San Gervasio (Maya site)

Prehistory

San Gervasio lies in the interior of northern Cozumel, about 7 km (4.3 mi) east of San Miguel de Cozumel.^[1] The settlement was established over the island's largest permanent source of groundwater, which provided water for its inhabitants.^[4]

San Gervasio was founded around 300 CE as a small community. Around 600, it began a period of rapid growth, with new construction and possible stronger connections with settlements on the northern coast of Quintana Roo. After about 1000, San Gervasio expanded significantly, possibly influenced by the growing political and economic importance of Chichén Itzá.^[1]

By about 1200, San Gervasio had become the largest settlement on Cozumel and remained so until the arrival of the Spanish in the early 16th century. Most of the buildings visible at the site today were constructed during this period. San Gervasio may also have been associated with a network of smaller communities established across Cozumel.^[1]

European contact

The first European to visit San Gervasio was Juan de Grijalva, who discovered the island for the Spanish in 1518.^[4] The second group of European visitors came with the Hernán Cortés expedition, which stopped by the island on the way to Veracruz in 1519. Both groups were received well by the Maya of Cozumel, and Cortez even wrote a letter for them to present to any Spaniards that came to the island in the future, stating that “there is no gold here and these are peaceful people.” The letter did not help much, however, when the Panfilo de Narvaez expedition arrived in 1520. Several of the expedition’s crewmembers were sick with smallpox. The sickness ran rampant across the island. There have been three mass graves discovered at San Gervasio where these smallpox victims were buried, along with their glass trade-beads given to them by the Spanish.^[5]

Las Manitas

The Manitas architectural group dates to the Late Postclassic period, about 1250–1550 CE, the final centuries of pre-Hispanic occupation at San Gervasio.^[7] Its principal building, Las Manitas, meaning "Little Hands", was a residence built in the East Coast architectural style.^[8] An INAH plan of the site identifies it more specifically as an elite residence.^[7]

The residence has two rooms, a layout characteristic of the East Coast style at San Gervasio.^[7] The front room is an open, porch-like space with a built-in stone bench, where much of the household's everyday activity probably took place.^[7] From this more public space, a doorway leads into a smaller and more private room at the back, interpreted as a bedroom.^[7] Immediately east of the residence stands Chichán Nah, meaning "Small House", a small temple built in the same architectural style.^[7] Together, the buildings show how residential and ritual spaces stood side by side within an elite part of the settlement.^[7]

Las Manitas takes its name from human handprints preserved on its walls.^[8] Archaeologist Antonio Benavides Castillo identifies the building as structure SE(AIV)30 and records five hand impressions on its façade.^[9] INAH also records hand impressions surviving on the building's interior walls.^[8] Hand impressions are known from buildings and caves throughout the Maya world; they were made by pressing painted palms and fingers directly against a surface, and red was the colour most commonly used.^[9]

Chichán Nah

Chichán Nah, meaning "Small House", is a small Postclassic temple immediately east of Las Manitas. INAH identifies the building as an oratory and describes it as an example of the East Coast architectural style.^[8][7]

The temple is divided into two spaces. A larger outer room leads into a smaller inner sanctuary containing an altar.^[6] The building has traditionally been interpreted as a chapel used by the family of the halach uinik, or ruler, who lived at the neighbouring Las Manitas residence.^[6]

The orientation of Chichán Nah has also been studied for its possible relationship to Maya astronomy. Archaeoastronomer Ivan Šprajc found that its alignment resembles several other buildings at San Gervasio, but cautions that Chichán Nah itself may not have been suitable for making astronomical observations.^[10]

La Tumba

La Tumba ("The Tomb") is a structure in the Manitas group at San Gervasio. The structure formed part of a larger pattern in the layout of San Gervasio. Archaeoastronomer Ivan Šprajc identifies its alignment with sunrise at the December solstice and sunset at the June solstice. The same general orientation occurs throughout the Manitas and Central groups, which are connected by Sacbé 2 along approximately the same axis.^[10]

Ka'na Nah

Meaning: Tall House^[2]

Constructed during: Post-Classic (1200-1650 AD)

