Edzna Ruins near Campeche, Mexico

The closest major ruins to Campeche are the Edzna ruins, about 53 km southeast of the city.

Edzna was inhabited from 600 BC to the 15th century AD, and still houses a lot of really exceptional carvings, most of which have been removed from their original location and are housed under a palapa (thatched roof hut) near the entry. Amazing sculptures like this were just piled in next to each other…as if they were just thrown hurriedly in a storage room.

Can you see the full-body warrior here?  He has a huge headdress on, and quite the apparel, even right down to his fancy footwear.

Here is a better close-up of his torso. He is looking to the left…

Entering the grounds you come across the Gran Acropolis on your left. You have to climb the big stairs to reach the raised grounds with 6 major buildings.

As you can see from these pictures, there is a large pyramid, but there are doorways leading into rooms throughout the entire pyramid. Edzna is known for having temples that are a hybrid of pyramid and palace. They also say that some of the unique roof construction is a very clear reference to the Guatemalan ruins of Tikal.

In these two photos you can see a tin roof type of structure on the upper left hand side of the pyramid. Just like the Comalcalco ruins, these additions are simply to protect impressive original sculptures from deterioration.

The girls decided it was time to take photos of them, again.

I don’t know what is up with their “hanging in ‘da hood” photos…but that’s what I got whenever I asked for them to smile!

Maiya showing off her impressive balancing skills!

Gearing up for a race…

Close inspection of the buildings revealed amaaaazing details in just about everything! For example, the rocks for the stairs leading up the temple had carving after carving…

We were free to climb wherever we wanted on the property, but kept to some of the “smaller” pyramids that still had us clinging a little tightly to the kids, at times! 

 We left the Gran Acropolis and walked to some of the back part of the property…

We tracked down the Templo de Mascarones (Temple of Masks) on the far end of the property, and found some beautiful red masks carvings that were protected by another palapa. Again, my preconceived notion has always been that pyramids were/are stone-colored, drab and colorless. But the opposite is true–these archaeological sites were very often painted in very bright colors!  Can you imagine seeing a pyramid colored all in red?!

On the drive out we were graced with a beautiful double rainbow…

Campeche and the Edzna pyramids…a beautiful day!