In Ichkabal, QR, from the last joint tours

Ichkabal, QR., In one of the last tours of his government, back in the southeast of the country, a region that has become a priority, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador referred to the heritage of the great Mayan civilization in the archaeological zone of Ichkabal: For many years, people have been talking about it as a kind of legend. They said they were temples, gigantic archaeological monuments, like the heart of the town. And yes, indeed, it is a majestic, beautiful archaeological site..

As the end of his six-year term approaches, López Obrador dedicated this tour to supervising the progress of the restoration and habilitation of the archaeological zones and Ichkabal, which means between bassesin Mayan, a city that lasted from the 4th century BC, when it began to be populated, until the beginning of the 16th century.

This city is known for the grandeur of its structures, which reach 40 meters in height. The area was recently established, in the last decade of the 20th century, as it is located in the jungle surrounding Bacalar. Its core covers seven hectares, although there are other structures in the surroundings.

The person primarily responsible for the restoration of the 30 archaeological sites where rehabilitation actions were carried out along the route of the Maya Train, the director of the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), Diego Prieto Hernández, highlighted the contributions of the great Mayan civilization.

We are talking about a process of creation, flourishing and cultural resistance that links millennia with its own ways of relating between humans, the Earth and the beings of nature that have survived thanks to its constant transformation from the first small corn-growing villages to large political centres, such as Ichkabal.

Prieto Hernández summarized the contributions and vision of the Mayans, a diverse, dense and original civilization that articulated cities and towns with notable similarities and languages, and ways of living, capable of reproducing themselves as urban and rural societies.

Ichkabal survived from the 4th century BC, when it began to be populated, until the beginning of the 16th century. Photo courtesy of INAH

The Mayans formed a conglomerate that, among other things, It offered the world a mathematics with great calculating capacity, handling the concept of zero from a very early age; a prodigious writing, whose glyphs did not represent only ideas or words, but also syllabic sounds, and a very exact way of measuring time based on the movement of the stars. This allows us to speak of Mayan science, the result of its own intellectual development..

All this, Prieto Hernández summarized, allows us to claim it as portentous civilization, with its own cultural development, although Then the Europeans came to say the stupidity that they came to civilize us.

Unlike the pre-Hispanic cultures of central Mesoamerica, with predominant forms of government, in the Mayan region there was a network of political centers in disputelike Ichkabal.

In his assessment of the contributions of Mayan culture, the official said that for centuries it has been a people that has endured contempt, dispossession, domination and degradation, and that has learned to use the logic of the oppressors to its advantage, but taking care not to fall into the ladinization.

Despite the progress in rehabilitation and infrastructure around the archaeological zone, its opening depends on resolving a difference with the ejidatarios of Bacalar who demand compensation for their lands where Ichkabal is located.

Diego is the guarantor that the agreement is fulfilled, but it will help a lot to have the road and resolve the issue of the entrance to the site as soon as possible, because the holiday season is coming.Lopez Obrador pointed out.

In an interview, Diego Prieto explained that there is a willingness on the part of the ejidatarios to reach an agreement so that their lands, which include the Ichkabal archaeological zone, become federal property and can be fully opened to the public.