Location: West of the District 1 Central Plaza

This pyramid is the largest single structure in San Gervasio. Ka'na Nah consists of a base of several stepped levels supporting a temple with two small chambers.^[1] Šprajc describes it as one of the tallest and most important buildings at San Gervasio.^[10] Due to certain architectural arrangements in the interior of the small room on the top, Freidel and Sabloff proposed that this structure may have been a version or predecessor of the temple of Ixchel described in 1552 by Francisco Lopez de Gomara.^[10] Gomara wrote of a temple "where they kept a very strange idol, very distinct from the others. The body of this great idol was hollow, made of baked clay and fastened to the wall with mortar, in back of which was something like a sacristy, where the priests had a small secret door cut into the side of the idol, into which one of them would enter, and from it speak to and answer those who came to worship and beg favors. With this trickery, simple men were made to believe whatever the god told them."^[11] In 1618, Diego Lopez de Cogolludo wrote that "they venerated the statue more than the others, sacrificing to it birds, dogs, their own blood, and even men."^[12]

El Arco

Meaning: The Arch

Constructed during: A reconstruction erected in the 1980s

Location: Northeast of District 1 Central Plaza

This arch is the main entrance from the north and west to San Gervasio’s District 1 Central Plaza Group. It is a simple arch about seven feet tall that straddles the main religious pathway (called a sacbe in Mayan, a word meaning "white road") running northeast from the plaza. It was reconstructed by INAH in the form of similar arches found at other sites on the east coast of Quintana Roo, such as El Cedral, located on the southern portion of Cozumel.^[13]

To the north of this arch, on the western edge of the religious pathway lies a small hole in the bedrock, similar to others that can be found throughout the ruins. These natural karst formations are called cenotes (from the Mayan word ‘’d'zonot’’) and served as water sources for the inhabitants of San Gervasio.

District 1 Central Plaza

Meaning:

Constructed during: Post-Classic (1200-1650 AD)

Location: Northwest of the entrance to the ruins

The Plaza Group consists of 6 buildings arranged in a square around a central altar platform. Several of these buildings once had roofs made of timber and thatch, which have since rotted away. Others had roofs of wood beams and poured mortar, while a few had rooms constructed of corbeled arches. All were public buildings and included temples, oratories, altars, and a building used to house visitors who came to participate in religious events taking place in the plaza.^[13]

Nohoch Nah

Nohoch Nah, meaning "Great House", is a Postclassic temple built on a small raised platform with two access stairways.^[1] One of the best-preserved buildings at San Gervasio, it retains its roof.^[13]

The temple stands at the end of Sacbé 1, a raised road beginning at El Arco in the El Álamo group.^[1] Beyond Nohoch Nah, the road changes direction and continues towards the northeastern coast of Cozumel. Slovenian archaeologist and archaeoastronomer Ivan Šprajc suggests that the temple may have marked the limits of the city.^[10]

Fragments of mural painting survive on the interior walls of the temple.^[1] Traces of red, ochre and blue pigment remain visible. The interior is closed to the public, but can be viewed through the doorway. Guidebook author Ric Hajovsky identifies Nohoch Nah as a temple dedicated to Kukulcán, the Maya feathered-serpent deity.^[13]

Murciélagos

Murciélagos is an architectural group consisting of an irregular platform supporting five buildings.^[1][10] Its name, meaning "Bats", comes from the large numbers of bats that once inhabited the interior of its main building during a period when it was unoccupied.^[1]

The best-preserved building was constructed around 800 CE, during the Terminal Classic period, several centuries before most of the structures now visible at San Gervasio. It is the best-preserved example of Terminal Classic architecture at the site. Although some researchers have compared its architecture with the Puuc style of the Yucatán Peninsula, INAH describes it as a distinctive local style, reflecting the development of a construction technique particular to Cozumel.^[1]

El Ramonal

El Ramonal is a complex of three groups of buildings covering an area about 60 to 80 by 200 m (200 to 260 by 660 ft). During the Early Classic period, it served as the civic and administrative centre of Cozumel.^[14]

The southern part of El Ramonal was a residential area, bordered by large limestone blocks reaching 3 m (9.8 ft) in height. Immediately north of it was a raised complex resembling an acropolis, consisting of two large stepped platforms with buildings on top. Some of these buildings were constructed of masonry, while others were made from perishable materials that have not survived. Elsewhere in the complex are two oval, pyramid-like platforms; the temples that once stood on top of them are no longer preserved.^[14]

Archaeological investigation of El Ramonal began in 1997 as part of an Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH) project studying the inhabitants of Cozumel during the Late Preclassic and Early Classic periods. Archaeologists also carried out conservation work, including restoration of part of a large stone wall surrounding an area known as the Plaza Baja and restoration of the Building of the Battlements (Edificio de las Almenas). The rooms of the latter form a T-shaped plan resembling the Maya ik sign, a symbol associated with divine breath and the breath of life and one of the principal attributes of the Maya creator god Itzamná.^[14]