The Long and Winding Road:
Regional Maya Sacbe, Yucatán Peninsula, México

The Research Project

This archaeological investigation argues for the existence of a peninsular-wide road, running for approximately 300 km from the ancient city of Tihó (where modern Mérida is today) to the east coast at or near Puerto Morelos, Quintana Roo (see Figure 1).

This hypothesis is based on a combination of historic accounts such as Spanish documents, maps, direct archaeological data, and recent ethnographic investigations (Fedick, Reid and Mathews, 1995; Mathews, 1998). There is a rich set of sources from which to pull information on road systems in the Maya region, as they have been the focus of outsider’s interest for centuries. From the time of the Spanish Conquistadores to contemporary archaeologists, we continue to marvel at the architectural accomplishments, and intricate organization represented by the ancient Maya roads. Beside exemplifying direct communication between site centers, road systems also served as routes for processions and pilgrimages. Today, these roads are used to reconstruct past political and economic systems, the scale of formalized communications, and symbolic representations of world view and cosmology (see for example, Fedick et al., 1995:129; Folan, 1983; 1991; Freidel and Sabloff, 1984; Hyslop, 1984; Keller, 1996; Kurjack and Andrews V, 1976; Ringle, 1993; Trombold, 1991; Villa Rojas, 1934:208). These combined factors clearly signify the importance of delineating a regional road system linking the interaction spheres in the Yucatán Peninsula.

Reports from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries state that Spanish chroniclers knew of the existence of ancient roads that connected the cities of the northern Yucatán Peninsula (see translation in Tozzer, 1941). In 1688, Diego López Cogolludo declared, "there are remains of paved highways which traverse all this kingdom and they say they ended in the east on the seashore…so that they might arrive at Cozumel for the fulfillment of their vows, to offer their sacrifice, to ask for help in their needs, and for the mistaken adoration of their false gods" (in Tozzer, 1941:109). In addition to Cogolludo’s account, Diego de Landa also noted that there was a road segment that connected the ancient city of Tihó to the ruins at Izamal, a site that is located about 65 kilometers to the east. Interestingly, along this same eastern route, a thirty-two kilometer segment of sacbe has been documented from the site of Izamal to Aké (Roys and Shook, 1966:43-45; Maldonado, 1979a; 1979b; 1995). The possibility that this causeway continued even further east, is strengthened by the information supplied by one of the earliest Maya archaeologists, Désiré Charnay. In 1883, Charnay noted that, "we have also found marks of a cement road, from Izamal to the sea, facing the island of Cozumel" (Charnay, 1883:308).

More recent maps of the Yucatán from the mid-twentieth century have also indicated the existence of a Maya road terminating on the east coast near Puerto Morelos. For example, Victor Von Hagen (1960) included a road system that ran from Tihó to Izamal, and on to the eastern coast north of Cozumel. Additionally, a map by Erwin Raisz on this same section of eastern coast, shows a "Maya Causeway" running from Puerto Morelos for about 48 kilometers inland (Raisz, 1959; see Figure 2, shown below). Moreover, geologist A.E. Weidie has reported that while conducting his geological fieldwork in the early 1960s, some of the local residents led him along an abandoned narrow-gauge chicle railroad located about 20 kilometers inland from Puerto Morelos. The informants told him that the tracks had been laid upon the raised bed of an ancient road, which was apparently the same route that Erwin Raisz had marked as the Maya Causeway on his 1959 map (Scott Fedick, archaeologist, personal communication, 1995).

In 1995, members of the Yalahau Regional Human Ecology Project first located a section of raised stone embankment approximately sixteen kilometers from the intersection with the highway at Puerto Morelos. During a subsequent field season in 1997, we located other very nicely-preserved segments around Kilometer 9 (Figure 3). We believe this to be the same road that Weidie saw in the 1960s and that Erwin Raisz marked on his 1959 map (Fedick, et al., 1995). Along some sections of this roadway there were clearly historic modifications made such as a series of wooden railway ties that are laid in the center of the road in a bed of gravel, which are in turn laid upon a pre-existing wider roadbed. According to local informants, this railway was used by the chicle industry, and headed north-west toward what is now the modern village of Leona Vicario (Severiano Martinez-Canti, informant, personal communication, 1997). Some observers would argue that the roadway was entirely constructed by the chicle companies, however, a considerable amount of evidence indicates otherwise. Ethnographic sources confirm that in other locations such as the henequen plantation at Aké, Yucatán, railways were built on top of ancient Maya sacbeob (Robert Patch, historian, personal communication, 1995). In addition, historic rail lines observed by Scott Fedick in El Edén Ecological Reserve in Quintana Roo are not built on ancient roadways, but instead are laid on a bed of rock just wide enough to accommodate the tracks. This indicates that the wide roadway observed near Puerto Morelos may not be a recent construction, but instead an efficient integration of existing materials by the chicle companies (Fedick et al., 1995).

Other evidence that this causeway is not completely of historic origin, include sections of road near Puerto Morelos not associated with the rail line. As mentioned above, the rail line is documented as branching off from its western path and heading north-west toward Leona Vicario. We believe the ancient causeway probably continued to head due west. Although it was difficult to trace, we did find one section of road during the 1997 season that lacked any evidence of tracks or rail ties, and that had a massive chico zapote tree growing in the center of it. This was significant because according to the local residents, the rail line was in use up until the 1970s. The tree has a diameter at the base of the trunk measuring 2.35 m, and a height of approximately 20 m.  According to botanists working in the Yucatán, the diameter and size of this tree indicates that it has been growing for at least 70-80 years (Gillian Schultz, botanist, personal communication, 1997). Local chicleros estimate that the tree is probably about 150 years old (Severiano Canti, informant, personal communication, 1997). Regardless, if the rail line was in use until a few decades ago, it could not have been on this section of the roadbed, once again indicating that it was constructed prior to the development of the regional chicle industry in the early 1900s.

We have conducted short research seasons during the summers of 1995 and 1997 in an attempt to establish the argument that this is in fact a prehistoric road system. The 1999 field season (funded by FAMSI) intended to build upon this information with the use of a research design that included several components: archival research, ethnographic interviews, survey and mapping, and excavation.

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