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Along the coastline of the Riviera
Maya, rimmed with ivory white Chichén Itzá,
the ancient city whose name means "in the mouth
at the Itzáe's Well", was, in its time of
grandeur (between 800 and 1200 A.D.), the centre of
political, religious and military power in Yucatán,
if not all of South-eastern Meso America.
In its architecture one can observe
a gradual change in style, starting with the Puuc style,
also shared with Uxmal and other sites in the Penninsula
and cluminating with the so-called Mayan Toltec style,
due to the architectural similarities with Tula, capital
of the Ancient Toltecs, and with other sites in Central
Mexico, such as Oaxaca and the Gulf Coast.
Chichén Itzá was a large
city with a great many inhabitants, distributed around
the architectural nuclei which we observe as ruins,
who had a relatively easy access to the water coming
from the various caves and Cenotes of the region.
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