General Informtion

In his published memoir in 1688, Fra Lopez de Cogolludo gave this structure its accepted name as he believed it to be the residence of the Mayan rulers. This structure is also sometimes known as the "Castle" of the Governor.

Impressive in its size, it is one of the few buildings that has needed very little restoration from the condition in which it was found, having survived almost a thousand years since its creation. Overall, it spans almost 100 meters, and is made up of three sections. A long center section of almost 55 meters, and two 15 meter "wings" connected by a Mayan corbelled arch that span almost 7 meters each. These wings were originally separate from the main structure, but at some point in its life these openings were filled in and the joints were filled in and turned into the archways visible today.

Again reflecting the reverence the Maya had for the planet Venus, the front facade of this palace faces the favourible rise of the planet venus that occurs at this location once every eight years.

The main structure appears to have been built on a huge hill with a wide stairway working its way up to the top. In fact, the structure sits atop a huge multi-layered man-made platform built to support the main structure. The lower platform measures 188 by 170 meters and is 1.25 meters high. Sitting on this platform is the second platform measuring 162 by 165 meters and standing 7.5 meters high. The highest and final part of the platform is 130 by 50 meters and raises an additional 6.3 meters high. A fourth and final platform measures 110 meters long by 22 meters wide and rises 3 meters more. The total height of the support platform is 18 meters high and was made with almost 500,000 tons of material, all of which had to be moved, cut and placed by hand.

There are 7 doorways to the main central section of this structure, each wing has 2 doorways on the face and 1 on the outside ends, bringing the total number of doors to 13. All but two of the doors lead to twin roomed, vaulted chambers for a total of 20 chambers. At one point in the past there were additional chambers built into the wings that connect the main body to the outside additions (these are shown by Stephens and Catherwood in their drawings and descriptions of the building) but these have since been filled in during the reconstruction. There is an interesting symmetrical pattern that is evident between the doorways themselves. When building this structure, the Maya only used two basic measurements, called A and B. "A" measurement was 3 meters and "B" was 3.5 meters, and the structure follows the layout indicated below:

A - AA - A - B - BB - AA - B - (center) - B - AA - BB - B - A - AA - A

The center doorway is the key to the building. It is much larger on the inside than any of the other chambers, and directly above the centre door is a unique carving,. The statue is of a king with a huge headdress of quetzal feathers sitting on a throne. Chaak masks and jaguar heads surround the image of this king that is likely King Chan-Chak-K'ak nal-Ahaw (also known as Lord Chak) the king credited with shaping most of the city of Uxmal that we see today.

The upper two-thirds (about 4 meters) of the structure is completely covered by a richly carved frieze which tells us the significance of the building. There are masks of the rain god Chak on each of the four corners of the building as well as elsewhere in the decorations and even in some buried cornerstones. Design motifs here are similar to those located on the moldings found in the Nunnery Quadrangle. A latticework background supports flowers and square spiraling Muyal or "Cloud" scrolls marking this building as a community or cloud house. Cosmic serpents, the sun and rain gods all lend their images to the theme of this building as one for significant ceremonies.

This structure is a true feat of engineering. Imagine for a moment if you will, that this building is almost 100 meters (270 feet) long and 15 meters wide. The length of the frieze is then 230 meters long and about 4 meters high. In the total area that makes up the frieze of the Palace of the Governor, there are 230 Chaak masks, and roughly 300 square meters of stone latticework. Each Chaak mask is made up of 19 different "blocks". The total blocks needed for just the Chaak masks were therefore 4,370. Add to this the 6000 smaller blocks that made up the jagged flowerered background and the other portions of the frieze, and we can estimate that in all the frieze of the building would require over 10,000 blocks. There would be different "teams" of carvers, each working on a different section of the frieze or on a different design motif, all needing to be coordinated to fit together at the same time. All blocks carved from stone by hand, and all having to be within a certain tolerance. If each block was out even a centimeter, then by the time builders reached the far end of the building, that error would have been so magnified that.the patterns would not match at all. What this tells us about the Maya, is that in a world just emerging from the neolithic period of history, the Maya had a Mass Production system in place for the building of such structures. Likely different groups would be required to perform different functions. Some would cut the course stone in a quarry, others would transport the stone to those who roughed them into shape, finally, the most skilled craftsman would perform the final carving to the exact dimensions needed to fit with the other teams to give the final product. All in an age with no calculaters, no sophisticated measuring devices, and no metal tools.

Another example of this almost obsessive use of the Chaak image can be found at the Codz Poop in Kabah.

In 1840 John Stephens visited this building. During his observing and measuring he noticed that the rear wall of the structure was nine feet thick for its entire length. It was known to him that this unnatural measurment was far too thick to be needed as a support for the structure. It occurred to him that there may be some kind of secret passage hidden within the walls. The center doorway and inner chamber was obviously the key location to the building, so Stephens took a closer look inside this section. On a stone in the back wall in this large chamber, Stephens found a red hand print that he would see repeated throughout his discoveries.

"Over the cavity left in the morter by the removal of the stone were two conspicuous marks, which afterwards stared us in the face in all the ruined buildings of the country. They were the prints of a red hand with the thumb and finger extended, not drawn or painted, but stamped by the living hand, the pressure of the palm upon the stone.

He who made it had stood before it alive as we did, and pressed his hand, moistened with red paint, hard against the stone. The seams and creases of the palm were clear and distinct in the impression."

John Lloyd Stephens

Stephens believed the had to be an indicator that there was somehting hidden behind that section of the wall. They spent two days and dug nearly 8 feet into the stones but no secret passage was ever found.

Stephen's also noted that there was a white Sacbe leading from the eastern wall of this structure that lead directly to the great arch of Kabah.

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