Xelha

Xelha

Xelha is situated 16 km north-northeast of Tulum and 43 km east of Coba. With the Tulum-Tancah area and Muyil, it is well located to serve as a port for Coba. It was the site of a landing by Montejo the Elder in October 1627 and became the first Spanish settlement on the Yucatan Peninsula. The site was partially surveyed by Lothrop who cited the architecture as documenting a style of construction older than the "Tulum style" (Lothrop 1924:136). Sanders, who explored Xelha in 1955, reported that the site was much larger than the portion reported by Lothrop (Sanders 1955:202-203). Highway construction partially destroyed a major structure at the site but in doing so exposed dramatic murals of parrots and of geometric designs. Discoveries continued well into the 1980s, and today the variety of architecture and the distribution of architectural remains is well documented for large sections of the site. Although these earlier works provide extensive architectural data from Xelha, the recent detailed study of the ceramics of Xelha by Elena Canché M. (1992) provides the necessary comparative ceramic data for the present study of Muyil.