Uxmal — Uxmal
Uxmal Ulrich Dus, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY SA 4.0

Site · Mexico

Uxmal

Maya, 700–1000 CE

Uxmal is the finest city of the Puuc hills of Yucatán, at its height between about 850 and 950 CE under Lord Chaak, when the Governor's Palace was built with its 100-metre façade of stone mosaic. Its architecture relied on rain collected in chultun cisterns, and Chac rain-god masks cover the buildings. The city faded with Chichén Itzá's rise around 1000.

CountryMexico
Dates700–1000 CE
StatusArchaeological Zone and UNESCO World Heritage Site (Pre-Hispanic Town of Uxmal, 1996)
Managed byInstituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH)
AccessOpen daily with an entry fee, a visitor centre and an evening light show; the Pyramid of the Magician can no longer be climbed.
Coordinates20.36, -89.771 (public site)

What was found

Excavation and restoration since the 1930s have documented the Puuc-style Governor's Palace, Nunnery Quadrangle and Pyramid of the Magician, with carved stone mosaics, Chac masks, stelae with the ruler Lord Chaak, and Cehpech slateware pottery of the ninth and tenth centuries.

Rules

Nothing may be collected or removed; Mexico's Federal Law on Monuments and Archaeological, Artistic and Historic Zones (1972) makes all pre-Hispanic material property of the nation and criminalises unauthorised excavation and export. This article is for study and context only and is not a collecting locality.

Elsewhere

Cite this article

Stratum Study. "Uxmal" (Site). Stratum Study pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-21. https://stratum.black/study/sites/uxmal. Accessed 2026-09-21.

@misc{stratum-uxmal,
  title        = {Uxmal},
  author       = {{Stratum Study}},
  howpublished = {\url{https://stratum.black/study/sites/uxmal}},
  year         = {2026},
  note         = {Site article, Stratum Study pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-21; sources: stratum, commons. Accessed 2026-09-21.}
}

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Sources for this article: Stratum editorial (Stratum editorial);Wikimedia Commons (CC-BY-4.0). As of 2026-09-21; Study pack 2026.09. Data reproduced under the licences shown; text in Stratum's own words unless a section names its source.

Found an error? Write to drew@tyr.ac with the article id site:uxmal.

Stratum is the inventory, provenance and certificate system for fossil, mineral and shell collections. Study is its open reference: every fact cites its source, and the credits page lists each one with its licence.