Oxkintok

The sun rises through a portal at Oxkintok on the morning of the spring equinox, 2005. The equinoxes are the two days of the sun's year (one in the spring, one in the autumn) when the day and night are of equal length. (Image Credit: Jim ...

On the spring equinox, afternoon sunlight is cast on the floor of the plaza. Oxkintok is considered an early example of Puuc-style architecture, which was later developed more fully at cities in the Puuc region such as Uxmal and Chichen Itza. ...

On the spring equinox, sunlight passes through a portal which is aligned with an arc on the floor of the plaza holding the base of the arch. (Image Credit: Jim Spadaccini, Ideum)

Oxkintok, one of the oldest sites of the Puuc region, was inhabited from the Preclassic period (300BC-250AD) through the Late Postclassic (1250-1500AD), reaching its principal importance between 475 and 859AD. This pyramid is in the May Group, ...

View from atop the pyramid. Oxkintok is one of the earliest Puuc sites. Situated 50km to the south of Merida, it is on the western cusp of the Puuc sites, and therefore thought to have been an initial point of the Puuc zone. The steady dependence ...

Oxkintok is best known for its early influence on Puuc development. It displays some of the earliest known calendrical inscriptions, such as the one on the lintel of the construction CA-3, one of the oldest constructions at Oxkintok, that bears a ...