew the power of the Tutul Xiu dynasty. Thus finally
olisappez red Mayapan, the first of the known great and populous cities of ancient Yucatan.
The ruins of the city of Mayapin are situ ated about 25 miles south of Merida. The condition of these ruins to-day seems to bear out the traditional history that this old capital of the Mayas was completely destroyed, for little of its past magnificence now remains standing. But numerous mounds, terraces and pyramids, badly ruined edifices and huge quan tities of stone, sculptured blocks and founda tions of buildings scattered over a considerable extent of territory are evidence of the existence of a great centre of population and a place of some magnificence. One great mound or py ramid over 69 feet high has a stairway 20 feet wide on each of its sides leading from the ground to the truncated summit, a stone-paved platform considerably wider than the stairway. Sculptured stone blocks lie scattered over an area of three miles, attesting the great extent of this ancient Maya capital which tradition says was once surrounded by a thick and high stone wall, but that this wall was razed to the ground at the time of the final destruc tion of the city about 100 years before the conquest of Yucatan by the Spaniards. Along the line of this wall runs an old ditch, now filled up with debris, and on both sides of this are vast quantities of stone supposed to have once formed part of this ancient rampart. See UXMAL ; CHICHEN ITZA ; YUCA TAN.
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